emailengine VS Textual

When I started with https://emailengine.app, a similar product, I also considered releasing it as a SaaS. But looking at the competition, it seemed too complicated for me (just look at the compliance list for Nylas Email API https://www.nylas.com/security/#compliance ). Will be interesting to see how it works out for you. Good luck!

EmailEngine has all the code public [1], even though it is not open-source but is source-available. Some core parts I even published under the MIT license, like the IMAP client library I built from scratch to serve the special requirements EmailEngine has for IMAP access [2]

My thinking has always been that those who try to hack the license validation stuff and replace the missing build pipeline were never going to be my customers in the first place, so every second I would spend on them is a wasted effort.

[1] https://github.com/postalsys/emailengine

https://github.com/postalsys/emailengine

Seems open-source to me.

Well, I for one, hope that email stays as complicated as described in the post. Otherwise my project that simplifies access to email accounts (https://emailengine.app) would get no traction :D

I'd like to know if anyone here can share some experience using https://emailengine.app in a larger environment, e.g. managing / watching 100-200 email accounts and processing ~50.000-100.000 mails per day?

I had the same issues when I started with https://emailengine.app - just like Ghost, it’s an app written in Nodejs. I tried multiple distribution options at first and finally went with complete self containment. All modules are pre-installed during the publishing step and thus the user never needs to run npm. Or if you download the “compiled” single binary version you don’t even need node as it’s bundled with the binary (I use the pkg module to bundle these executables). So upgrading is just downloading and replacing the old version files with new ones.

The dowside - no sane way to use compiled dependencies, everything has to be vanilla javascript.

Textual's source is on GitHub, and the most recent commit was only 4 months ago, so it appears it's still being worked on.

Textual¹ is open-source but sells the precompiled app. Keka² has the app available for free on GitHub but charges for it on the Mac App Store, to support development.

¹ IRC client for macOS: https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual

² Un/archiver for macOS: https://github.com/aonez/Keka

Textual is often the most recommended IRC client for macOS. You can buy it for $7.99 or you can simply build it from source. Let us look at how to do exactly that.

Textual is a good example of this working IRL for me. Their app is one of the best IMO IRC clients on MacOS, is open source [1] and is also sold on the App store and their site.

1. https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual#original-limechat...

2. https://www.codeux.com/textual

Textual: https://www.codeux.com/textual/

Two quick examples: Keka and Textual[2] are both open-source and you can pay for them on the Mac App Store or by direct payment. The former gives you compiled builds either way, the latter only if you pay.

[1]: https://github.com/aonez/Keka

[2]: https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual