Forward Email vs Mailcow
Both are self-hosted communication - email - complete solutions projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.
| Forward Email | Mailcow | |
|---|---|---|
| Health score | 80/100 | 76/100 |
| Commits (11 mo) | 1338 | 354 |
| Commits (last 3 mo) | 341 | 104 |
| Stars | 1.7k | 14k |
| Latest release | 25 Sept 2026 | 21 Sept 2026 |
| Licence | BUSL-1.1, MPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Built with | Nodejs, Docker | Docker, PHP |
| Typical RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB |
Forward Email
Privacy-focused encrypted email for everyone. All-in-one alternative to Gmail + Mailchimp + Sendgrid.
Actively maintained with regular releases.
Commit activity more than 84% of tracked projects; popularity more than 44%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
Mailcow
Mail server suite based on Dovecot, Postfix and other open source software, that provides a modern Web UI for administration.
Actively maintained with regular releases.
Commit activity more than 57% of tracked projects; popularity more than 83%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
How to read this
Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.
What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.
See every option in this category: self-hosted communication - email - complete solutions.