Claws Mail vs kmail
When comparing Claws Mail vs kmail, the Slant community recommends Claws Mail for most people. In the question“What are the best email clients for UNIX-like systems?” Claws Mail is ranked 1st while kmail is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Claws Mail is:
Claws Mail is a low resource e-mail client that is often default in low resource Linux distributions.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Low resource client
Claws Mail is a low resource e-mail client that is often default in low resource Linux distributions.
Pro Open-Source
Pro Has many plugins for extra functionality
Pro Traditional user interface
Pro Clean interface with 5 layout variants
Pro Saves emails in uncompressed readable format
Allows one to read archived emails with a text editor.
Pro Has very strong filters
The filters a much stronger than in thunderbird.
Pro Saves passwords in encrypted format
Pro Has many themes
Pro Also supported on Windows
This makes switching the platform easier.
Pro Good support for Google's services
Pro Proper kde intergation
Its the only graphical email client which is properly integrated into kde plasma.
Pro Has system tray icon
Good integration with plasma 5
Pro Supports POP3 and IMAP mailboxes
Cons
Con Blocks and freezes all the time
Con Saves passwords in plain format
Con Too much bloat
some people dont like the simple design of slypheed so they forked it and created claws mail but it has become so bloated since itsbeginnings.
Con Saves emails in uncompressed format
This takes more space on the HDD.
Con Interface looks old and setup is not easy
The icons as well as the rest of the interface look like an application from the early 90's, with this there is also no easy setup options built in like the more modern e-mail clients.
Con Buggy as of 2020
There are many bugs which are hard to track down in kmail, sometimes without any useful logs for troubleshooting. Sometimes the bugs are related to supportive applications like Akonadi, ect.
Con Poor UX
The user experience of kmail is extremely poor comparison to Thunderbird or evolution on Linux.
Con Buggy related kdepim applications
kmail by itself isn't the only application which is buggy, the many of the kdepim applications are buggy as of spring 2020.
Con No google support
You cant pass google 'Authentication' for the majority of the kdepim applications, The only support which works is via the kde 'online accounts' under 'system settings'. This only supports youtube and google hangouts integration.
Con Akonadi
Akonadi needs lot of ram