History: Webmail and groupware comparison

This page is mainly to compare all active and mature Open Source (thus self-hostable) webmail solutions that you can install and manage email from any server with standard email protocols (IMAP, SMTP, JMAP). The assumption is that you already have at least one mail server (and often more than one) and you just want to install a webmail, and perhaps replace a desktop email solution like Thunderbird.

Here are the main Open Source standalone webmail options:

• Roundcube
• SnappyMail (RainLoop fork)
• Cypht

Special cases:

• Nextcloud Mail requires Nextcloud (And in Nextcloud, you can pick other options like the module for SnappyMail)
• Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware (which bundles Cypht)

Some related solutions are added because they have a close connection with one of the solutions above

• Kolab is added because it is behind Roundcube.
• Virtualmin is added because it is the mail stack of WikiSuite (And Tiki is also a WikiSuite component)

Not included (yet), and why?

• RainLoop: Activity level is too low: https://openhub.net/p/rainloop-webmail/commits/summary, and has been forked into SnappyMail
• YunoHost is an interesting platform to manage apps. It's a full mail server and you can pick between Roundcube, Rainloop, Cypht etc. Not including below because it doesn't offer a distinct webmail client.
• Horde IMP: Activity level is too low: https://openhub.net/p/horde/commits/summary
• SOGo: Full mail distro. Is the webmail available in standalone to connect to other email servers?
• SquirrelMail: Activity level too low: https://openhub.net/p/squirrelmail/commits/summary
• OpenPaaS is interesting and supports JMAP but AFAICT webmail client is not available to run as standalone: https://github.com/linagora/openpaas-esn/tree/master/modules/linagora.esn.messaging.email
• https://github.com/afterlogic/webmail-lite-8 should be analyzed

Wishlists

Sorted by most reactions

• SnappyMail
• Roundcube
• Cypht

Features

• This Roundcube blog is great: https://kolabian.wordpress.com/