Compared
MailDock vs Mail-in-a-Box
An opinionated single-box mail server that configures itself.
The easiest way to get one personal mail server working, free, and deliberately not configurable. Pick MailDock when you have outgrown "one box, my way" — several domains, other people’s mailboxes, or a need to change something it does not let you change.
What Mail-in-a-Box does better
- Free, open source, and genuinely simple to stand up.
- It manages DNS for you if you let it, which removes the step people get wrong.
- Opinionated by design, so there is very little to decide.
Where MailDock fits better
- Many domains and many mailboxes as a first-class idea rather than an edge case.
- A console other people can be given access to, with roles.
- Configuration that is versioned, validated before it is applied, and rolled back if a daemon refuses it.
- Migration connectors, and deliverability reporting.
Side by side
Shape, not price. Theirs changes without telling us, and a page quoting it would be wrong the week after — check their site.
| Mail-in-a-Box | MailDock | |
|---|---|---|
| Where mail lives | Your server | On a machine you rent and control |
| What you pay for | Free, open source | One server, per year, whatever the mailbox count inside your tier |
| Configurability | Deliberately minimal | Versioned, validated, roll-back-able |
| Multi-domain | Supported | The premise of the product |
| Roles & delegation | Single administrator | Three admin roles; per-domain delegation is on the roadmap |