mail-in-a-box/mailinabox

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

15396 stars · 1548 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Mail-in-a-Box is a one-click, easy-to-deploy mail server appliance that turns a fresh Ubuntu 22.04 machine into a complete email provider with SMTP, IMAP, webmail, DNS, and security features. It bundles Postfix, Dovecot, Nextcloud, Roundcube, spam filtering, automatic TLS, and a web control panel with no user-configurable setup options.

Use cases

• self-host my own email server
• run my own gmail alternative
• set up SMTP and IMAP on a cloud VPS
• get automatic SPF DKIM DMARC DNS records for email deliverability
• host webmail with contacts and calendar sync
• deploy a mail server with automatic Let's Encrypt TLS
• become my own email service provider

When to choose

• you want a dedicated, turnkey mail server that just works with minimal configuration
• you value decentralization and privacy and want control over your email end to end
• you have a fresh cloud VM running Ubuntu 22.04 and don't need to customize the box
• you want built-in backups, monitoring, spam filtering, and DNS management in one appliance

When to avoid

• you want to run mail on a home/residential connection with a dynamic IP
• you need a highly customizable or multi-purpose server you can modify freely
• you need fine-grained control over individual mail components or alternative configurations
• you want to co-host other services on the same machine

Facets

application · maturity active

email self-hosted deployment configuration-management security backup monitoring email self-hosted privacy networking self-hosted cli mail-server smtp imap dns dkim spf dmarc lets-encrypt nextcloud roundcube one-click-appliance devops linux web-server

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="mail-in-a-box/mailinabox")