What are the best self-hosted webmail clients?

Question

17

Options
Considered

847

User
Recs.

Jan 26, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 13 OptionsWhy?

Best self-hosted webmail clients	Price	Platforms	Technology
90 RainLoop	-	-	-
79 Roundcube	-	Linux, Cloudron	PHP, JavaScript
-- Mu4e	FREE	-	-
67 Mailpile	-	-	-
-- PrivMX WebMail	-	-	-

See Full List

12 Other Options Considered

Roundcube

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under GPL v3 with code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

Themes

Not easy to create your own themes. See More

AmbitiousKratos's Experience

Bloatware. Slow and unreliable (too many DB crashes) See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Cloudron

Technology:PHP, JavaScript

Top Pro

Actively maintained

As of 2022 it is still maintained. See More

Top Con

Mobile use

Does not translate to mobile use very well See More

dotan's Experience

Quick, slick and supports RTL (Right To Left, like Arabic, Hebrew) See More

Top Pro

Plug-in support

Roundcube allows third-party plugins and has a temporary plugin repository (until the official plugin repository comes out of beta) with over a hundred plugins available, covering authentication, improved security and settings among many others categories. See More

Top Con

For search there is no reverse index

This means it is very slow. See More

UpbeatBoreas's Experience

Unbelievable complicated. I Stop at "copy to root." Mail is not my main / root application. See More

Top Pro

Sophisticated address book

Each contact can have their e-mail address, phone number, location, photos and associated URLs added to them. You can then group contacts and address your mails to the group instead of having to enter each person separately. Additionally, you can import vCards and CSV files as contact information. And, it has LDAP connectors. See More

Top Con

Raises security concerns since it's written in PHP

The language itself and the library ecosystem has a bad security track record. See More

VivaciousHuehueteotl's Experience

Does not work well for mobile applications See More

Top Pro

Access control support

Roundcube has built-in support for access control lists (ACL). See More

Top Con

Extremely clunky unintuitive interface

For example the mouse cursor may start getting stuck and lag. See More

Top Pro

Multiple identities

You receive mail from multiple sources in one account. See More

Top Con

Klu

Unfortunately, all interfaces of roundcube look very old. I hope there will be a progress soon, Google Mail and Outlook Webmail should be the role models here. But also Yahoo mail offers an intuitive design. If this open source software should survive, it must be completely renewed and bring up to new standards. See More

Top Pro

Drag & drop support

Roundcube supports attaching files simply by dragging and dropping them in. See More

Top Con

Search option are limited

You can only search for one item at a time instead of multiple search terms, which makes it difficult to go through large amounts of emails. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual

Roundcube is available in over 70 languages. See More

Top Con

You can't make multiple accounts

It is not possible to make more then one account. See More

Top Pro

Auto-refresh

Has auto-refresh functionality for email boxes. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation

You have access to the documentation for APIs as well plugins development. See More

Top Pro

Built-in caching

Roundcube caches messages to allow quicker access to your mailbox and to alleviate the strain put on the server. You can turn off caching (change 'enable_caching' property in your config/main.inc.php file) if you need messages to appear instantly. See More

Top Pro

Reactive UI for mobile

With elastic skin, Roundcube has an excellent UI also on mobile devices since version 1.4. See More

Top Pro

CardDAV addressbook integration

CardDAV integration available via rcmcarddav plugin. See More

Top Pro

Spell checking

You can enable/disable spellcheck by changing "enable_spellcheck" in main.inc.php file. See More

See All

Mu4e

Add Video or Image

Mailpile

Top Pro

Beautiful UI

Uncluttered, highly intuitive, easy to use user interface. See More

AmbitiousKratos's Experience

Unintuitive, no --help or man. See More

Top Pro

Built-in rock-solid and easy-to-use encryption

Mailpile offers support for OpenPGP and S/MIME encryption and signatures in an easy to use manner. See More

Top Pro

Theme support

The underlying architecture of Mailpile allows for themes that not only change the visual aesthetic of the client, but layout as well allowing for different UX designs. See More

Top Pro

Secure

Encryption is turned on by default. See More

Top Pro

Portable

The whole webmail client can be carried around on your external device (such as a USB stick) and used without having admin access to install. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under AGPL. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation

Top Pro

Fast, scalable search engine

The search engine is at the very center of Mailpile. It was specifically designed to be able to handle large amount of e-mails without grinding the machine to a halt. Additionally, the search includes a tagging feature that can automatically organize new mail by set rules or bayesian classifiers. See More

Top Pro

Plugin architecture

Top Pro

Internationalization support

Mailpile is available in over 40 languages. See More

See All

AfterLogic WebMail

Top Pro

Branding

In admin panel you can supply separate logos for login screen and for top-left corner of main interface. See More

