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Comparison · Comms
Subsplash vs Maddy
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Subsplash and Maddy — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Subsplash vs Maddy: at a glance
| Feature | Subsplash | Maddy |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Comms | Comms |
| Velocity score | 6.3 | 0.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 1 | 0 |
| Top themes | church-management, workflow-automation, natural-language-query, analytics | mail-server, self-hosted, golang, zero-downtime-reload |
| Last editorial update | 1d ago | 1h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
What is Subsplash?
Subsplash is turning its church dashboard from a record of activity into something that acts.
Subsplash runs a broad church-operations platform — giving, people, events, groups, media and now workflows — and the last quarter has been about layering analysis and automation over that data. Trends AI landed in March as a chart-and-dashboard layer with AI analysis; People Assistant followed in May with natural-language filtering of the congregation; Workflows left beta in July with step-triggered email included for Subsplash One clients. Around those, the window is steady administrative work: group member limits, dashboard registration, an Events Manager role.
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.
Subsplash vs Maddy: editorial side-by-side
Subsplash
6.3COMMS
Subsplash is turning its church dashboard from a record of activity into something that acts.
◆ Current state
Subsplash runs a broad church-operations platform — giving, people, events, groups, media and now workflows — and the last quarter has been about layering analysis and automation over that data. Trends AI landed in March as a chart-and-dashboard layer with AI analysis; People Assistant followed in May with natural-language filtering of the congregation; Workflows left beta in July with step-triggered email included for Subsplash One clients. Around those, the window is steady administrative work: group member limits, dashboard registration, an Events Manager role.
◆ Where it's heading
Two arcs are converging. One makes the data answerable without a spreadsheet or a filter builder; the other makes the platform take action on it, starting with email at a workflow step. Bundling Workflows into Subsplash One instead of pricing it separately says the automation is meant to be table stakes for the top tier and a reason to climb into it — and the AI features carry the same 'talk to your CSM' gate. The administrative releases are the tell that this is a platform serving operators, not enthusiasts.
◆ Prediction
Email is the only action a workflow step can currently take, and Subsplash already owns the church's app and its messaging surfaces — push or SMS from a workflow step is the near-term extension, alongside pointing People Assistant's plain-language filters at who enters a workflow in the first place.
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.
Alternatives to Subsplash 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 Subsplash or Maddy.
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 Subsplash alternatives → · See all Maddy alternatives →
Recent activity from Subsplash and Maddy
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoSubsplashBe notified by email when a Workflow Card is complete
- 15d agoSubsplashIntroducing Group Member Limits + Group Finder Improvements
- 17d agoSubsplashEmail Automations for Workflows ⚡
- 23d agoSubsplashRegister Guests & Waive Payments from Dashboard
- 1mo agoSubsplashMedia and Campaign Data in Trends AI
- 2mo agoMaddymaddy 0.9.5 fixes nested pipeline logging and systemd reload reporting
- 2mo agoSubsplashPeople Assistant: AI-Powered Filtering ⚡
- 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 Subsplash and Maddy?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Subsplash is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 Subsplash better than Maddy?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Subsplash is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 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 Subsplash?
Top Subsplash alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Subsplash alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/subsplash 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.