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
| Stars | 14k |
|---|---|
| Latest release | 2026-09 · 21 Sept 2026 |
| Repo updated | 21 Sept 2026 |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Built with | Docker, PHP |
Is Mailcow actively maintained?
Mailcow is under active development: 354 commits landed over the last 11 months, averaging roughly 35 commits a month in the most recent quarter.
The most recent tagged release, 2026-09, shipped within the last month — a current, installable version exists today.
Of the 18 projects we track in Communication - Email - Complete Solutions, Mailcow ranks #4 by health score — in the top quarter of its category.
What Mailcow actually does
Mailcow is a complete email server suite built on top of standard open-source components like Dovecot and Postfix. It wraps these traditional mail transfer and delivery agents into a containerised architecture with a browser-based administration interface for managing domains and mailboxes.
Best fit: Self-hosters who need to run a full-featured mail server and prefer a unified web interface over manual configuration file editing.
Worth knowing: Running your own mail server involves significant operational burden regarding IP reputation, spam filtering, and DNS record management. Misconfiguration can easily lead to delivery failures.
Deployment notes
Because it is distributed as a set of Docker containers, you will typically need persistent volumes for your mail storage and configuration data, alongside a reverse proxy to handle TLS termination.
Links
Mailcow as a replacement for
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