Top Con

Horrible instructions

They don't proceed in any logical order, omit significant steps and contain useless stuff like: "Another critical part of setting up the product is configuring database settings. It's assumed that you already have a database created, fill in the connection details, press Save, then you can Create Tables." See More

MerryLahamu's Experience

Nice and clean interface. Simples as you need. See More

Top Pro

Multilanguage, with autodetection

Interface is available in over 30 languages. WebMail attempts to determine your system language and open the interface in it. See More

Top Con

Not responsive at all

3 layers of Mail section overlying each other. Totally not supported by mobile. Very bad mobile interface. See More

Ivan Lomakin's Experience

A fantastic alternative for G.Suite and other services like Dropbox See More

Top Pro

Autorefresh

Configurable autoreload of email message list every N minutes See More

Top Con

No Unified inbox

They planned it for a while, but for now, it's still working with one account at a time. See More

Top Pro

Drag 'N Drop

Mails can be dragged into a different folder, contacts can be added into group, events in calendars can be tossed around, etc. - all with drag 'n drop. See More

Top Con

No CardDAV support in free version

CardDav Sync is not available in AfterLogic WebMail Lite, which is the free version. See More

Top Pro

Mobile version of interface

Open WebMail on your iOS or Android device to get a simplified mobile interface. And when run on iOS, it'll offer you to get iOS profile with settings for mail access, contacts and calendar sync. See More

Top Pro

Plugins infrastructure

A few dozens of plugins, some of those created by community. Plugins are placed into data directory so they survive upgrades easily. See More

Top Pro

External services integration

Twitter, Facebook, Google and Dropbox are supported. With last two, you can access their file storage; and you can use social account credentials to log into your WebMail acct. See More

Top Pro

Sync with Windows, iOS, Android, etc.

Offers syncing through DAV with mobile devices, there are also mobile apps and Windows sync client. See More

Top Pro

Multiple accounts

In WebMail Pro each user can have multiple accounts added to switch between them and use them separately. See More

Top Pro

Available in multiple editions

In addition to commercial WebMail Pro, simplified free opensource WebMail Lite is available. Also there are MailSuite Pro (which is basically WebMail Pro integrated with mailserver software) and Aurora, extended with groupware features. See More

Top Pro

Simple

See All

Cypht

Top Pro

Great security system

It has a whole page of security-related functionalities listed. To sum it up, Cypht got a perfect score from "e-mail privacy tester". See More

Nextcloud Mail

Top Pro

Open-source, self-hosted, connects to major servers (Gmail, Outlook, etc)

Top Con

Not perfectly stable yet

Still in development, no 1.x release. Random hickups / crashes that require reloading the page. See More

ColorfulAiusLocutius's Experience

Not user friendly and hard to configure (if possible at all) See More

Top Pro

Maintained by the Nextcloud organization

FearlessEgeria's Experience

It looks like still pre-alpha version. Basic functions are missing, there is not an option to set vertical layout, it is quite slow, folder manipulation is primitive, it is almost impossible to debug if issue occurs. There is a long long way before developers to be really usable. See More

DependableHecate's Experience

there are a lot of mistake: replay bottom does not work forward an e-mail: there is no attachment See More

See All

SnappyMail

Top Pro

Very low on resources and good on mobile data usage

IngeniousQuiritis's Experience

Very secure and fast webmail client with good development pace. It supports GPG very well. See More

I Recommend...

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score 231 · Accepted Answer

RainLoop

Top Pro

Two-factor authentication

Top Con

Lack of API documentation

Most "closed" open source ever seen. See More

AmbitiousKratos's Experience

Installer is broken. Over 600 bugs on github, none getting addressed. Not worth your time. See More

Top Pro

No database backend (except for contacts)

Except for contacts (which are optional), RainLoop does not require a database to run, allowing for easier management and configuration. See More

Top Con

Very little bug fixes

Bugs aren't getting fixed. See More

ColorfulAzimua's Experience

Easy to setup, decent instructions See More

Top Pro

Easy to apply your own branding

Not only can you change the title, description and logo with a simple form in the admin panel, you can also completely customize the look of the login screen by supplying your own custom stylesheet. See More

Top Con

Small community

No community forums, etc. This makes it difficult to find community help or just discuss techniques. See More

PhilosophicalShahar's Experience

seems to be not developed any more, unsupported See More

Top Pro

Good UI

Good UI make it a pleasing experience See More

Top Con

Lack of documentation on plugin development

RainLoop sends the user to a plugin example that is nonexistent (which they state will be filled in later), which means the user has to figure out what the process is on their own. See More

