Ethereal Email vs Mailpit
Ethereal Email
ethereal.email
Mailpit
mailpit.axllent.orgSide by side
| Figure | Ethereal Email | Mailpit |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Email Testing Software | 7.9 (#13) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Purpose | Ethereal is a free email-catching service for testing outbound email; it stores messages for review and never delivers them. | Mailpit is an open-source utility for testing emails and SMTP delivery, with a local SMTP server, web interface, and integration-testing API. |
| Support | The FAQ directs users to the help page, Nodemailer documentation, or [email protected] for assistance. | The troubleshooting guide invites users to raise an issue after checking existing issues first. |
Plans
In their own words
Ethereal Email
Ethereal Email has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Mailpit
Mailpit is a free, open-source tool for checking email content and SMTP delivery without sending messages to real addresses. It runs a local SMTP server alongside a web interface and REST API, and is available for Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, and self-hosted deployment. The interface displays formatted HTML, source, text, headers, raw messages, and MIME attachments with image thumbnails. Checks include HTML and link testing, message screenshots, and optional SpamAssassin scoring. The API can access, search, send, delete, tag, and release messages; messages can also be relayed, forwarded, or used to trigger configurable SMTP errors. Mailpit can send message-summary webhooks and offers a Cypress package for integration tests. The web UI and API can use HTTPS and basic authentication; SMTP supports optional authentication and TLS. By default, SMTP listens on port 1025 without encryption or authentication. Mailpit keeps the most recent 500 messages by default.