Postal vs Roundcube
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?
Postal
Complete mail delivery platform for outgoing email
VS
Roundcube
Browser-based IMAP webmail client
| Feature | Postal | Roundcube |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,724 | ★ 7,118 |
| First released | 2017 | 2008 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark | Gmail, Outlook Web |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Postal or Roundcube better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community, while Roundcube is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Postal and Roundcube free and open-source?
Yes. Postal is licensed under MIT and Roundcube under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Postal and Roundcube with Docker?
Postal: yes. Roundcube: yes.