⚡Stack Radar

Email Servers · Reviewed 27 Oct 2026

poste.io

Self-hosted email server in one Docker container with webmail and administration.

free tier · poste.io ↗

Paid against free › Email Servers › poste.io

poste.io at a glance
12.6KEstimated total trafficModeled monthly visits38Ranking keywordsPublic search sample98/100Technical health15 pages checked0Referring domainsLive backlink summary

Overview

01

Summary

The useful answer before the supporting detail.

poste.io is a self-hosted email server delivered as a single Docker container, combining SMTP, IMAP, POP3, webmail, spam filtering, antivirus, and web administration S1 S28. It is used by individuals and organizations that want to run email on their own infrastructure, avoiding reliance on external hosting panels S28 S58. Its main practical value is a complete, tested mail stack that can be deployed by pointing a hostname, running the container, and opening the web administration S28.

02

Product identity and positioning

Name, category, positioning, audience, and first-party claims.

  • Identity: poste.io is a self-hosted mail server packaged as a single Docker container S28.
  • Core purpose: It solves the problem of running a complete email server without assembling and maintaining separate components S28.
  • Intended users: Individuals and organizations that want email on their own infrastructure, including those migrating from hosting panels S58.
  • Product scope: It is a single product, not a platform, including SMTP, IMAP, POP3, webmail, spam filtering, antivirus, and web administration S1.
  • Positioning: The vendor positions it as a complete, self-contained mail server that is easy to deploy and upgrade S28 S57.
  • Claimed distinction: It claims to be tested as one unit and upgraded by replacing the container, unlike multi-component stacks S28 S57.
03

Use cases and audiences

Who the product serves and the jobs it is designed to handle.

AudiencePractical use case
IndividualsRun a personal email server on their own hardware for full control S28.
OrganizationsDeploy a production mail server with unlimited domains and mailboxes S28.
Hosting providersSeparate email from web hosting to improve IP reputation and upgrade cycles S58.
Migrating usersMove from cPanel, Exchange, or Postfix/Dovecot setups to poste.io S58.

Features

09

Features and capabilities

Core functions and evidence-backed product capabilities.

CapabilityWhat it does
SMTP, IMAP, POP3Provides standard email protocols for sending and receiving mail, with STARTTLS required for client authentication S5.
Webmail (Roundcube)Offers a web-based email client for accessing mailboxes S1.
Spam filtering and antivirusIncludes Spamassassin and ClamAV for protection, with an option to disable ClamAV for low-memory environments S5.
Web administrationProvides a web interface for managing the mail server, domains, and mailboxes S28.
REST APIExposes a REST API for automation, including log retrieval and domain quota management (PRO) S54.
DKIM key managementSupports DKIM signing for email authentication S1.
Elasticsearch integrationCan integrate with Elasticsearch for connection and transaction logs S5 S54.
Sieve filter managementAllows external management of Sieve filters via port 4190 S5.
10

Integrations and ecosystem

Connected products, exports, APIs, and workflow compatibility.

Integration or interfaceTypeWhat it enables
REST APIAPIAllows programmatic management and log retrieval, with a live demo and sample scripts S104 S78.
ElasticsearchIntegrationEnables centralized logging of connection and transaction data S5 S54.
RoundcubeIntegrationProvides a webmail client with passkey plugin support S1 S54.
Sieve filtersExtension frameworkAllows external clients to manage email filtering rules S5 S54.
Let's EncryptIntegrationAutomates SSL certificate issuance and renewal S5 S54.
DockerDeploymentRuns as a container with host network options and data volume separation S5.

Pricing

11

Pricing and plans

Published plans, free access, trials, credits, and pricing limitations.

Plan or offerVerified price and billingIncludedLimits
FREEFree S28Unlimited domains and mailboxes S28; webmail, spam filtering, antivirus S1Personal use only S28; no log viewers or domain admins S78
PRO$349 per year (shown reduced from $549) S28 S78Adds domain admins, log viewers, DMARC reports, diagnostics, outbound spam block, email support S78Not published
PRO+$1239 per year S28 S78Adds account transfer and remote installation, updates and monitoring S78Not published

Competition

12

Competitive landscape

Domains competing for the same organic search demand.

Sampled competitors

CompetitorFirst-page appearancesSampled queriesAverage positionQueries observed
facebook.com515.2postio
yelp.com217postio
tripadvisor.ca111postio
merriam-webster.com111poste
poste.it112poste
trip.com114postio
lapostegroupe.com114poste
laposte.fr115poste
en.wikipedia.org116poste
play.google.com117poste

Website intelligence — Collected evidence

Customers, testimonials, and first-party review claims

No supporting public-page evidence was collected for this category.

Independent review sources discovered

No links to supported independent review platforms were discovered on the collected pages.

13

AI visibility

Measured ChatGPT and Google AI mentions with cited sources.

