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Comparison · Comms
Maddy vs VerneMQ
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Maddy and VerneMQ — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Maddy vs VerneMQ: 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 VerneMQ?
VerneMQ follows its year-in-the-making 2.2.0 with a quick round of subscription fixes.
VerneMQ releases infrequently; 2.2.0 on August 9 gathered about a year of cluster and connection work, including a socket-counting fix under rapid reconnects and faster inter-node readiness checks. 2.2.1 on October 16 followed with fixes for stale shared subscriptions after trie restarts, enforcement of non-zero message ids, and new webhook connect options.
Maddy vs VerneMQ: 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.
VerneMQ
2.5COMMS
VerneMQ follows its year-in-the-making 2.2.0 with a quick round of subscription fixes.
◆ Current state
VerneMQ releases infrequently; 2.2.0 on August 9 gathered about a year of cluster and connection work, including a socket-counting fix under rapid reconnects and faster inter-node readiness checks. 2.2.1 on October 16 followed with fixes for stale shared subscriptions after trie restarts, enforcement of non-zero message ids, and new webhook connect options.
◆ Where it's heading
Two months between 2.2.0 and 2.2.1 is quick for this project, which suggests 2.2 is getting active maintenance. The work stays inside the broker: subscriptions, clustering and protocol correctness rather than new features.
◆ Prediction
Further 2.2.x patches are more likely than a new minor; the feed gives no sign of 2.3 work.
Alternatives to Maddy and VerneMQ
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 VerneMQ.
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.
Session
Session survived its funding scare; now Pro is on hold and Protocol v2 is the bet.
See all Maddy alternatives → · See all VerneMQ alternatives →
Recent activity from Maddy and VerneMQ
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 17d agoVerneMQVerneMQ 2.2.1
- 1mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.6 fixes PROXY trust and auth bypass misconfig
- 2mo agoVerneMQSocket-count fix, WS(S) anonymous override, faster cluster readiness
- 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 agoVerneMQTesting candidate later folded into 2.2.0
- 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 agoVerneMQSUBACK error-path fix and routing-table memory reduction
- 1y agoVerneMQSyslog boot fix and an HTTPS config regression from 2.1.0
- 1y agoVerneMQBreaking on-disk metadata format change
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Maddy and VerneMQ?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. VerneMQ 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 Maddy better than VerneMQ?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. VerneMQ 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 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 VerneMQ?
Top VerneMQ alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "VerneMQ alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vernemq for the full list with editorial commentary on each.