Berty vs Chatmail
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Berty with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Tinode Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Mumble Kaneo ejabberd The Lounge Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Synapse Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls MongooseIM mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet Syphon FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Element X Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario mautrix-signal BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Hookshot Snikket Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Tigase XMPP Server Comm Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip Metronome IM SAMA Biboumi Monocles Chat Hebbot ircu2 Prose Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare Chatmail with
choose an app… listmonk SimpleX Chat Docker Mailserver Mailspring Postal MailHog Mail-in-a-Box Stalwart Mail Server Tinode mailcow Mautic Mailpit ejabberd qTox Synapse FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge MongooseIM Toxic Syphon Delta Chat Element X Briar Session Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Snikket Tigase XMPP Server Wesh Network Metronome IM
Feature Berty Chatmail Category Chat & Communication Mail Servers License Apache-2.0 MPL-2.0 Language TypeScript Python Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 512 MB Deployment bare-metal, source docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars ★ 9,268 ★ 476 First released 2018 2023 Replaces WhatsApp, Signal WhatsApp
Why pick each one
Choose Berty if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license Mature project with 9.3k GitHub stars Written in TypeScript Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM Berty details Choose Chatmail if… Released under the MPL-2.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Written in Python Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM Chatmail details
Frequently asked questions Is Berty or Chatmail better? Neither is universally better. Berty has the larger community, while Chatmail is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Berty and Chatmail free and open-source? Yes. Berty is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Chatmail under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Berty and Chatmail with Docker? Berty: check the project docs for container support. Chatmail: yes.