Replace commercial email hosting with a fully self-hosted server you control, including calendar and contacts
Run email, CalDAV, and CardDAV from a single install instead of stitching together separate applications
Set up clustered email infrastructure that scales horizontally across multiple servers
Enable outbound email authentication with DKIM, SPF, and DMARC to ensure your mail is not marked as spam
Requires DNS records (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) and open SMTP/IMAP ports, multi-protocol setup adds configuration complexity.
Stalwart is a self-hosted mail and collaboration server written in Rust. It handles everything needed to run email infrastructure: sending and receiving messages via SMTP, retrieving mail via IMAP or JMAP, managing calendars via CalDAV, managing contacts via CardDAV, and sharing files via WebDAV. All of these functions come from a single application rather than requiring separate software for each role. On the email side, Stalwart includes built-in support for the authentication standards (DKIM, SPF, DMARC, ARC) that help prove emails you send are legitimate and not spam. It has a spam and phishing filter that combines statistical analysis, DNS blocklists, collaborative filtering, and optionally LLM-based message analysis. Features like greylisting, spam traps, and sender reputation tracking are also included. Storage is flexible: the server can keep its data in RocksDB (a fast local key-value store), or connect to PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or external blob storage such as S3-compatible services and Azure. Full-text search works across 17 languages using the built-in engine or optional external services like Elasticsearch or Meilisearch. Security features include encryption at rest using S/MIME or OpenPGP, automatic TLS certificate provisioning, rate limiting, and automatic IP blocking for abusive connections. The use of Rust as the implementation language provides memory safety. The project has undergone an external security audit. For larger deployments, Stalwart supports clustering with peer-to-peer coordination or via Kafka, NATS, or Redis, and can run on Kubernetes or Docker Swarm. Multi-tenancy, disk quotas, and fine-grained sharing controls are also included. It is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.
← stalwartlabs on gitmyhub — every repo by this author, as a profile.
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