Here’s the Deal

Postfix vs Qmail

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When comparing Postfix vs Qmail, the Slant community recommends Postfix for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux mail transfer agents (MTAs)?” Postfix is ranked 2nd while Qmail is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Postfix is:

Almost all Sendmail milters can be used with Postfix out of the box.

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Common Questions

What are the best Linux mail transfer agents (MTAs)?

Pros

Pro
Can run sendmail milters

Almost all Sendmail milters can be used with Postfix out of the box.

Pro
Resource efficient and fast

Due to its modular design, Postfix can be configured to only use parts that are required in each use-case and as such conserves resources and operates fast.

Pro
Good documentation

Postifx has a thorough documentation with examples.

Pro
Active development

New releases are typically 2-3 months apart.

Pro
Flexible and easy to administer

Postfix uses a monolithic, flexible, human-readable configuration file with sane defaults and since it's modular, each module can be used, ignored or switched with another depending on needs.

Pro
Security focused

Postfix was built ground up with security in mind. It is highly secure. As such it can at times be a bit less flexible than Exim.

Pro
Sendmail compatible

Postfix is a drop-in replacement for Sendmail. It implements a compatibility interface with some options silently ignored.

Pro
Excellent security

Qmail was built ground up with security in mind.

Pro
Fast

Qmail parallelizes mail delivery to increase speed.

Pro
Easy to maintain

Configuration of Qmail is sane and straightforward.

Pro
Sendmail compatible

Qmail is a drop-in replacement for Sendmail.

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Cons

Con
No official version-controlled repository

See discussion at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mailing.postfix.users/6Kkel3J_nv4 and unofficial repo at https://github.com/vdukhovni/postfix

Con
Pain in the neck to configure

Postfix is hard to configure: be prepared to spend some time configuring TLS and permissions, through trial and error. Postfix is an awesome MTA but if you are looking for a quick and functional setup, don't use it.