Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#1

Post by diamondhead » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 11:42 AM UTC

I've been planning to switch to an open-source alternative of Gmail. Any suggestions/experiences/thoughts?

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#2

Post by suivix » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:05 PM UTC

If something that is hosted by a 3rd party 'in the cloud' is open source, does it really help? Since someone else is still managing your data.

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#3

Post by 112percent » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:18 PM UTC

We really like Group Office, whilst it doesn't have the class of Gmail, or the search prowess it works really well for small teams.

If you are taking about using something like Sup then I think there is too much faff should you ever decide to migrate away from it. Whilst it looks and works great it is useless for interoperability with your phone etc..

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#4

Post by seqastian » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:19 PM UTC

AtMail Open seems nice?

problem with most webmail apps seems that they want to be desktop apps for some reason and completely miss the point imho

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#5

Post by wccrawford » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:21 PM UTC

suivix wrote: post #2

If something that is hosted by a 3rd party 'in the cloud' is open source, does it really help? Since someone else is still managing your data.

You don't think he's planning to host it himself in the cloud? Quite a few platforms make this easy enough, if not very cheap.

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#6

Post by dochtman » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:22 PM UTC

AFAICT the best alternative, interface-wise, is Roundcube, and it doesn't seem particularly exciting (it's also written in PHP... which doesn't necessarily have to count against it, but makes me a little wary).

I've foolishly started to build my own, which at some point may become good enough to open source (I certainly don't want to commercialize it).

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#7

Post by dochtman » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:24 PM UTC

seqastian wrote: post #4

AtMail Open seems nice? problem with most webmail apps seems that they want to be desktop apps for some reason and completely miss the point imho

It looks fairly bland and aged (and especially bad when compared to screenshots of the commercial AtMail webmail client).

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#8

Post by wccrawford » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:24 PM UTC

I went looking for something suitable a while back, but I didn't find anything. The search is nice, but I'm really more interested in the mail interface. The features I use:

Sending and receiving (duh)

delayed mail (in case I make a mistake... And I will!)

filtering (and tags/folders)

keyboard shortcuts

simple search, with folder/tag support

browser-based, so I can access it anywhere

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#9

Post by astro1138 » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:25 PM UTC

SUP is supposedly modeled after Gmail, if you enjoy the benefits of text tools. I myself am using mutt.

Re: Ask HN: Open-source alternatives of Gmail?

#10

Post by codehotter » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 12:29 PM UTC

Alternative to what? Hosted email? Or the web interface? If the latter: http://roundcube.net/ It access email through imap - so you still need a good mailbox server.