--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/docs/mta-comparison-external.txt	Tue Oct 07 14:45:43 2008 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+from ``Life with qmail''
+========================
+(november 2007)
+1.9. Comparison with other MTA's
+
+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.
+
+┌────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────┐
+│MTA     │Maturity│Security│Features│Performance│Sendmailish│Modular│
+├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
+│qmail   │medium  │high    │high    │high       │addons     │yes    │
+├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
+│Sendmail│high    │low     │high    │low        │x          │no     │
+├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
+│Postfix │medium  │high    │high    │high       │yes        │yes    │
+├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
+│exim    │medium  │low     │high    │medium     │yes        │no     │
+├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
+│Courier │low     │medium  │high    │medium     │optional   │yes    │
+└────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────┘
+
+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.
+
+Jonathan de Boyne Pollard has reviews of many Unix MTAs at http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/.
+Another detailed comparison is available at http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/.
+
+
+
+
+from ``open source mail server comparison''
+===========================================
+(november 2003)
+
+   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.
+
+                             COURIER-MTA                  EXIM             POSTFIX           SENDMAIL      QMAIL
+
+ Version:                    Courier-0.44.x               Exim Version     Postfix Version   Sendmail      qmail-1.03
+                                                          4.2x             2.0 Patchlevel x  8.12.x
+
+                             Managing Imap                Exim: The Mail   Postfix           Sendmail      The qmail
+                                                          Transfer Agent                                   Handbook
+
+ Licence:                    GPL                          GPL              IBM Public        ?             Especial
+                                                                           License
+
+
+ Authenticated SMTP          Login/CRAM-MD5               Login/Plain/     yes (using SASL)  yes(using     patch
+                                                          CRAM-MD5                           SASL)
+
+ SMTP over SSL/TLS           yes                          ?                ?                 ?             patch
+
+ STARTTLS extension          yes                          yes              ?                 yes           patch
+
+ POP before SMTP             no                           ?                Yes               ?             addon
+
+ Virtual Domains support     yes                          yes              yes               yes           yes
+
+ Supported Backends          Ldap / MySQL / PostgreSQL    Ldap / MySQL     Ldap / MySQL      Ldap          Ldap patch/
+                                                                                                           MySQL patch
+
+ IPv6 support                yes                          yes              no (patch)        yes           patch
+
+ Included POP server         yes (SSL support, Apop not   no               no                no            yes
+                             included, SASL included)
+
+ Included IMAP server        yes (SSL included)           no               no                no            no
+ Mailbox Format:             Maildir /mbox/Maildir ++     Maildir/mbox/    Maildir/mbox      mbox          Maildir/mbox
+                                                          mbx?
+
+ Quota support               yes                          yes              patch             no            patch /
+                                                                                                           addons
+
+ Mailing list manager        couriermlm                   no               ?                 ?             ezmlm
+
+ Configurable
+ Deliver-Status-Notification yes                          yes              no?               ?             no
+ (DSN)
+
+ Log analysing utilities     no                           yes              yes               yes           yes
+
+ Verbosity logging options:  no                           yes              yes               ?             yes
+
+ Web-based Administration    yes                          no               yes / no          yes/no        yes / no
+
+
+
+  SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS:
+
+                    COURIER-MTA EXIM        POSTFIX      SENDMAIL  QMAIL
+
+   Security:        ?           low-medium  high         low       high / very high
+
+   Installation:    medium      medium      easy -       easy      medium-difficult
+                                            medium
+
+   Configuration:   medium      easy-medium easy         difficult easy
+
+   Performance:     ?           medium      high         low       high
+
+   Maturity/status  low         low         medium       high      medium
+   :
+
+   Documentation:   low         high        medium-high  high      high (but sometimes confusing)
+
+   Features:        high        medium-high medium       high      low (There are many patches available for adding
+                                                                   Features)
+