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Comparison · Comms
Maddy vs Stalwart
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Maddy and Stalwart — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:mail-serverself-hosted
Maddy vs Stalwart: at a glance
What is Maddy?
A one-binary mail server learning to behave like production infrastructure.
maddy is an all-in-one SMTP and IMAP server written in Go, aimed at people who want a working mail host without assembling Postfix, Dovecot and a policy daemon themselves. The 0.9 line moved quickly — 0.9.0 through 0.9.5 between late March and late May — with the sequence following a recognisable shape: a feature release, an immediate patch for a broken integration, a security release, then cleanup. Configuration is directive-based, and much of the changelog concerns the behaviour of individual modules like auth.ldap, check.rspamd and check.dnsbl.
What is Stalwart?
Stalwart keeps chasing standards nobody has implemented yet — DKIM2, DMARCbis, now JMAP email push.
Stalwart is a single-binary mail and collaboration server covering JMAP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV and CardDAV. The 0.16.x line ships roughly weekly and its additions cluster in one place: implementing IETF drafts and fresh RFCs ahead of the field, while a long tail of JMAP conformance and MTA edge-case fixes runs underneath. The latest release adds JMAP email delivery push notifications, completing a push stack built across the last three releases.
Maddy vs Stalwart: editorial side-by-side
Maddy
0.0COMMS
A one-binary mail server learning to behave like production infrastructure.
◆ Current state
maddy is an all-in-one SMTP and IMAP server written in Go, aimed at people who want a working mail host without assembling Postfix, Dovecot and a policy daemon themselves. The 0.9 line moved quickly — 0.9.0 through 0.9.5 between late March and late May — with the sequence following a recognisable shape: a feature release, an immediate patch for a broken integration, a security release, then cleanup. Configuration is directive-based, and much of the changelog concerns the behaviour of individual modules like auth.ldap, check.rspamd and check.dnsbl.
◆ Where it's heading
The project is systematically removing the compromises that made early versions convenient. Obsolete SASL LOGIN was disabled by default, the STARTTLS plaintext fallback was dropped, the maddyctl symlink behaviour and the implicit run command were deleted after four years of deprecation warnings, and libdns providers that have not kept up with 1.x are being cut. Running the other way is operational maturity: no-downtime config reload, queue-length metrics, OpenMetrics fixes, systemd readiness reporting, and SLSA build attestations on release artifacts. This is a project moving from hobbyist-friendly to operator-friendly, and accepting breakage to get there.
◆ Prediction
0.10.0 is already scoped by the deprecations announced in 0.9.1 — expect the flagged libdns providers to be removed and gandi to require Bearer tokens. Given the 0.9.x pattern, a feature release followed quickly by an integration fix is the likely shape.
Stalwart
5.0COMMS
Stalwart keeps chasing standards nobody has implemented yet — DKIM2, DMARCbis, now JMAP email push.
◆ Current state
Stalwart is a single-binary mail and collaboration server covering JMAP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV and CardDAV. The 0.16.x line ships roughly weekly and its additions cluster in one place: implementing IETF drafts and fresh RFCs ahead of the field, while a long tail of JMAP conformance and MTA edge-case fixes runs underneath. The latest release adds JMAP email delivery push notifications, completing a push stack built across the last three releases.
◆ Where it's heading
The push story is the clearest arc: Web Push payload and subscription fixes in 0.16.10, VAPID per RFC 9749 in 0.16.14, and the emailpush draft in 0.16.16. Parallel to it, 0.16.12 landed DKIM2 and the DMARCbis trio, and the fix lists keep narrowing toward strict-spec behaviour — DMARC alignment reporting, SMTP line-length limits, BDAT error codes. Stalwart is positioning as the reference implementation of modern mail standards rather than competing on features.
◆ Prediction
Expect the JMAP push work to keep filling in — subscription lifecycle, delivery semantics — alongside continued DKIM2 and DMARCbis refinement as those drafts move. The fix cadence suggests operational hardening around clustering and Redis locking is the other near-term thread.
Alternatives to Maddy 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 Maddy or Stalwart.
diaspora
The original federated social network now ships roughly once every two years.
mailcow
Six releases, and every one of them is a security update in some form.
Element iOS
Renamed Element Classic, this client now ships one small fix every few months
Twilio
Twilio is selling trust: branded calls, scoped keys, and stricter sender vetting.
Notion
Notion is turning Custom Agents into event-driven workers with their own runtime and billing.
See all Maddy alternatives → · See all Stalwart alternatives →
Recent activity from Maddy and Stalwart
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 16h agoStalwartv0.16.16 — JMAP email push, plus Redis lock and SMTP relay fixes
- 7d agoStalwartv0.16.15 — JMAP, MTA, and auth privilege fixes
- 13d agoStalwartv0.16.14 — VAPID Web Push plus push and calendar fixes
- 21d agoStalwartv0.16.13 — FreeBSD support and OAuth/JMAP fixes
- 27d agoStalwartv0.16.12 — DKIM2 and DMARCbis email-authentication support
- 1mo agoStalwartv0.16.11 — S/MIME encryption-at-rest and Redis Sentinel backend
- 2mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.5 fixes nested pipeline logging and systemd reload reporting
- 3mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.4 removes the maddyctl symlink and implicit run command
- 3mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.3 patches an LDAP injection flaw in auth.ldap
- 4mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.2 fixes an rspamd panic on unspecified tls_client
- 4mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.1 flags libdns providers for removal in 0.10.0
- 4mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.0 adds no-downtime configuration reloading ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Maddy and Stalwart?
Both compete on the same themes — mail-server, self-hosted — within Comms. Stalwart 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 Stalwart?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Stalwart is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), 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 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.