MLM Bestiary

Problem: Since around 2018, Mailman 2.1.x is (nearly?) EOL because Python 2.7 is EOL. And Mailman 3 is a monstrous (Django-based) example of Second System Effect. So, a list of (alternative) migration targets from Mailman 2.1.x is in order.

This bestiary will include only self-hosted, open source mailing list managers (MLMs), i.e., functional equivalents to Mailman 2.1.x. Other such bestiaries, such as the one at alternativeto.net and many others, are worse than useless, as they focus on SaaS (hosted) services, CMS plug-ins, behavioural marketing and sales-enablement/campaign mail software, proprietary MLMs, and sundry sorts of non-MLMs.

This page will not address the related, complicated, but separate task of choosing, configuring, and operating an SMTP server, referred to in the jargon as Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) software. However, other entries in the Linuxmafia.com Knowledgebase Mail category do so.

• Dada Mail (formerly named Mojo Mail) w/Dada Bridge
  Requires Perl 5.10.1 or later.
  No longer at: mojo.skazat.com
  Inspired by Majordomo. Works with multiple SQL back-ends (and requires one).
• Discourse
  Despite Discourse being Web-forum software, and moreover a grotesque Ruby on Rails thing back-ended into PostgreSQL. See more at analysis piece
• ezmlm-idx
  Like its ezmlm ancestor, has no integral Web functionality, but ezmlm-web extension provides Web administration for admins and subscribers. ezmlm-cgi provides a Web interface for browsing ezmlm-idx archives. Alternative Web interfaces: ezmlm-browse, ezmlm-www, EZMLM-PHPWeb.
• GroupServer
• listmonk
  newsletter and mailing list manager in a single binary. Back-ends into PostgreSQL. Works on Node.js and Golang.
• mlmmj
• mailcast
  Pretty advanced MLM and newsletter distribution tool, and I'm not clear on how useful it is for regular MLM use-cases as opposed to "marketing campaigns", but it seems to merit scrutiny. Runs on Node.js, and somehow uses both the Redis and MongoDB databases.
• nanolist
  lightweight mailing list manager written in Golang. No Web interface, but you can add an external Web archiver. Subscriber rosters are stored in sqlite3. Requires adding pipe handlers to /etc/aliases, which is very questionable security and generally deprecated, these days, for that reason.
• phpList
  Major bummers: It's written in PHP and back-ended into MySQL. I'm also only tentatively assuming it's usable as a regular MLM, given its Web site's stress on "newsletter and email marketing software".
• SourceHut
  Drew DeVault's suite of open source tools for software development that includes integral mailing list functionality.
  (example ML)
  (installation)
• Sympa
• tinylist
  lightweight mailing list manager written in Golang. No Web interface, but you can add an external Web archiver. Subscriber rosters are stored in sqlite3. Requires adding pipe handlers to /etc/aliases, which is very questionable security and generally deprecated, these days, for that reason.

NOT possibilities (but sometimes urged):

• majordomo/majorcool
  Proprietary. Also, it's written in crufty Perl4. Also, was EOLed in 2000.
• majordomo2 was never finished, no nightlies since 2016. But at least it works with Perl5.
• LISTSERV from L-Soft
  Proprietary (no commercial usage, other restrictions).
• ListProc
  Respectable Perl-based majordomo competitor in its day, but its day ended in 1999.
• Minimalist
  has a weird non-standard licence, among other problems.
• Organic Groups Mailing List / OG Mailinglist
  It's a Drupal plug-in, coded in (ugh!) PHP.
• Mailtrain
  Less an MLM than a "self-hosted newsletter application built on Node.js (v14+) and MySQL (v8+) or MariaDB (v10+)." Worthy of respect, though. Basically in the same space as Mailgun, Sendgrid, Sparkpost, et alii.
• Lyris ListManager
  Proprietary. Also, whenever it was that Aurea Email Marketing acquired Lyris Technologies, it appears they killed ListManager, which is of course one of the risks of buying into proprietary software.
• Gaggle Mail
  Both hosted and proprietary.

HTML Archivers:

At the time Mailman displaced Majordomo (circa 1997), Mailman was innovative in having an integral Web interface and an integral HTML archiver (pipermail). However, even in Majordomo days, it was rare but possible to retrofit such functionality using external programs, and those persist. It's possible that a best-of-breed, self-hosted, open-source successor to Mailman 2.1.x will be a Majordomo-like MLM that has no Web functionality, combined with an a la carte suite of Web extensions. So, below is a list of known Web archivers, that might be useful for such deployments:

• mHonArc
• Hypermail (not to be confused with the integrated Mailman2 archiver of the same name)
• Lurker
• mailarchive
• Librelist: not software but rather a mailing list site for open source projects that includes archiving
• Piler

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Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com