1.1 --- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
     1.2 +++ b/docs/mta-comparison-external.txt	Tue Oct 07 14:45:43 2008 +0200
     1.3 @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
     1.4 +from ``Life with qmail''
     1.5 +========================
     1.6 +(november 2007)
     1.7 +1.9. Comparison with other MTA's
     1.8 +
     1.9 +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.
    1.10 +
    1.11 +┌────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────┐
    1.12 +│MTA     │Maturity│Security│Features│Performance│Sendmailish│Modular│
    1.13 +├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
    1.14 +│qmail   │medium  │high    │high    │high       │addons     │yes    │
    1.15 +├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
    1.16 +│Sendmail│high    │low     │high    │low        │x          │no     │
    1.17 +├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
    1.18 +│Postfix │medium  │high    │high    │high       │yes        │yes    │
    1.19 +├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
    1.20 +│exim    │medium  │low     │high    │medium     │yes        │no     │
    1.21 +├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────┤
    1.22 +│Courier │low     │medium  │high    │medium     │optional   │yes    │
    1.23 +└────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────┘
    1.24 +
    1.25 +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.
    1.26 +
    1.27 +Jonathan de Boyne Pollard has reviews of many Unix MTAs at http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/Reviews/UnixMTSes/.
    1.28 +Another detailed comparison is available at http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/.
    1.29 +
    1.30 +
    1.31 +
    1.32 +
    1.33 +from ``open source mail server comparison''
    1.34 +===========================================
    1.35 +(november 2003)
    1.36 +
    1.37 +   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.
    1.38 +
    1.39 +                             COURIER-MTA                  EXIM             POSTFIX           SENDMAIL      QMAIL
    1.40 +
    1.41 + Version:                    Courier-0.44.x               Exim Version     Postfix Version   Sendmail      qmail-1.03
    1.42 +                                                          4.2x             2.0 Patchlevel x  8.12.x
    1.43 +
    1.44 +                             Managing Imap                Exim: The Mail   Postfix           Sendmail      The qmail
    1.45 +                                                          Transfer Agent                                   Handbook
    1.46 +
    1.47 + Licence:                    GPL                          GPL              IBM Public        ?             Especial
    1.48 +                                                                           License
    1.49 +
    1.50 +
    1.51 + Authenticated SMTP          Login/CRAM-MD5               Login/Plain/     yes (using SASL)  yes(using     patch
    1.52 +                                                          CRAM-MD5                           SASL)
    1.53 +
    1.54 + SMTP over SSL/TLS           yes                          ?                ?                 ?             patch
    1.55 +
    1.56 + STARTTLS extension          yes                          yes              ?                 yes           patch
    1.57 +
    1.58 + POP before SMTP             no                           ?                Yes               ?             addon
    1.59 +
    1.60 + Virtual Domains support     yes                          yes              yes               yes           yes
    1.61 +
    1.62 + Supported Backends          Ldap / MySQL / PostgreSQL    Ldap / MySQL     Ldap / MySQL      Ldap          Ldap patch/
    1.63 +                                                                                                           MySQL patch
    1.64 +
    1.65 + IPv6 support                yes                          yes              no (patch)        yes           patch
    1.66 +
    1.67 + Included POP server         yes (SSL support, Apop not   no               no                no            yes
    1.68 +                             included, SASL included)
    1.69 +
    1.70 + Included IMAP server        yes (SSL included)           no               no                no            no
    1.71 + Mailbox Format:             Maildir /mbox/Maildir ++     Maildir/mbox/    Maildir/mbox      mbox          Maildir/mbox
    1.72 +                                                          mbx?
    1.73 +
    1.74 + Quota support               yes                          yes              patch             no            patch /
    1.75 +                                                                                                           addons
    1.76 +
    1.77 + Mailing list manager        couriermlm                   no               ?                 ?             ezmlm
    1.78 +
    1.79 + Configurable
    1.80 + Deliver-Status-Notification yes                          yes              no?               ?             no
    1.81 + (DSN)
    1.82 +
    1.83 + Log analysing utilities     no                           yes              yes               yes           yes
    1.84 +
    1.85 + Verbosity logging options:  no                           yes              yes               ?             yes
    1.86 +
    1.87 + Web-based Administration    yes                          no               yes / no          yes/no        yes / no
    1.88 +
    1.89 +
    1.90 +
    1.91 +  SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS:
    1.92 +
    1.93 +                    COURIER-MTA EXIM        POSTFIX      SENDMAIL  QMAIL
    1.94 +
    1.95 +   Security:        ?           low-medium  high         low       high / very high
    1.96 +
    1.97 +   Installation:    medium      medium      easy -       easy      medium-difficult
    1.98 +                                            medium
    1.99 +
   1.100 +   Configuration:   medium      easy-medium easy         difficult easy
   1.101 +
   1.102 +   Performance:     ?           medium      high         low       high
   1.103 +
   1.104 +   Maturity/status  low         low         medium       high      medium
   1.105 +   :
   1.106 +
   1.107 +   Documentation:   low         high        medium-high  high      high (but sometimes confusing)
   1.108 +
   1.109 +   Features:        high        medium-high medium       high      low (There are many patches available for adding
   1.110 +                                                                   Features)
   1.111 +