Postal 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?
Postal
Complete mail delivery platform for outgoing email
VS
Himalaya
Modern command-line email client written in Rust
| Feature | Postal | Himalaya |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,724 | ★ 6,962 |
| First released | 2017 | 2021 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark | 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 Postal or Himalaya better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community, while Himalaya is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Postal and Himalaya free and open-source?
Yes. Postal is licensed under MIT and Himalaya under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Postal and Himalaya with Docker?
Postal: yes. Himalaya: check the project docs for container support.