Dovecot
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 9 mail servers by recommenders
Used to self-host IMAP mail with little upkeep; praised as mature, free and lock-in free. Caveat: a significant investment to set up.
Used to self-host IMAP mail with little upkeep; praised as mature, free and lock-in free. Caveat: a significant investment to set up.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 95%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 15 years
Median of the 4 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 18 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Low maintenance once running
“Absolutely zero maintenance has been required since I set it up”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Self-host your mail server” “it's pretty much set and forget”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Privacy and control. My tech setup” Simple Postfix and Dovecot setup
“he could easily just throw up a postfix+dovecot on some VPS”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Sad Story of My Google Workspace Account Suspension” “it only took me an afternoon to set up Postfix/Dovecot”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “What I self-host” “standing up SMTPD and Dovecot there is super simple”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out” - Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Self-host your mail server”
- Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Bye Bye Gmail”
- Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Apple is about to make Hide My Email useless”
Mature, free, lock-in free software
“These are all mature solutions that are free of vendor lock-in”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Apple Business” “it works perfect for boring old and feature complete software”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Should I Run Plain Docker Compose in Production in 2026?” Good IMAP access and search
“Dovecot if you want IMAP access”
Comment from 19 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Running your own email service?” “Dovecot has good SEARCH support”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Thunderbird for iOS”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Significant setup investment
“I like the freedom it gives me but I have to say it's a significant investment.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Self hosted email continues to steeply decline” Full-text search must be enabled
“it looks like that's because I never enabled the Solr-based Full-Text Search”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Thunderbird for iOS”
Other mail servers people recommend
The four most recommended other mail servers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stalwart Mail Server | 27 | 4 | 87% | 10 | 3 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Postfix | 21 | 5 | 81% | 9 | 22 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| DovecotThis page | 18 | 1 | 95% | 11 | 15 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| qmail | 15 | 5 | 75% | 10 | — | Approved |
| mailcow | 15 | 1 | 94% | 7 | 2 yrs5 owners | Approved |
What people said
19 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it only took me an afternoon to set up Postfix/Dovecot”
“it looks like that's because I never enabled the Solr-based Full-Text Search”
“Dovecot has good SEARCH support”
“Totally worth it to automate archiving and cut down on spam.”
“all comfortably run in 1gb of ram”
“It is saved in maildir format where each email is a separate file.”
“I like the freedom it gives me but I have to say it's a significant investment.”
“postfix+dovecot+rspamd is enough”
“Absolutely zero maintenance has been required since I set it up”
“Being a full-time email administrator is a job I will never do again”
“I use Postfix and Dovecot”
“it works perfect for boring old and feature complete software”
“he could easily just throw up a postfix+dovecot on some VPS”
“These are all mature solutions that are free of vendor lock-in”
“Basic exim4/dovecot setup.”
“it's pretty much set and forget”
“Dovecot if you want IMAP access”
“standing up SMTPD and Dovecot there is super simple”
“I would recommend a local IMAP server like Dovecot or Stalwart installed as Docker”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.