AI-assistant referral traffic

  • Estimated current generative-AI referral share: 1.5%
MonthSource
—All AI assistants
—All AI assistants

Website intelligence — Collected evidence

Site-stated AI capabilities

No supporting public-page evidence was collected for this category.

These are first-party product claims, not independent measurements of AI-search visibility.

14

Marketing opportunities

Actions calculated directly from the collected evidence.

OpportunityRecommended actionEvidence
Striking-distance keywordMove “poste” from position 5 toward the top three.Volume 4,400 · https://poste.io/
Competitor gapReview the sampled queries where facebook.com appears.5 first-page appearances across postio

Website intelligence — Collected evidence

Website evidence gaps

  • pricing: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.
  • integrations: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.
  • customers: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.
  • reviews: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.
  • identity: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.
  • technical: no usable public page was collected; verify whether the site publishes this evidence.

Trust and proof

15

Customers, proof, and reviews

Published proof, customer signals, and review evidence.

Independent reviews

PlatformPageHow it was foundNote
grabyourdot.comPosteo review (8.5/10) · GrabYourDotGrounded web searchand they ain't about to change for nobody. Real talk, they keep it super simple, asking just €1 a month, which is around $1.10. You ain't getting a custom domain here, ever. So if you're dreaming of yourname@

Customer proof

No named customers, testimonials, or customer case studies were found.

Independent mentions

  • Poste.io – Complete Mail Server / Hacker News — Poste.io – Complete Mail Server / Hacker News Poste.io – Complete Mail Server (poste.io) 392 points by favourable on Feb 22, 2023 / hide / past / favorite / 244 comments ... I feel like this solution is optimizing the wrong problem. The bulk of work with managing a mail server (these days) isn't software setup and admin. On the receiving side, it's all the work dealing with abuse and attacks. On the sending side -- and this is the tough one -- it's getting sites to accept your email. When I fina
  • poste.io vs Mailu - compare differences and reviews? — / poste.io / / Mailu / / --- / --- / --- / / / Project / / / 1 / Mentions / 57 / / 197 / Stars / 7,320 / / 1.5% / Growth / 2.1% / / 3.8 / Activity / 7.6 / / 4 months ago / Latest Commit / 22 days ago / / Shell / Language / Python / / - / License / GNU General Public License v3.0 or later / ... ## poste.io Posts with mentions or reviews of poste.io. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. - Poste.io ~ complete mail server 1 project / /r/linuxadmin
  • App Suggestion: Poste.io · Issue #80 · caprover/one-click-apps — I was trying to get poste.io working, and saw 2 red-flags in their Web UI. ... > This question would be more appropriate for poste.io. > > For Let'sEncrypt, I am unsure how they perform the challenge, but in CapRover system, all apps are behind nginx router, the HTTPS certs are being managed by CapRover. > > For the other IP problem, it's because the request the intercepted by nginx. It's technically a bug in poste.io as they need to account for the routing layer. Not all installations sit witho
  • Support Poste.io Free version — Application Name: Poste.io "SMTP + IMAP + POP3 + Antispam + Antivirus + Web administration + Web email ... on your server in ~5 minutes." Application Site: https://poste.io/ Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/analogic/poste.io/
  • Email servers are notoriously difficult to configure, hence all these solutions ... / Hacker News — Email servers are notoriously difficult to configure, hence all these solutions ranging from tutorials to "everything included" systems. Recent activity on HN about mail servers: Mox, Poste.io from yesterday 1 , Mailinabox, mailcow, ispmail, maddy, stalwart jmap, etc.
  • BUG TSL/SSL Authentication error on poste.io · Issue #231 · caprover/one-click-apps — when trying to connect POP3 or IMAP through the Thunderbird mail client. The issue is it doesn't make a connection behind the Caprover reverse proxy, the SSL certificate doesn ... use them. To do this, edit nginx config for your poste.io app and remove

External links were grounded in one live web search. Search snippets are leads, not independently scraped page content; rejected links remain available in Review evidence.

16

Company, security, and trust

Ownership, policies, security signals, and public trust evidence.

SignalFindingSource
Company and ownershipNot published on the collected pages.—
Contact and supportE-mail: support@poste.iosource
Legal and privacyRefund and Cancellation Policysource
Security and compliance/ 993 / IMAPS - alternative port for IMAP with encryption from the start of the connection /source
Uptime and status pageadd Dovecot service status to server status pagesource

Not found on the collected pages: company and ownership. This only means Scout did not find it on the pages it read; it says nothing about the company itself.

17

Documentation and product updates

Help resources, product guidance, and visible changes over time.

Resource or updateTypeWhat is availableDate or freshness
Getting started – poste.io documentationDocumentationGetting started – documentation for the poste.io self-hosted mail server. (source)Not dated
ChangelogChangelogRelease notes for the poste.io mail server: what changed in each version, newest first. (source)Not dated

Not found in the collected public sources: public roadmap, status page, separate help center or knowledge base.

Technical

18

Technical and delivery signals

Delivery model, platforms, API, data ownership, reliability claims and release activity.

