Postal vs WildDuck
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
WildDuck
Scalable IMAP and POP3 mail server with REST API
| Feature | Postal | WildDuck |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Mail Servers | Mail Servers |
| License | MIT | EUPL-1.2 |
| Language | Ruby | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,724 | ★ 2,107 |
| First released | 2017 | 2017 |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark | Microsoft Exchange, Gmail |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Postal or WildDuck better?
Neither is universally better. Postal has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Postal and WildDuck free and open-source?
Yes. Postal is licensed under MIT and WildDuck under EUPL-1.2. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Postal and WildDuck with Docker?
Postal: yes. WildDuck: yes.