What are the best free and open source email providers for Linux?

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5

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Considered

23

User
Recs.

Jul 5, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

4 Options Considered

Best free and open source email providers for Linux	Price	Platforms	Supported platforms
-- Roundcube	-	-	-
-- Tutanota Mail	Free / Premium	Android / iOS / Amazon / Web	-
-- Mailpile	-	-	-
-- ProtonMail	Free / Premium	-	Android, iOS, Web

See Full List

Tutanota

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score 5 · Answer 1

Roundcube

Top Pro

Drag & drop support

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

Top Con

Themes

Not easy to create your own themes. See More

Top Pro

Multiple identities

You receive mail from multiple sources in one account. 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

Top Pro

Auto-refresh

Has auto-refresh functionality for email boxes. 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

Spell checking

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

Good documentation

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

Top Pro

Multilingual

Roundcube is available in over 70 languages. See More

Top Pro

Plug-in support

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

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under GPL v3 with code available on GitHub. 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 Pro

Access control support

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

See All

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score 11 · Answer 2

Tutanota Mail

Top Pro

End-to-end encryption

Client supports end to end encryption between Tutanota users, and users may use a web interface to manage encrypted mails. See More

Top Con

No support for IMAP and SMTP

You can't use your favorite email client. See More

cosmo's Experience

You can use it for free, but even the paid plan starts incredibly cheap and allows you to add and remove features in a modular fashion. It's also the only encrypted mail provider offering an open source Android client at this time! Not only that, but it's available from F-Droid! I highly recommend Tutanota over competitors like ProtonMail and GMail if you care about software freedom and privacy. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / Amazon / Web

Top Pro

Open Source

Top Con

Doesn't support PGP encryption

Top Pro

Free

A free account is available. See More

Top Pro

Based in Germany

Tutanota's servers are located in Germany, which has strict privacy protection laws, even stronger than those of Switzerland. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 3

Mailpile

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

Internationalization support

Mailpile is available in over 40 languages. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful UI

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

Top Pro

Plugin architecture

Top Pro

Good documentation

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

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

Early stage of development

Mailpile is in beta so it is definitely not production ready. 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

Secure

Encryption is turned on by default. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under AGPL. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 4

ProtonMail

Top Pro

No personal information needed

To create an account you don't need to give any personal information, just choose username, domain, and password. Even the recovery email address is optional. See More

Top Con

Encryption Keys are stored server-side

The keys are generated during account creation. Using your existing keys is prohibited and ProtonMail must store and control the private keys. Encryption cannot be secure unless the user controls the private keys. See More

Specs

Supported platforms:Android, iOS, Web

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Free tier:Yes

Open source:No

See All Specs

Top Pro

Open Source

Top Con

Still lacks some useful features

At the moment, there is no calendar feature and contact management is quite poor. They will, however, start to work on it. See More

Top Pro

Built-in end-to-end encryption

Top Con

No IMAP and SMTP support for basic accounts

Basic accounts are restricted to the Protonmail web client. Support for IMAP and SMTP is available with a paid subscription only, and as such with basic accounts it is not possible to send and receive email with external applications. See More

Top Pro

Privacy respecting

User data is protected by strict privacy laws because all servers are located in Switzerland. See More

Top Con

Overly Expensive for Desktop Support

Top Con

Ties to US Investors

ProtonMail takes money from US Investors See More

Top Con

Javascript-intensive Webmail

Free accounts are required to use Javascript webmail and encryption is done in the browser. Javascript cryptography is harmful for security and should not be used. See More

Top Con

Requires phone number for login

If you sign up over Tor or a VPN, it will require email or phone number verification. Email verification is disabled if you use an email that isn't from Google or Outlook. See More

See All

What are the best free and open source email providers for Linux?

4 Options Considered

Roundcube

My Recommendation for Roundcube

My Recommendation for Roundcube

Drag & drop support

Themes

Multiple identities

Raises security concerns since it's written in PHP

Auto-refresh

Klu

Spell checking

Built-in caching

Good documentation

Multilingual

Plug-in support

Free and open source

Sophisticated address book

Access control support

Tutanota Mail

My Recommendation for Tutanota Mail

My Recommendation for Tutanota Mail

End-to-end encryption

No support for IMAP and SMTP

Open Source

Doesn't support PGP encryption

Free

Based in Germany

Mailpile

My Recommendation for Mailpile

My Recommendation for Mailpile

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

Internationalization support

Beautiful UI

Plugin architecture

Good documentation

Theme support

Fast, scalable search engine

Early stage of development

Portable

Secure

Free and open source

ProtonMail

My Recommendation for ProtonMail

My Recommendation for ProtonMail

No personal information needed

Encryption Keys are stored server-side

Open Source

Still lacks some useful features

Built-in end-to-end encryption

No IMAP and SMTP support for basic accounts

Privacy respecting

Overly Expensive for Desktop Support

Ties to US Investors

Javascript-intensive Webmail

Requires phone number for login

Don't see your favorite option? Add it.

Tutanota

My Recommendation for Tutanota

My Recommendation for Tutanota

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