aerc vs Mautic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted mail servers options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare aerc with
choose an app… listmonk Docker Mailserver Mailspring Postal MailHog Mail-in-a-Box Stalwart Mail Server mailcow Mailpit Mailpile Roundcube Himalaya RainLoop WildDuck Cypht SnappyMail Nextcloud Mail alps Afterlogic WebMail Lite
Compare Mautic with
choose an app… Twenty Monica Krayin listmonk Docker Mailserver Mailspring Postal MailHog Mail-in-a-Box Stalwart Mail Server mailcow Mailpit Mailpile Mailu Roundcube Himalaya SimpleLogin MailCatcher Maddy Mail Server Mox Mailtrain SuiteCRM Haraka AnonAddy RainLoop imapsync Erxes smtp4dev NeoMutt Modoboa EspoCRM Frappe CRM Dittofeed Rspamd Keila emailwiz SendPortal WildDuck Mailvelope iRedMail YetiForce CRM Cypht SnappyMail Forward Email Cuttlefish DebOps swaks parsedmarc PostfixAdmin Dovecot FluentCRM Self-Hosted Apache James Nextcloud Mail chasquid Sup Betterbird imapfilter OpenTrashmail notmuch Sieve Editor meli phpList Exim alot alps OroCRM Tracardi Lieer Cyrus IMAP OfflineIMAP Larch OpenSMTPD Postfix ViMbAdmin Chatmail Mailman isync MailWhale Afterlogic WebMail Lite afew Apache SpamAssassin Sympa Simple NixOS Mailserver msmtp fdm DragonFly Mail Agent Vtiger CRM Claws Mail Fetchmail HyperKitty piler Postorius Nullmailer getmail6 OpenDMARC OpenDKIM bogofilter Schleuder Dovecot Pigeonhole DKIMpy Milter mpop Courier Mail Server Afterlogic DAV b1gMail Dovel EmailRelay Inboxen Sendmail Sendy SquirrelMail
Feature aerc Mautic Category Mail Servers Mail Servers License MIT GPL-3.0 Language Go PHP Setup difficulty Medium Hard Min. RAM 64 MB 2,048 MB Deployment binary, source docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars ★ 3,300 ★ 10,305 First released 2019 2014 Replaces Gmail, Outlook HubSpot, Marketo, Mailchimp
Why pick each one
Choose aerc if… Released under the MIT license Active community (3.3k GitHub stars) Written in Go Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM aerc details Choose Mautic if… Full marketing automation suite Large community Mautic details
Frequently asked questions Is aerc or Mautic better? Neither is universally better. Mautic has the larger community, while aerc is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are aerc and Mautic free and open-source? Yes. aerc is licensed under MIT and Mautic under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run aerc and Mautic with Docker? aerc: check the project docs for container support. Mautic: yes.