SnappyMail

Is SnappyMail actively maintained?

SnappyMail logged 1 commit over the last 11 months, but none in the most recent quarter. Development has paused rather than stopped outright — worth watching before a production deployment.

The last tagged release, v2.38.2, is over 2 years old. If you deploy, expect to build from the default branch rather than a stable tag.

SnappyMail ranks #3 of 4 tracked communication - email - webmail clients projects. Several better-maintained options exist in the same category — they are listed below.

What SnappyMail actually does

SnappyMail is a browser-based email client derived from RainLoop that provides an interface for accessing IMAP and SMTP servers. It allows you to read, manage, and send messages directly through a lightweight web interface. As a self-hosted webmail tool, it acts as an intermediary between your browser and your existing mail server infrastructure.

Best fit: It suits administrators looking for a straightforward, independent webmail portal to sit on top of standard mail protocols without heavy resource demands.

Worth knowing: Development activity is currently minimal, which may introduce security or compatibility risks over time if unmaintained bugs arise. The copyleft AGPL-3.0 licence also imposes strict sharing obligations if you modify and distribute the source code.

Deployment notes

Because it is written in PHP, you will typically need to run it behind a standard web server like Nginx or Apache with a suitable PHP processor. It generally requires persistent storage for configuration files and session data, alongside TLS termination configured at the reverse proxy level.

Links

• Official website
• Source code