Top Pro

Free for personal and non-profit use

RainLoop is licensed under Creative Commons. Commercial use costs $85/yr. See More

Top Con

Slow development

As of writing, the last update is quite a while ago. New features/security is not updated regularly See More

Top Pro

Community version is available

There are 2 different versions of Rainloop. A "community" version is licensed under AGPLv3 allowing it to be integrated with all open source software, while a "standard" version is licensed under the "RainLoop Software License" which is defined here. See More

Top Con

Too many js and ajax calls

Top Pro

Client-side OpenPGP

RainLoop supports an easy to use client-side OpenPGP encryption. It allows setting up, importing and generating keys from the admin panel. OpenPGP keys are stored in the browser's local storage. See More

Top Con

Lack of documentation

Wiki is almost blank and no real installation instructions. See More

Top Pro

Easy to update

RainLoop can be updated from the admin panel. It does not require manually downloading, overwriting or configuring anything with each update. See More

Top Con

Free version very limited

You can't change nothing with free version. Neither add your image logo on login screen. You can't change the templates, can't change the form to send mail. See More

Top Pro

Social network authentication

RainLoop integrates with Facebook, Google, and Twitter for authentication. You can find out how to set up each of the services here. See More

Top Con

Questionable start

The developer created RainLoop while working at AfterLogic. You can read more about it here. See More

Top Pro

Configurable multi-level caching system

RainLoop caches messages to allow quicker access to your mailbox and to alleviate the strain put on the server. You can choose to disable it completely if you don't want it. Or, you can configure cache settings such as an additional caching key, browser-level cache, caching message user IDs while searching, etc. Even changing memcache hosts and ports and caching system data is possible. See More

Top Con

No unified account view

Top Pro

Add multiple accounts

You can add multiple accounts and switch between them. See More

Top Con

Security

Missing .htaccess file for the data folder. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts

Top Con

Raises security concerns since it's written in PHP

The language itself and the library ecosystem has a bad security track record. See More

Top Pro

Dropbox integration

RainLoop allows attaching files from Dropbox. To enable this feature, go to Dropbox's developer apps page to register your app. You'll receive the app key value to enter in the admin panel. See More

Top Pro

Drag & drop support

RainLoop supports attaching files simply by dragging and dropping them in. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual

Top Pro

Plugin support

RainLoop has an easy to use plugin system. You can find the full list of plugins in the admin panel (or see their code on GitHub). From the admin panel, you can, in a simple, user-friendly way, manage them - install, uninstall, update. Unfortunately, a number of plugins and the related documentation, currently, is somewhat lacking. See More

Top Pro

Google Drive integration

You can integrate Google Drive via API-Key for selecting attachments. See More

Top Pro

RainLoop plus Xeams

Complimented modern user interface to deliver mail from Xeams. Setting up both applications takes less than an hour on private server. See More

See All

The Best 1 of 13 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for RainLoop

My Recommendation for RainLoop

Two-factor authentication

Lack of API documentation

No database backend (except for contacts)

Very little bug fixes

Easy to apply your own branding

Small community

Good UI

Lack of documentation on plugin development

Free for personal and non-profit use

Slow development

Community version is available

Too many js and ajax calls

Client-side OpenPGP

Lack of documentation

Easy to update

Free version very limited

Social network authentication

Questionable start

Configurable multi-level caching system

No unified account view

Add multiple accounts

Security

Keyboard shortcuts

Raises security concerns since it's written in PHP

Dropbox integration

Drag & drop support

Multilingual

Plugin support

Google Drive integration

RainLoop plus Xeams

12 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Roundcube

My Recommendation for Roundcube

Free and open source

Themes

Actively maintained

Mobile use

Plug-in support

For search there is no reverse index

Sophisticated address book

Raises security concerns since it's written in PHP

Access control support

Extremely clunky unintuitive interface

Multiple identities

Klu

Drag & drop support

Search option are limited

Multilingual

You can't make multiple accounts

Auto-refresh

Good documentation

Built-in caching

Reactive UI for mobile

CardDAV addressbook integration

Spell checking

My Recommendation for Mu4e

My Recommendation for Mu4e

My Recommendation for Mailpile

My Recommendation for Mailpile

Beautiful UI

Built-in rock-solid and easy-to-use encryption

Theme support

Secure

Portable

Free and open source

Good documentation

Fast, scalable search engine

Plugin architecture

Internationalization support

My Recommendation for PrivMX WebMail

My Recommendation for PrivMX WebMail

Can't send regular email

Very easy to install

My Recommendation for AfterLogic WebMail

My Recommendation for AfterLogic WebMail

Branding

Horrible instructions