Self-hosted mail trades fees for operations

Self-hosted email is control with a bill paid in operations.

Tools such as Listmonk, Mautic, BillionMail, docker-mailserver, MailHog, MailDev, MailCatcher, Maildrop, and Poste.io can replace parts of paid email stacks.

But they do not remove the hard parts: DNS records, TLS, anti-spam, sender reputation, bounces, unsubscribes, backups, upgrades, and testing.

The pragmatic split is to self-host list logic, forms, local testing, or campaign management when ownership matters, and use a proven ESP for delivery when inbox placement matters more than ideology.

Mail is infrastructure. Owning it means operating it.

Related:

• SMTP and e-mail stuff
• Email APIs are product infrastructure
• Mail DNS is deliverability infrastructure
• Listmonk Docker config
• Mautic Docker config
• Odoo Docker config
• Poste Docker config