Berty vs MailBag
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— 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 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 Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare MailBag with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Mumble The Lounge Papercups
Feature Berty MailBag Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License Apache-2.0 MIT Language TypeScript Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 150 MB Deployment bare-metal, source bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 9,268 — First released 2018 2026 Replaces WhatsApp, Signal —
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 MailBag if… Released under the MIT license Tiny footprint — runs in 150 MB RAM MailBag details
Frequently asked questions Is Berty or MailBag better? Neither is universally better. Berty has the larger community, while MailBag is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Berty and MailBag free and open-source? Yes. Berty is licensed under Apache-2.0 and MailBag under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Berty and MailBag with Docker? Berty: check the project docs for container support. MailBag: check the project docs for container support.