Self-hosted webmail for your own domains, with routing rules, a calendar and an AI assistant whose drafts need approval
- Deploy
- One-click
- License
- AGPL-3.0
- GitHub stars
- 4.6k stars
- Last commit
Self-hosted alternatives to Forward Email
Forward Email is an open-source email service for custom domains that forwards mail, hosts IMAP mailboxes and sends mail through SMTP. One listed app does its main job and runs in your own Cloudflare account.
Each answer comes from the app’s README and source code, compared with the features Forward Email describes on its own site.
Forward Email features, app by app
| Feature | Mailflare |
|---|---|
| Forwarding with unlimited aliases and catch-all | Yes |
| Regex-based alias routing | Partly |
| Mailboxes over IMAP and POP3 | Partly |
| Outbound SMTP relay and sending | Partly |
| Calendar and contacts over CalDAV and CardDAV | No |
| REST API and webhooks | Yes |
| Several domains in one dashboard | Yes |
| Open-source code | Yes |
Self-hosted webmail for your own domains, with routing rules, a calendar and an AI assistant whose drafts need approval
- What a Forward Email user would miss
- It has no IMAP, POP3, SMTP relay or CalDAV and CardDAV, and a forward rule has one destination.
- What it adds
- The same install adds a calendar with a public booking page, an AI assistant and a built-in MCP server.
- Yes Forwarding with unlimited aliases and catch-all. Aliases, domain forward rules and a catch-all fallback.
- Partly Regex-based alias routing. Rules match recipient, sender, subject or content, regex is not listed.
- Partly Mailboxes over IMAP and POP3. JMAP for compatible mail apps, no IMAP or POP3.
- Partly Outbound SMTP relay and sending. Send API and sending through Cloudflare, Resend or Amazon SES, no SMTP relay.
- No Calendar and contacts over CalDAV and CardDAV. Calendar and contacts exist in the app, but no CalDAV or CardDAV.
- Yes REST API and webhooks. Scoped API keys, a domain management API and webhooks for message.inbound, message.outbound and message.failed with retries.
- Yes Several domains in one dashboard. Any number of connected domains in one admin area, with a provider chosen for each.
- Yes Open-source code. AGPL-3.0 source on GitHub.
Sources:github.com/hieunc229/mailflare#what-you-can-dogithub.com/hieunc229/mailflare/blob/main/docs/api.mdgithub.com/hieunc229/mailflare/blob/main/src/lib/email/routing.tsgithub.com/hieunc229/mailflare/blob/main/src/lib/email/webhooks.tsworkersnative.directory/api/apps/mailflare