Mailcow
Mailcow is an open-source, self-hosted app in the Email Servers category, licensed GPL-3.0 and written mainly in JavaScript. It is a self-hosted alternative to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Gmail and ships a Docker image. It has 13,696 GitHub stars and its last commit was on Oct 25, 2026 (data as of Oct 26, 2026).
- Email Servers
- JavaScript
- GPL-3.0
- Docker
- Active
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 13,696
- Forks
- 1,851
- Open issues
- 469
- Commits, last 12 months
- 354
- Last commit
- Oct 25, 2026
- Latest release
- 2026-10Oct 21, 2026
- Created
- Dec 9, 2016
- License
- GPL-3.0Open source
Data as of from the GitHub API. Report an error
Project health
ActiveActive: last commit Oct 25, 2026, 354 commits in 12 months.
- Regular releases10 or more releases in 12 months
- Security policyPublishes a security policy on GitHub
| Last commit | Oct 25, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 12 months | 354 |
| Latest release | 2026-10 (Oct 21, 2026) |
| Releases, last 12 months | 10 or more |
| Releases, all time | 96 |
| Open issues | 469 |
| Open pull requests | 79 |
| Good first issues | 0 |
| Contributing guide | Yes |
| Security policy | Yes |
| Created | Dec 9, 2016 |
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 Mailcow
Mail server suite based on Dovecot, Postfix and other open source software, that provides a modern Web UI for administration.
Description adapted from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source code: github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized.
Topics
- mailcow
- mailserver
- groupware
- sogo
- rspamd
- postfix
- dovecot
- docker
- servercow
- hacktoberfest
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Is Mailcow free and open source?
Yes. Mailcow is open-source software released under the GPL-3.0 license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run Mailcow with Docker?
Yes. Mailcow 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 Mailcow?
Popular self-hosted alternatives to Mailcow include docker-mailserver, Postal and Mail-in-a-Box. Mailcow itself is a self-hosted alternative to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Gmail.
Is Mailcow actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Mailcow was on Oct 25, 2026 with 354 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is 2026-10, published Oct 21, 2026. It had 469 open issues on GitHub. appsgit's project-health label for it is "Active" as of Oct 26, 2026.