Compared
MailDock vs mailcow
A well-regarded open-source, Docker-based mail server suite.
mailcow is good, and it is free. If you enjoy running your own mail and want to keep full control of every component, use it — we mean that. Pick MailDock if you would rather the deliverability work and the migration were done, and are willing to pay for that.
What mailcow does better
- It is free, and the source is open. That is a real advantage and we cannot answer it.
- A large, active community, and years of people writing up every failure mode.
- You can change anything, because you have all of it.
- No licence, no vendor, nothing to lapse.
Where MailDock fits better
- A company behind the product, and a commercial relationship rather than a volunteer forum.
- Migration connectors for cPanel, Plesk, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, with delta sync after cutover.
- Deliverability as a product rather than as configuration: reports ingested, drift alerted, containment automatic.
- AI features on your own key, and a webmail built with the rest of it.
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.
| mailcow | 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 |
| Support | Community; commercial support available separately | A support channel is not open yet |
| Migration tooling | imapsync, by hand | Connectors with delta sync and a cutover checklist |
| Report ingestion | Publish the records; read the reports yourself | DMARC and TLS reports parsed and shown |
| Source available | Yes | No — commercial licence |