SignalFindingSource
Delivery model (cloud, self-hosted, desktop, browser extension)Self-hosted as a Docker container S28.S28
Platforms and appsRuns on any Docker host; web-based administration and webmail S28 S57.S28 S57
API and extensibility (API, SDK, webhooks, MCP, plugins)Provides a REST API for logs and domain quota, with a live demo S54 S104.S54 S104
Data ownership and exportMail and configuration live on a volume you own, strictly separated from binaries S1.S1
Performance and reliability claimsTested as one unit against real servers before shipping S57.S57
Release activityChangelog shows ongoing updates, including security fixes and feature additions S54.S54
19

Measured infrastructure

Domain, certificate, and hosting signals, measured directly.

SignalFinding
TLS certificateLet's Encrypt, valid, expires 2026-12-03
Security headersCSP, X-Frame-Options
Headers not servedHSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy
Server headernginx/1.29.5
Mail handled bymail.poste.io
Nameserversns5.gransy.com, ns3.gransy.com

Not measurable: wayback: rate limited by archive.org, ladder stopped after 1 probe(s). A gap here means the lookup was unavailable, not that the finding is negative.

20

Technical site audit

A bounded multi-page crawl with page-level issues and URLs.

Scout — Bounded technical crawl

  • Pages crawled: 15 of 15 maximum
  • Technical health: 98/100
  • Critical issues: 0
  • Warnings: 6
  • Notices: 2

Issues

SeverityIssueValueAffected URL
warningPage should have one primary H12https://poste.io/demo
noticeLow visible word count104https://poste.io/demo
warningTitle length should be reviewed9https://poste.io/changelog
noticeMeta description length should be reviewed49https://poste.io/spf
warningDuplicate title in audit sample2https://poste.io/doc
warningDuplicate title in audit sample2https://poste.io/doc/getting-started
warningDuplicate meta description in audit sample2https://poste.io/doc
warningDuplicate meta description in audit sample2https://poste.io/doc/getting-started

Crawled pages

StatusTitleH1sWordsResponseURL
200Poste.io – self-hosted mail server in one Docker container1311761 mshttps://poste.io/
200Features – poste.io mail server1465732 mshttps://poste.io/features
200Pricing – poste.io mail server1362191 mshttps://poste.io/order
200Poste.io demo – complete mail server2104556 mshttps://poste.io/demo
200Getting started – poste.io documentation1719717 mshttps://poste.io/doc
200Getting started – poste.io documentation1719191 mshttps://poste.io/doc/getting-started
200Self-hosted mail server comparison – poste.io1369192 mshttps://poste.io/compare
200Migrate your mail server to poste.io1464202 mshttps://poste.io/migrate
200Changelog15646365 mshttps://poste.io/changelog
200Email server (IP) blacklist check1169189 mshttps://poste.io/dnsbl
200SPF (Sender Policy Framework) checker1164190 mshttps://poste.io/spf
200DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) checker1188200 mshttps://poste.io/dkim
200DMARC online checker1161189 mshttps://poste.io/dmarc
200Legal information – Poste.io1324187 mshttps://poste.io/legal
200Configuring DNS – poste.io documentation1536191 mshttps://poste.io/doc/configuring-dns

This is a bounded Scout crawl. Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse scores are not claimed unless a dedicated performance audit is connected.

21

Search Console and Analytics

First-party search and behavioral data connection state.

Modeled acquisition channels

ChannelEstimated share
direct40.5%
search34.0%
search organic32.5%
search paid1.5%
social6.4%
social organic5.7%
social paid0.7%
referrals10.2%
paid referrals3.0%
mail2.8%
gen ai1.5%
affiliate1.6%
other0.0%

First-party connections

IntegrationStatusData available after connection
Google Search ConsoleNot connectedClicks, impressions, CTR, average position, queries, pages, countries, and devices
Google AnalyticsNot connectedOrganic sessions, engagement, landing pages, conversions, geography, and devices

No first-party Search Console or Analytics numbers are shown until the site owner authorizes the corresponding Google account. Scout traffic model values above are modeled estimates, not private analytics totals.

Limits and method

22

Limitations and open questions

Known constraints and missing evidence from the collected pages.

The collected pages do not mention specific competitors by name except in the comparison page, which lists mailcow, iRedMail, Stalwart, Mail-in-a-Box, and docker-mailserver S57. No limitations or gaps are explicitly stated in the collected evidence. Open questions include the exact resource requirements for production use and the specifics of the managed deployment service.

23

Sources, method, and limitations

Evidence inventory, collection method, provider use, and constraints.

This report is based on 9 of 14 collected pages from poste.io, including the homepage, features, pricing, changelog, documentation, comparison, migration, demo, and legal pages. Static collection completed, while browser rendering rendering was partial. An external proof search was performed but did not yield additional verified customer reviews or ratings. Pricing information was cross-referenced with the authoritative pricing page. Limitations include incomplete coverage of some pages and lack of independent review data.

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