In the field guide

stalw

stalw.art

Stalwart is an open-source mail and collaboration server written in Rust, supporting standard protocols like JMAP, IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV, and WebDAV. It integrates email, calendars, contacts, and shared files with built-in spam and phishing protection, designed for security, scalability, and ease of operation.

The product, beyond the pitch

Editorially reviewed · Sources checked Sep 12, 2026

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A good fit for

Organizations seeking a secure, scalable, and easy-to-operate mail and collaboration server with modern and legacy protocol support.
Teams wanting an all-in-one solution for email, calendars, contacts, and file sharing with integrated spam and phishing protection.

Know the limitations

Requires root access and outgoing HTTPS connectivity for installation on Linux or MacOS.
Temporary administrator password is shown only once at startup and must be retrieved from logs for initial setup.

What you can do

Not confirmed yet.

Features

Supports standard email protocols including JMAP, IMAP, POP3, and SMTP for delivery.
Includes calendars, contacts, and shared files with standard CalDAV, CardDAV, WebDAV, and JMAP equivalents.
Built-in spam and phishing protection using statistical filters, public blocklists, sender reputation, and AI-driven analysis without extra daemons.
Runs as a single node or as a cluster across regions with memory-safe Rust implementation, encrypted mailboxes, automatic TLS, and end-to-end transport security.
SMTP server authenticates senders with DKIM, SPF, DMARC, ARC, queues across cluster, and routes per domain without separate relay tier.

Integrations

Supports authentication via built-in directory, LDAP, Active Directory, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SQL directories.
Full-text search can be internal or delegated to Meilisearch, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, or MySQL/MariaDB.
Cluster coordination can be coordinator-less with peer-to-peer Zenoh or use Apache Kafka, Redpanda, NATS, or Redis.
Automated DNS publishing supports Cloudflare, AWS Route 53, Google Cloud DNS, Azure DNS, DigitalOcean, OVH, Bunny DNS, Porkbun, DNSimple, Spaceship, deSEC, and RFC 2136 dynamic updates.
Built-in spam filtering plus integration with SpamAssassin, RSPAMD, Pyzor, and DNSBL providers via Milter or MTA Hooks.

Platforms & data export

Not confirmed yet.

stalw pricing

No plans recorded yet.

THE COST FOR YOUR TEAM

Go beyond the starting price.

Published plan prices for your team size and usage. Results update as you type. Taxes, currency conversion and unlisted add-ons are excluded, and anything the source did not state is called out rather than guessed.

PeopleBillingCurrencyPrices are shown as published. No exchange rates are applied.Monthly usage per toolApplies to each tool’s own unit. Leave at 0 for subscription cost only.

Known monthly subtotal

$0/month

1 of 1 tools could not be priced with these inputs, so this is not the full cost.

Plan costs based on your requirements
Tool / plan	Monthly	Per year	What this assumes
stalw	No pricing recorded yet. Check the official site, or ask the owner to add it.

A practical workflow

Install by running a script that downloads the latest release, creates a service account, installs the binary, writes a service unit, enables and starts the daemon.
Retrieve the temporary administrator credentials from system logs after first start to access the setup wizard.

Based on the sources below. Editorial review does not imply hands-on product testing.

Alternatives to explore

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What changed

No changes recorded yet

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