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What do you use for the onboarding guide?
I was considering IntroJS, but Claude Code generated a simpler version in ~120 lines — just @vueuse/core helpers (useLocalStorage, useIntervalFn) and focus-trap, no tour library.
Looks like a grapes fork?
No — built from scratch on Vue 3 + TipTap. Different data model entirely: Templatical stores templates as a typed JSON tree of blocks and renders them as MJML; GrapesJS is a generic HTML/CSS page-builder retrofitted for email via an MJML plugin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No — built from scratch on Vue 3 + TipTap. Different data model entirely: Templatical stores templates as a typed JSON tree of blocks and renders them as MJML; GrapesJS is a generic HTML/CSS page-builder retrofitted for email via an MJML plugin.
Thanks for the response, I will have a closer look! Maybe it's just the current UI Trends that look similar to me. Do you like grapes in general?
GrapesJS — the OG embeddable visual builder. Yes, I like it. I haven't used it recently, but I built production landing-page builders on top of it a while back.
I saw they also have an email builder now and checked it just now. Looks and works fine, but you can tell it's a retrofitted approach from a landing-page builder. With Templatical I wanted to build something from the ground up, email-only.
This is really nice, thanks for building. I will use that heavily :)
I got you a gold star ;) Excited to use this, as I've been frustrated by vendor lock-in for this exact use case.
I looked for this in the past. This is the main reason we bothered with mailchimp/hubspot -- simply the ability for nontechnical marketing people to put together nice emails, and the trust that we won't need an engineer to troubleshoot email formatting on their behalf. I remember trying some OSS tools at the time (8 years ago?) and there were some templates we used but then when we wanted to modify them, the broken-ness of email html/css standards made it really hard to test.
I know the standards and practice around this are a moving target, though, so I hope you can find a model to sustain and expand this, without charging for delivery/contact list numbers like MailChimp or other incumbents.
This is cool! I looked for this in the past. This is the main reason we bothered with mailchimp/hubspot -- simply the ability for nontechnical marketing people to put together nice emails, and the trust that we won't need an engineer to troubleshoot email formatting on their behalf. I remember trying some OSS tools at the time (8 years ago?) and there were some templates we used but then when we wanted to modify them…
The cross-client rendering thing is why Templatical outputs MJML instead of raw HTML. MJML was built to abstract all the table-based, Outlook-2007-quirks, Gmail-strips-style nonsense — you write semantic blocks, MJML compiles to table HTML that works across every major email client. So when your marketing person moves a block or changes a button color, it doesn't silently break in Outlook two weeks later.
On sustainability — same concern. Even while I was building it, multiple times I caught myself asking "is this even worth theeffort? Maybe not with all the functionalities I've built, but someone could vibe-code a lightweight version of it in a day." But at the same time, I see and personally used SaaS products with the same or fewer features selling for $2,500/mo, which seems ridiculous.
I'm currently working on a subscription-based Cloud version, but only for things that actually need an infrastructure and backend: AI chat/rewrite, image-to-template conversion, MCP integration, hosted media gallery, saved modules, commenting, real-time collab, email testing, version history, etc. Sending stays your own provider — no per-contact, per-email, or per-delivery charges.