5 Top Open Source Email Clients for Terminal in 2024
Reviews, comparison, screenshots and more for the 5 top open-source email clients for Terminal.
Email Client Screenshots
Himalaya
Himalaya is an open-source email client for Terminal and is written in the Rust programming language. The official description from its website says, "CLI to manage emails, based on email-lib."
meli
meli is an open-source email client for Terminal and is written in the Rust programming language. The official description from its website says, "meli aims for configurability and extensibility with sane defaults. It seeks to be a mail client for both new and power users of the terminal, but built today."
Alpine
Alpine is an open-source email client for Terminal and is written in the C programming language. The official description from its website says, "Alpine is a rewrite of the Pine Message System that adds support for Unicode and other features."
NeoMutt
NeoMutt is an open-source email client for Terminal and is written in the C programming language. The official description from its website says, "NeoMutt is a command line mail reader (or MUA). It’s a fork of Mutt with added features."
aerc
aerc is an open-source email client for Terminal and is written in the Go programming language. The official description from its website says, "aerc is an email client that runs in your terminal. It's highly efficient and extensible, perfect for the discerning hacker."
Email Client Comparison
Name | Description | Screenshot | Platforms | Language | Website | Wikipedia |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Himalaya ⭐ Recommended | CLI to manage emails, based on email-lib. | Screenshot |
| Rust | Website | |
meli ⭐ Recommended | meli aims for configurability and extensibility with sane defaults. It seeks to be a mail client for both new and power users of the terminal, but built today. | Screenshot |
| Rust | Website | |
Alpine | Alpine is a rewrite of the Pine Message System that adds support for Unicode and other features. | Screenshot |
| C | Website | Wikipedia |
NeoMutt | NeoMutt is a command line mail reader (or MUA). It’s a fork of Mutt with added features. | Screenshot |
| C | Website | |
aerc | aerc is an email client that runs in your terminal. It's highly efficient and extensible, perfect for the discerning hacker. | Screenshot |
| Go | Website |
Why use us as your email provider?
What makes us different than others?
- We're the only 100% open-source provider
- We don't rely on any third parties (we don't use Amazon SES or an alternative like others)
- Our pricing allows you to scale cost effectively (we don't charge per user and you can pay as you go for storage)
- Unlike others, your email with us is not stored in a shared relational database alongside everyone else
- We're the world's first and only email service to use quantum-safe and individually encrypted SQLite mailboxes
Did you know?
Other email services advertise as open-source, but they do not release the source code to their back-end. The back-end is the most sensitive part of an email provider. It is also important to use 100% open-source because it builds trust and allows anyone to contribute and independently audit.