Mautic vs fdm

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?
FeatureMauticfdm
CategoryMail ServersMail Servers
LicenseGPL-3.0ISC
LanguagePHPC
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM2,048 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcebinary, source
GitHub stars★ 10,305★ 283
First released20142006
ReplacesHubSpot, Marketo, Mailchimpfetchmail, procmail

Why pick each one

Choose Mautic if…

  • Full marketing automation suite
  • Large community
Mautic details

Choose fdm if…

  • Released under the ISC license
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
fdm details

Frequently asked questions

Is Mautic or fdm better?

Neither is universally better. Mautic has the larger community, while fdm is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Mautic and fdm free and open-source?

Yes. Mautic is licensed under GPL-3.0 and fdm under ISC. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Mautic and fdm with Docker?

Mautic: yes. fdm: check the project docs for container support.

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