Compared
MailDock vs Poste.io
A single-container mail server with a free tier and paid editions.
The closest thing on this list to the same bet — a commercial, self-hosted mail server with a console. The differences are in what the console does and in how the licence behaves.
What Poste.io does better
- A free tier that is genuinely usable for a small setup.
- One container, which some people much prefer to a compose stack.
- Years in production, and a long track record.
Where MailDock fits better
- Report ingestion — DMARC and TLS-RPT parsed and shown rather than left to you.
- Migration connectors for the panels and suites people are actually leaving.
- A licence that cannot stop incoming mail: a lapse switches off extras in stages, after a 30-day grace.
- A REST API generated from the server’s own schemas, and a CLI.
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.
| Poste.io | MailDock | |
|---|---|---|
| Where mail lives | Your server | On a machine you rent and control |
| What you pay for | Free tier, then paid editions | One server, per year, whatever the mailbox count inside your tier |
| Packaging | One container | A Compose stack you can read |
| When the licence lapses | Check their terms | Extras off in stages after 30 days; incoming mail never stops |
| API | Available | REST with OpenAPI generated from the server’s schemas |