Postal
Self-hosted mail server for sending and receiving email from your own websites and apps.
- Stars
- 16.9k
- Forks
- 1.3k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Ruby
- Last update
- 7 days ago
- Type
- App
What it is
Postal is an open source mail server that you run on your own machines. It is meant for websites and web servers that need to send and receive email, and the README positions it as a self-hosted alternative to hosted services such as Sendgrid, Mailgun or Postmark. The README excerpt provided does not detail its internal feature set, so the full capabilities come from the linked documentation.
- Run a self-hosted mail server to send application notifications and password resets
- Receive incoming email for a domain and route it to your own systems
- Replace a paid transactional email provider with infrastructure you operate
Great for
- Teams that want to run their own transactional email sending infrastructure
- Developers who need to send email from a web application and prefer self-hosting
- Organisations that want to keep mail data on servers they control
- Ruby developers who want to read or modify the mail server code
Not ideal for
- People who just need to send a few emails and want no server to manage, since a hosted service is simpler
- Anyone without server administration experience, because running a mail server involves DNS, IP reputation and security setup
- Users who need a turnkey desktop email client rather than server software
How to get it
- 1
Clone and build from source
You'll need: Ruby (see installation docs for version)
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/postalserver/postal - 2
Run it
- Read the installation instructions at docs.postalserver.io/getting-started
- Prepare the required prerequisites on your server
- Follow the documented setup steps to configure and start Postal
- Open the web interface and configure your first mail server and domain
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Read the feature list at docs.postalserver.io/welcome/feature-list to see what is included
- Check the FAQs at docs.postalserver.io/welcome/faqs before deploying
- Use the GitHub discussions to ask questions and request features
- Join the Discord community for help from other operators
Downloads
Strengths
- Open source under the MIT license, so the code can be inspected and modified
- Positioned as a full mail server covering both incoming and outgoing mail
- Active project with a large community, roughly 16,900 stars, and recent activity
Trade-offs
- Operating a mail server is complex, and deliverability depends on your own DNS and IP setup
- The README excerpt gives little detail on requirements, so you must read the installation docs closely
- Self-hosting shifts maintenance, security and uptime responsibility to you
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| postal (this) | 16.9k | App | advanced | 7 days ago | Teams that want to run their own transactional email sending infrastructure |
| docker-mailserver | 19.7k | App | advanced | 6 days ago | People who want to run their own mail server on a machine they control |
| cloud-mail | 15.3k | App | intermediate | 11 days ago | People who want their own email service on a domain they control |
| rails | 58.8k | Framework | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers building database-backed web applications in Ruby |
| fastlane | 42.3k | CLI | intermediate | 4 days ago | iOS developers who repeat the same build and release steps by hand |
| devise | 24.4k | Library | intermediate | 1 months ago | Rails developers who need standard email-and-password login quickly |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.