MailHog vs smtp4dev
MailHog
github.comsmtp4dev
github.comSide by side
| Figure | MailHog | smtp4dev |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Email Testing Software | 8.0 (#12) | 7.2 (#23) |
| Deployment | MailHog can be run from the command line, as a daemon, in Docker, or on AWS Elastic Beanstalk; the deployment guide also documents a SaltStack formula. | Installation options include winget, Docker/OCI images, a .NET global tool, and GitHub release downloads. |
| License | MailHog is released under the MIT license. | The GitHub repository identifies the project license as BSD-3-Clause. |
| Purpose | MailHog is an email testing tool for developers that accepts application mail over SMTP and lets users view messages in a web UI or retrieve them through a JSON API. | smtp4dev is a fake SMTP server for development and testing, letting developers test email without sending it to real customers. |
Plans
In their own words
MailHog
MailHog is a free email testing tool for developers. Applications send mail to it over SMTP, after which users can inspect messages in a web interface or retrieve them through a JSON API. The interface displays plain text, HTML or source, supports encoded headers and updates in real time. The API can list, retrieve and delete messages, and download complete messages or individual MIME parts. Messages may also be released to real SMTP servers. MailHog supports ESMTP RFC5321, SMTP AUTH and PIPELINING, and includes a Chaos Monkey feature for failure testing. Storage defaults to memory, with MongoDB and Maildir also available. It can run from the command line, as a daemon, in Docker or on AWS Elastic Beanstalk. Its default SMTP and HTTP ports are 1025 and 8025. In-memory storage limits Elastic Beanstalk deployments to one instance; load-balanced deployments require MongoDB-backed storage. MailHog is released under the MIT license.