Is there a good email server that can be run through Docker?

Comments

• aksdb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Stalwart

  Written in rust, contains SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, Sieve, CalDAV, CardDAV, WebDAV. Has an admin web ui. Sane defaults, minimal foot guns. No zoo of containers needed.

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  • Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Beware it’s very heavyweight. My dedicated oldish server with 8gb ram and spinning hdes couldn’t even handle one single domani and a few users…

    Was 6 months ago, tough.

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    • Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I had to play with database types, because apparently out of the box setup works only on SSDs (??) And do a bunch of other stuff to improve performance.

      End result was way worse than installing postfix+dovecot+dkim/dmark/etc stuff directly.

      Quite unusable, but the hardware was limited

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    • Strider@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Wow, what a waste!

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  • hackysphere@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve been trying out Stalwart, and it seems to be working good, but it is having problems with IDN that seem to require some weird ways of fixing.

    (more specifically, Stalwart recognizes the punycode and UTF8 versions of domains as separate, which is difficult for some clients like Gmail web to deal with)

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• JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve had a good experience with mailcow. It’s not the most lightweight tho, and spins up quite a few containers.

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  • sk@utsukta.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    +1 for mailcow, i've been running my mailserver for over 2 years now, very efficient, no hassle setup.

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• ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Mailcow-dockerized. I’ve used it for several years, it’s been flawless.

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  • johnnixon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What happens if your server is offline and an email comes in? I’m genuinely curious what it would do. Or must you VPS host your mail server for maximum uptime?

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    • lukecyca@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      All MTAs have retries baked in, so running a self-hosted email server that receives mail is actually one of the most forgiving services in this respect. If your server is offline, the sending server will retry several times over 24-48 hours before it gives up. Even the big cloud email providers will do this.

      That said, there are other aspects of running an email server that require some extra rigour, but they’re more on the sending side (making sure emails you send to other people actually land in their inbox). Doable, but one of the more challenging things to self-host.

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    • ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The other server sends again until it times out? Never been an issue, that’s just how email works. Most SMTP servers will attempt for a few days if they know the MX is valid. Besides, I’ve never been out for longer than an hour or two.

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  • CetaceanNeeded@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What’s the resource usage like? I’ve looked into mailcow before but the recommended system specs are too expensive to make it worth it on a VPS.

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    • ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Seems really low. I run it on a docker LXC with Nextcloud and bunch of other stuff, on 8 cores of an ancient dual Xeon Dell. I never seem to have to deal with latency on it.

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• chluehr@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  mox. just one go binay. pure bliss: www.xmox.nl

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  • lukecyca@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Oh this is one to watch! Thanks for posting. I’m currently running docker-mailserver (which is quite mature and stable) but xmox looks very interesting.

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  • Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is so cool… Didn’t know about it… And also european… Will try it for sure

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• osanna@thebrainbin.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You're gonna have a bad time if you have to email MSFT/GOOG. MSFT was worse in my experience. their DumbScreen tech was horrible. Even the tech couldn't get my emails to not go to spam. Gave up in the end. The likes of MSFT and Google make it nigh on impossible for people to self host their own email.

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  • Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Been running my own mailserve for last 20 years and never had big issues.

    Do dkim dmark stuff and DNS records properly and you will be fine. Also don’t spam and beware of spam-related subnets, and you should not have issues.

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    • moonpiedumplings@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Have you considered that the reason why your mail server is trusted is because it’s been around for 20 years?

      Have you tried to set up mail from scratch on a new domain/ip?

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  • hackysphere@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So I’ve been setting up Stalwart (but I probably won’t be using it), and I only had to unflag my emails as spam on Gmail and Outlook once; it even was able to send straight to the inbox of another Gmail account! I did have one email get quarantined by Outlook, but it was probably because the email and sender name didn’t match enough.

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• dm9pZCAq@lemmy.0x0c.link ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver

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  • manwichmakesameal@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is what I use as well and it’s pretty painless after setup.

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• Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

  Fewer Letters	More Letters
  IMAP	Internet Message Access Protocol for email
  SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
  SSD	Solid State Drive mass storage

  ---

  [Thread #52 for this comm, first seen 1st Feb 2026, 10:01] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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• tribut@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Have a look at mailu.io and docs.mailcow.email

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• Im_old@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted?…

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• jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m still looking for a good solution that includes support for notes. I’m migrating off Exchange Online and using mailcow temporarily but the built in notes feature is sorely missed.

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• rollerbang@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I use mailu, find it quite lightweight as well.

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• black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net

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