Help Scout
Help Scout keeps adding channels — now a portal customers sign into
Comparison · Comms
Element vs Stalwart
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Element and Stalwart — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Element vs Stalwart: at a glance
What is Element?
Element is going all-in on Europe's sovereign-comms thesis, with both customers and rhetoric to back it.
Element has narrowed its public posture almost entirely to one buyer: European governments and regulated organisations that want a Matrix-based, self-hostable alternative to US consumer messengers. The last two months blend concrete shipping work — Spaces on Element X, an ESS Community migration tool, MatrixRTC progress — with a steady drumbeat of policy commentary on CRA, the Digital Omnibus, and Signal/WhatsApp targeting incidents. The Meedio deal anchors the strategy with a real customer building a sovereign comms platform on ESS Pro.
What is Stalwart?
Stalwart is shipping email's next-generation auth stack while the specs are still in draft.
Stalwart is an all-in-one mail and collaboration server — SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV and WebDAV in one binary — releasing every one to two weeks on the 0.16.x line. The last two months read as a standards campaign: DKIM2 and the full DMARCbis set in 0.16.12, VAPID push in 0.16.14, FreeBSD support in 0.16.13, and a run of IMAP extensions (UIDONLY, UIDBATCHES, MESSAGELIMIT/SAVELIMIT) in 0.16.17. Between the additions, most of each release is JMAP conformance repair driven by the jmap-test-suite.
Element vs Stalwart: editorial side-by-side
Element
0.8COMMS
Element is going all-in on Europe's sovereign-comms thesis, with both customers and rhetoric to back it.
◆ Current state
Element has narrowed its public posture almost entirely to one buyer: European governments and regulated organisations that want a Matrix-based, self-hostable alternative to US consumer messengers. The last two months blend concrete shipping work — Spaces on Element X, an ESS Community migration tool, MatrixRTC progress — with a steady drumbeat of policy commentary on CRA, the Digital Omnibus, and Signal/WhatsApp targeting incidents. The Meedio deal anchors the strategy with a real customer building a sovereign comms platform on ESS Pro.
◆ Where it's heading
Product work and policy work are now reinforcing each other rather than running in parallel: every shipped feature is framed as evidence that decentralised, federated comms can meet government-grade requirements. The migration tooling and Spaces in Element X point at a concerted push to make ESS deployable enough that procurement teams will sign. Expect Element's editorial output to keep using competitor security incidents to harden the case for Matrix in regulated markets.
◆ Prediction
Look for another EU-government deployment announcement within a quarter, alongside continued Element X feature work aimed at making the client feel competitive with WhatsApp for everyday users — Spaces was the precondition, threads and call quality are the obvious next slabs.
Stalwart
5.0COMMS
Stalwart is shipping email's next-generation auth stack while the specs are still in draft.
◆ Current state
Stalwart is an all-in-one mail and collaboration server — SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV and WebDAV in one binary — releasing every one to two weeks on the 0.16.x line. The last two months read as a standards campaign: DKIM2 and the full DMARCbis set in 0.16.12, VAPID push in 0.16.14, FreeBSD support in 0.16.13, and a run of IMAP extensions (UIDONLY, UIDBATCHES, MESSAGELIMIT/SAVELIMIT) in 0.16.17. Between the additions, most of each release is JMAP conformance repair driven by the jmap-test-suite.
◆ Where it's heading
The project is building toward being the reference implementation of the modern mail stack — JMAP first, with the classic protocols held at parity rather than left behind. The fix lists have shifted in character over these eight releases: less "feature does not work", more "spec detail is wrong", which is what a codebase looks like as it converges on conformance. Security and multi-tenancy fixes keep appearing alongside the protocol work, indicating real deployments are exercising the newer subsystems.
◆ Prediction
The next releases most likely track revisions to the drafts already implemented — DKIM2, JMAP push and the calendar drafts are all still moving — rather than adding another protocol surface. Expect continued JMAP conformance fixes until the test suite stops producing them.
Alternatives to Element and Stalwart
Other Comms products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Element or Stalwart.
Synapse
Synapse alternates release candidates with security patches on a tight two-week cycle
Canary Mail
Canary Mail ships maintenance across four platform lines; features have gone quiet since April.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is closing the gaps that used to require a support ticket
Beeper
Beeper stopped aggregating apps and started merging the people inside them.
Respond.io
respond.io is monetizing AI usage directly while putting an assistant that builds agents in every workspace.
See all Element alternatives → · See all Stalwart alternatives →
Recent activity from Element and Stalwart
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoStalwartIMAP gains UIDONLY, UIDBATCHES and message-limit extensions
- 9d agoStalwartJMAP delivery push arrives; strict relays stop rejecting calendar mail
- 15d agoStalwartFix-only release: JMAP semantics and a credential escalation
- 22d agoStalwartVAPID lands for JMAP Web Push
- 1mo agoStalwartFreeBSD support, plus OAuth scopes for IMAP, SMTP and Sieve
- 1mo agoStalwartDKIM2 and the full DMARCbis suite ship in one release ⚡
- 3mo agoElementDigital sovereignty is built on an open standard that enables federation
- 4mo agoElementESS Community migration tool ships first version
- 4mo agoElementSpaces has landed on Element X!
- 4mo agoElementMeedio partners with Element to deliver sovereign communications across Europe ⚡
- 4mo agoElementGovernments need to adopt Matrix responsibly
- 5mo agoElementThe Cyber Resilience Act: Implications for open source and digital products
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Element and Stalwart?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Stalwart is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Element better than Stalwart?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Stalwart is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Comms products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Element?
Top Element alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Element alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/element for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Stalwart?
Top Stalwart alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Stalwart alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/stalwart for the full list with editorial commentary on each.