Cuttlefish vs Postal
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
Postal
Complete mail delivery platform for outgoing email
| Feature | Cuttlefish | Postal |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,624 | ★ 16,724 |
| First released | 2014 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark |
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 Postal better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community, while Cuttlefish is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cuttlefish and Postal free and open-source?
Yes. Cuttlefish is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Postal under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cuttlefish and Postal with Docker?
Cuttlefish: yes. Postal: yes.