When comparing Alpine vs Sylpheed, the Slant community recommends Alpine for most people. In the question“What are the best native e-mail clients for Linux?” Alpine is ranked 9th while Sylpheed is ranked 16th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extremely user-friendly
Pro Can use the built-in text editor or can be integrated with another text editor
Alpine comes with pico, a lightweight text editor which can also be used as a standalone tool. It can also be integrated with vi, vim, emacs, etc... if the user prefers to do so.
Pro On-screen contextual help
Alpine has contextual help that can be displayed on-screen. Removing the need to consult the man pages every time you forget a command or how to do something inside it.
Pro Reliable
No issues with stability or stuff going missing.
Pro Comprehensive settings
Pro Very very lightweight
It is simple and very lightweight where claws mail added a lot of bloat like themes and plugins slypheed keeps it simple.
Cons
Con Updates are not frequent
Alpine is not updated frequently. This means that new features, bug fixes or security updates come much later than in other email clients.
Con No encrypted mailbox
Likely hasn't been done by anyone since Calypso/Courier back in the 00's.
