Subsplash
Subsplash gives church staff notes on every person and every Workflow card.
Comparison · Comms
Grain vs Maddy
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Grain and Maddy — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Grain vs Maddy: at a glance
| Feature | Grain | Maddy |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Comms | Comms |
| Velocity score | 2.5 | 0.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Top themes | meeting-recording, privacy-controls, speaker-identification, mcp-tools | mail-server, self-hosted, golang, security |
| Last editorial update | 2h ago | 1h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
What is Grain?
Grain adds consent controls and rule-based privacy as its meeting data reaches more AI tools.
Grain's October release lets workspaces flag meetings as sensitive by rule and skip auto-sharing them, adds recording consent controls, and brings back a mobile beta. It follows August's Voice Signatures, which label speakers by voice so shared-mic and in-person captures attribute correctly. Earlier in the year Grain shipped an MCP server and a ChatGPT integration.
What is Maddy?
maddy's latest release is a security fix, five months after its last feature work.
maddy is an all-in-one Go mail server for SMTP and IMAP. Its most recent release, 0.9.6 in October, requires explicit trust for PROXY protocol headers and closes an auth misconfiguration that could skip password checks. Before that, the 0.9 line ran from March to May: no-downtime config reload in 0.9.0, an LDAP injection fix, and removal of long-deprecated commands.
Grain vs Maddy: editorial side-by-side
Grain
2.5COMMS
Grain adds consent controls and rule-based privacy as its meeting data reaches more AI tools.
◆ Current state
Grain's October release lets workspaces flag meetings as sensitive by rule and skip auto-sharing them, adds recording consent controls, and brings back a mobile beta. It follows August's Voice Signatures, which label speakers by voice so shared-mic and in-person captures attribute correctly. Earlier in the year Grain shipped an MCP server and a ChatGPT integration.
◆ Where it's heading
Grain spent the first half of 2026 exposing meeting data to AI assistants, and is now adding the governance that wider exposure needs: consent, sensitivity rules and controlled sharing. Release cadence has slowed to roughly one announcement every month or two.
◆ Prediction
Further admin and privacy controls around what AI tools can read are the likely next step; the entries do not show a timeline for the mobile app leaving beta.
Maddy
0.0COMMS
maddy's latest release is a security fix, five months after its last feature work.
◆ Current state
maddy is an all-in-one Go mail server for SMTP and IMAP. Its most recent release, 0.9.6 in October, requires explicit trust for PROXY protocol headers and closes an auth misconfiguration that could skip password checks. Before that, the 0.9 line ran from March to May: no-downtime config reload in 0.9.0, an LDAP injection fix, and removal of long-deprecated commands.
◆ Where it's heading
The project is moving from convenient defaults to safer ones, accepting breaking changes on the way. Older conveniences such as SASL LOGIN, STARTTLS plaintext fallback and the maddyctl symlink have been removed, and 0.9.1 flagged several DNS providers for removal in 0.10.0. Two of the last four releases were security fixes.
◆ Prediction
0.10.0 is scoped by the deprecations announced in 0.9.1: expect the flagged DNS providers to go and gandi to require Bearer tokens. The five-month gap gives no date for it.
Alternatives to Grain and Maddy
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 Grain or Maddy.
Converse.js
Converse.js 14.0.1 fixes OMEMO:2 group decryption broken by Chromium 153.
Element iOS
Element Classic now asks its own users to move to Element X, if their server opts in.
Brosix
Brosix follows its communities launch with a referral push and a private-room how-to.
VerneMQ
VerneMQ follows its year-in-the-making 2.2.0 with a quick round of subscription fixes.
Session
Session survived its funding scare; now Pro is on hold and Protocol v2 is the bet.
Recent activity from Grain and Maddy
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 29d agoGrainWorkspace Libraries, Recording Consent + Mobile Beta
- 1mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.6 fixes PROXY trust and auth bypass misconfig
- 2mo agoGrainVoice Signatures label who spoke, plus better transcription
- 3mo agoGrainGrain in ChatGPT + Smarter Notes and MCP Tools ⚡
- 5mo agoGrainOpt-in meeting notifications, better playlists, and more!
- 5mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.5 fixes nested pipeline logging and systemd reload reporting
- 5mo agoGrainGrain MCP + Bulk AI Actions and API Updates ⚡
- 6mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.4 removes the maddyctl symlink and implicit run command
- 6mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.3 patches an LDAP injection flaw in auth.ldap
- 7mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.2 fixes an rspamd panic on unspecified tls_client
- 7mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.1 flags libdns providers for removal in 0.10.0
- 7mo agoGrainNew Home Page + Improved Zapier Integration
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Grain and Maddy?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Grain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), 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 Grain better than Maddy?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Grain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), 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 Grain?
Top Grain alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Grain alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/grain for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Maddy?
Top Maddy alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Maddy alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/maddy for the full list with editorial commentary on each.