Cuttlefish vs Haraka
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?
Cuttlefish
Transactional email server with click and open tracking
VS
Haraka
High-performance, pluggable SMTP server in Node.js
| Feature | Cuttlefish | Haraka |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,624 | ★ 5,612 |
| First released | 2014 | 2011 |
| Replaces | Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark | SendGrid, Mailgun |
Why pick each one
Choose Cuttlefish if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is Cuttlefish or Haraka better?
Neither is universally better. Haraka has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cuttlefish and Haraka free and open-source?
Yes. Cuttlefish is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Haraka under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cuttlefish and Haraka with Docker?
Cuttlefish: yes. Haraka: yes.