Postal vs imapfilter
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
imapfilter
Scriptable IMAP mail filtering utility
| Feature | Postal | imapfilter |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,724 | ★ 936 |
| First released | 2017 | 2001 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark | Gmail filters |
Why pick each one
Choose imapfilter if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Postal or imapfilter better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community, while imapfilter is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Postal and imapfilter free and open-source?
Yes. Postal is licensed under MIT and imapfilter under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Postal and imapfilter with Docker?
Postal: yes. imapfilter: check the project docs for container support.