EmailEngine vs inbound
EmailEngine
emailengine.app
inbound
inbound.newSide by side
| Figure | EmailEngine | inbound |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $120.83/mo | $9/mo |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 4 |
| Spec score · Email Parsing Software | 8.6 (#4) | 7.6 (#17) |
| Intended users | The maker describes CRM, SaaS and AI businesses, and teams with data-residency requirements or many mailboxes, as fitting use cases. | Inbound describes itself as an email platform for developers building transactional email, inbound webhook processing, and AI-assisted workflows. |
| Support | The maker says support goes directly to the developer who wrote the code, and its annual subscription includes developer support. | The Default plan includes basic support, and the terms say support availability and response times vary by plan. |
Plans
EmailEngine
- Annual subscription$1,450 a year
- Enterprise perpetual licencePriced on request
In their own words
EmailEngine
EmailEngine is a self-hosted email API that connects Gmail, Microsoft 365, and IMAP mailboxes through a unified REST API. It sends webhooks when mailbox messages or state change, and can send mail through the connected account’s SMTP server or provider API. Native integrations use the Gmail API and Microsoft Graph; authentication options include managed OAuth2, service accounts for Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 app-only access, and shared or delegated mailboxes. An optional MCP server, currently in beta, lets connected AI clients search, read, file, draft, and send email with approved access. The admin interface shows sync status and queue details, with a Prometheus endpoint and Grafana dashboard for operations. EmailEngine runs on the customer’s infrastructure, uses Redis for sync metadata, and fetches message bodies on demand rather than storing them. A server and Redis using the noeviction policy are required. The annual subscription is $1,450 a year, excluding VAT where applicable, and includes developer support; each installation can start a full-functionality 14-day trial without signup or a credit card.