Mox email server
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 6 of 9 mail servers by recommenders
Free self-hosted mail server that people recommend for personal and small-team email, since its installer guides setup, signs mail by default and checks the configuration.
Free self-hosted mail server that people recommend for personal and small-team email, since its installer guides setup, signs mail by default and checks the configuration.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 93%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 14 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Guides you through setup and checks
“It formats mail flawlessly, signs as necessary by default, sets up every detail and checks that it's correct during installation”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “How to Host Your Own Email Server” “systems like Mox mailserver or stalwart guide you through it”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users” “Mox mailserver tells you exactly what to do.”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Migrating to the EU” - Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “How to Host Your Own Email Server”
Easy self-hosting without vendor lock-in
“something you can run on a small VPS for personal or small-team use without vendor lock-in”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Self-hosted email server for 2026 – single binary, CalDAV” “I encourage everyone who likes tech and freedom to host their own email.”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “Self-host your mail server” “VPS + self hosting of services like xmox for email/transactional email”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “The bootstrapper's EU stack for under €10 per month” - Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Self hosted email continues to steeply decline”
Single binary that runs on small hardware
“pretty good single binary mail solution for personal email hosting”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Serving a Website on a Raspberry Pi Zero Running in RAM” “I run mine on a Pi4 no problem whatsoever”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Google suspended my company's Google cloud account for the third time”
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 |
| qmail | 15 | 5 | 75% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Mox email serverThis page | 14 | 1 | 93% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've been working on something similar at Mox”
“makes it so much easier to build an e-mailsystem on your server”
“I encourage everyone who likes tech and freedom to host their own email.”
“It formats mail flawlessly, signs as necessary by default, sets up every detail and checks that it's correct during installation”
“install Mox and do as the installer says”
“VPS + self hosting of services like xmox for email/transactional email”
“Mox is great but I think it's still alpha”
“systems like Mox mailserver or stalwart guide you through it”
“pretty good single binary mail solution for personal email hosting”
“she set it up and Gmail doesn't block her either”
“Mox mailserver tells you exactly what to do.”
“it also defaults to not loading HTML in emails, which i love”
“maybe Mox (mocking library) and Faker”
“if you need something battle-tested right now, those are solid choices”
“something you can run on a small VPS for personal or small-team use without vendor lock-in”
“The author built everything from scratch and does a lot of great work when it comes to unifying everything.”
“I run mine on a Pi4 no problem whatsoever”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.