Postal vs notmuch
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
notmuch
Fast, tag-based email indexing and search system
| Feature | Postal | notmuch |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,724 | ★ 900 |
| First released | 2017 | 2009 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark | Gmail search |
Why pick each one
Choose notmuch if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Postal or notmuch better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community, while notmuch is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Postal and notmuch free and open-source?
Yes. Postal is licensed under MIT and notmuch under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Postal and notmuch with Docker?
Postal: yes. notmuch: check the project docs for container support.