Haraka vs Himalaya
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?
Haraka
High-performance, pluggable SMTP server in Node.js
VS
Himalaya
Modern command-line email client written in Rust
| Feature | Haraka | Himalaya |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | JavaScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,612 | ★ 6,962 |
| First released | 2011 | 2021 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun | Mutt, Outlook |
Why pick each one
Choose Himalaya if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 7k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Haraka or Himalaya better?
Neither is universally better. Himalaya has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Haraka and Himalaya free and open-source?
Yes. Haraka is licensed under MIT and Himalaya under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Haraka and Himalaya with Docker?
Haraka: yes. Himalaya: check the project docs for container support.