mailcow
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 4 of 9 mail servers by recommenders
Recommended for making a self-hosted mail server easy to set up in Docker and keep updated with routine upgrades, with documentation praised.
Recommended for making a self-hosted mail server easy to set up in Docker and keep updated with routine upgrades, with documentation praised.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 94%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 2 years
Median of the 5 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 15 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Easy Docker-based setup
“I was aiming to run whole thing on Docker and forget about configuring dozens of config files on Linux host.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “A simple web we own” “MailCow made the technical setup trivial, blowing objection #2 out.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “All I wanted was a custom domain email” “it's quite easy with docker-compose apps like mailcow”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries” Easy upkeep and maintenance
“It's literally just running mailcow update every now and then and that's it.”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “Don't host email yourself – your reminder in 2026” “it now is so much easier to maintain and onboard friends & family”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Don't host email yourself – your reminder in 2026” Often named as top option
“the fastest reliable way to get up and running is mail-in-a-box or mailcow”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users” “use something like Zimbra, Mailcow, iRedMail, mail-in-a-box”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “DMARC Has Been Public Since 2012. 68.4% of Domains Still Don't Enforce It” “I'd recommend mailcow for regular usage”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Self-host your mail server”
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 |
| Dovecot | 18 | 1 | 95% | 11 | 15 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| mailcowThis page | 15 | 1 | 94% | 7 | 2 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| qmail | 15 | 5 | 75% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
14 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“MailCow made the technical setup trivial, blowing objection #2 out.”
“redis saves data every 5 minutes”
“use something like Zimbra, Mailcow, iRedMail, mail-in-a-box”
“I'd recommend mailcow for regular usage”
“the fastest reliable way to get up and running is mail-in-a-box or mailcow”
“you can run mailcow/mailu with all the options on a relatively modest vps”
“mailu/mailcow is a good example... you don't necessarily want to comingle email on the same server as other services.”
“good setup & nice documentation”
“I think mailcow does as well.”
“It's literally just running mailcow update every now and then and that's it.”
“I was aiming to run whole thing on Docker and forget about configuring dozens of config files on Linux host.”
“it now is so much easier to maintain and onboard friends & family”
“Highly successful even, I would say.”
“it's quite easy with docker-compose apps like mailcow”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.