meillo@32: from ``Life with qmail'' meillo@32: ======================== meillo@32: (november 2007) meillo@32: 1.9. Comparison with other MTA's meillo@32: meillo@32: A book could be written about this topic, but it would be tedious reading. Here's a quick comparison of qmail with some of the most common UNIX MTA's. meillo@32: meillo@32: ┌────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────┐ meillo@32: │MTA │Maturity│Security│Features│Performance│Sendmailish│Modular│ meillo@32: ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤ meillo@32: │qmail │medium │high │high │high │addons │yes │ meillo@32: ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤ meillo@32: │Sendmail│high │low │high │low │x │no │ meillo@32: ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤ meillo@32: │Postfix │medium │high │high │high │yes │yes │ meillo@32: ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤ meillo@32: │exim │medium │low │high │medium │yes │no │ meillo@32: ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤ meillo@32: │Courier │low │medium │high │medium │optional │yes │ meillo@32: └────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────┘ meillo@32: meillo@32: Sendmailish means the MTA behaves like Sendmail in some ways that would make a switch from Sendmail to the alternative MTA more user-transparent, such as the use of .forward files, /etc/aliases, and delivery to /var/spool/mail. meillo@32: meillo@32: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard has reviews of many Unix MTAs at http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/. meillo@32: Another detailed comparison is available at http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/. meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: from ``open source mail server comparison'' meillo@32: =========================================== meillo@32: (november 2003) meillo@32: meillo@32: This is a comparison between all the free open-source mail software solutions actually avalaible. I want to thanks all the sofware developers for developing such a great software for the open source community. meillo@32: meillo@32: COURIER-MTA EXIM POSTFIX SENDMAIL QMAIL meillo@32: meillo@32: Version: Courier-0.44.x Exim Version Postfix Version Sendmail qmail-1.03 meillo@32: 4.2x 2.0 Patchlevel x 8.12.x meillo@32: meillo@32: Managing Imap Exim: The Mail Postfix Sendmail The qmail meillo@32: Transfer Agent Handbook meillo@32: meillo@32: Licence: GPL GPL IBM Public ? Especial meillo@32: License meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: Authenticated SMTP Login/CRAM-MD5 Login/Plain/ yes (using SASL) yes(using patch meillo@32: CRAM-MD5 SASL) meillo@32: meillo@32: SMTP over SSL/TLS yes ? ? ? patch meillo@32: meillo@32: STARTTLS extension yes yes ? yes patch meillo@32: meillo@32: POP before SMTP no ? Yes ? addon meillo@32: meillo@32: Virtual Domains support yes yes yes yes yes meillo@32: meillo@32: Supported Backends Ldap / MySQL / PostgreSQL Ldap / MySQL Ldap / MySQL Ldap Ldap patch/ meillo@32: MySQL patch meillo@32: meillo@32: IPv6 support yes yes no (patch) yes patch meillo@32: meillo@32: Included POP server yes (SSL support, Apop not no no no yes meillo@32: included, SASL included) meillo@32: meillo@32: Included IMAP server yes (SSL included) no no no no meillo@32: Mailbox Format: Maildir /mbox/Maildir ++ Maildir/mbox/ Maildir/mbox mbox Maildir/mbox meillo@32: mbx? meillo@32: meillo@32: Quota support yes yes patch no patch / meillo@32: addons meillo@32: meillo@32: Mailing list manager couriermlm no ? ? ezmlm meillo@32: meillo@32: Configurable meillo@32: Deliver-Status-Notification yes yes no? ? no meillo@32: (DSN) meillo@32: meillo@32: Log analysing utilities no yes yes yes yes meillo@32: meillo@32: Verbosity logging options: no yes yes ? yes meillo@32: meillo@32: Web-based Administration yes no yes / no yes/no yes / no meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: meillo@32: SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS: meillo@32: meillo@32: COURIER-MTA EXIM POSTFIX SENDMAIL QMAIL meillo@32: meillo@32: Security: ? low-medium high low high / very high meillo@32: meillo@32: Installation: medium medium easy - easy medium-difficult meillo@32: medium meillo@32: meillo@32: Configuration: medium easy-medium easy difficult easy meillo@32: meillo@32: Performance: ? medium high low high meillo@32: meillo@32: Maturity/status low low medium high medium meillo@32: : meillo@32: meillo@32: Documentation: low high medium-high high high (but sometimes confusing) meillo@32: meillo@32: Features: high medium-high medium high low (There are many patches available for adding meillo@32: Features) meillo@32: