Subsplash
Subsplash gives church staff notes on every person and every Workflow card.
Comparison · Comms
Maddy vs Misskey
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Maddy and Misskey — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:self-hosted
Maddy vs Misskey: at a glance
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.
What is Misskey?
Misskey moves to Sentry v11 and keeps shipping security fixes in its monthly releases.
Misskey, the ActivityPub social server, shipped 2026.10.0 with a security fix and an HTTP Signatures fix, then 2026.10.1, which moves to Sentry SDK v11 and replaces sendDefaultPii with a dataCollection setting. The 2026.10.2 alpha improves how quote posts from Mastodon and other software display and makes the server stop safely on a bad job-queue config.
Maddy vs Misskey: editorial side-by-side
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.
Misskey
5.0COMMS
Misskey moves to Sentry v11 and keeps shipping security fixes in its monthly releases.
◆ Current state
Misskey, the ActivityPub social server, shipped 2026.10.0 with a security fix and an HTTP Signatures fix, then 2026.10.1, which moves to Sentry SDK v11 and replaces sendDefaultPii with a dataCollection setting. The 2026.10.2 alpha improves how quote posts from Mastodon and other software display and makes the server stop safely on a bad job-queue config.
◆ Where it's heading
Each version goes through alpha and beta tags before stable, and security fixes appear in most stable releases since 2026.9.0. Federation polish, such as how other servers' quotes and signatures are handled, is the main user-facing thread.
◆ Prediction
Expect 2026.10.2 stable soon after its alpha, carrying the quote display and deck fixes, with 2026.11 alphas following on the monthly cadence.
Alternatives to Maddy and Misskey
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 Maddy or Misskey.
Grain
Grain adds consent controls and rule-based privacy as its meeting data reaches more AI tools.
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.
See all Maddy alternatives → · See all Misskey alternatives →
Recent activity from Maddy and Misskey
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoMisskey2026.10.2 alpha improves quotes from Mastodon
- 10d agoMisskeyMisskey 2026.10.1 changes requirements and Sentry config
- 13d agoMisskeyMisskey 2026.10.1 alpha.1 pre-release
- 20d agoMisskeyMisskey 2026.10.1 alpha.0 moves to Sentry SDK v11
- 1mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.6 fixes PROXY trust and auth bypass misconfig
- 1mo agoMisskeyMisskey 2026.10.0: security and HTTP Signatures fixes
- 1mo agoMisskey2026.9.2 alpha fixes HTTP Signatures query strings
- 5mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.5 fixes nested pipeline logging and systemd reload reporting
- 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
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Maddy and Misskey?
Both compete on the same themes — self-hosted — within Comms. Misskey is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 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 Maddy better than Misskey?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Misskey is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 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 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.
What are the best alternatives to Misskey?
Top Misskey alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Misskey alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/misskey for the full list with editorial commentary on each.