Mailman3 vs Papercups
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Mailman3 with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble The Lounge Mailman Sympa HyperKitty Postorius Schleuder
Compare Papercups with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo The Lounge Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Erxes Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Libredesk Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Comm Tiledesk Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Feature Mailman3 Papercups Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License AGPL-3.0-or-later MIT Language Elixir Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 800 MB 1,024 MB Deployment bare-metal docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars — ★ 6,097 First released 2023 2020 Replaces Google Groups Intercom, Drift
Why pick each one
Choose Mailman3 if… Released under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license Mailman3 details Choose Papercups if… Released under the MIT license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 6.1k GitHub stars Written in Elixir Papercups details
Frequently asked questions Is Mailman3 or Papercups better? Neither is universally better. Papercups has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Mailman3 and Papercups free and open-source? Yes. Mailman3 is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later and Papercups under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Mailman3 and Papercups with Docker? Mailman3: check the project docs for container support. Papercups: yes.