Forward Email
Forward Email is a source-available, self-hosted app in the Email Servers category, licensed BSL 1.1 (a few files MPL-2.0) and written mainly in JavaScript. It is a self-hosted alternative to Mailgun and ships a Docker image. It has 1,691 GitHub stars and its last commit was on Oct 26, 2026 (data as of Oct 26, 2026).
- Email Servers
- JavaScript
- BUSL-1.1
- Source-available
- Docker
- Active
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 1,691
- Forks
- 207
- Open issues
- 56
- Commits, last 12 months
- 1,461
- Last commit
- Oct 26, 2026
- Latest release
- v2.18.11Oct 22, 2026
- Created
- Dec 17, 2019
- License
- BSL 1.1 (a few files MPL-2.0)Source-available
Data as of from the GitHub API. Report an error
Project health
ActiveActive: last commit Oct 26, 2026, 1,461 commits in 12 months.
- Regular releases10 or more releases in 12 months
- Security policyPublishes a security policy on GitHub
| Last commit | Oct 26, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 12 months | 1,461 |
| Latest release | v2.18.11 (Oct 22, 2026) |
| Releases, last 12 months | 10 or more |
| Releases, all time | 452 |
| Open issues | 56 |
| Open pull requests | 20 |
| Good first issues | 0 |
| Contributing guide | Yes |
| Security policy | Yes |
| Created | Dec 17, 2019 |
Health as of , from the GitHub API. A label describes activity, not quality or security. How we label project health · Report a data error
About Forward Email
Privacy-focused encrypted email for everyone. All-in-one alternative to Gmail + Mailchimp + Sendgrid.
Description adapted from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source code: github.com/forwardemail/forwardemail.net.
Topics
- forwarding
- forwarder
- free
- custom
- domain
- send
- aes256
- chacha20
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Is Forward Email free and open source?
Not by the OSI definition. Forward Email is source-available rather than open source: its code is public under the BSL 1.1 (a few files MPL-2.0), which is not an OSI-approved open-source license. The Business Source License lets you read, modify and self-host the code, but production use is limited to what its Additional Use Grant allows, and each release converts to an open-source license after a set date. Check the license in the repository before using it commercially.
Can I run Forward Email with Docker?
Yes. Forward Email provides a Docker image, so you can run it on any Linux server with Docker and Docker Compose installed. The project README lists the image name and the environment variables to set.
What are the best alternatives to Forward Email?
Popular self-hosted alternatives to Forward Email include docker-mailserver, Postal and Mail-in-a-Box. Forward Email itself is a self-hosted alternative to Mailgun.
Is Forward Email actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Forward Email was on Oct 26, 2026 with 1,461 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is v2.18.11, published Oct 22, 2026. It had 56 open issues on GitHub. appsgit's project-health label for it is "Active" as of Oct 26, 2026.