Open source Mailchimp alternatives: listmonk, Mautic, Keila and SendPortal

Mailchimp charges by the number of contacts you store, so a list that grows quietly becomes an expensive one. Self-hosted email tools turn that around: the software is free, and you pay a delivery service such as Amazon SES, Postmark or Mailgun a small amount per thousand emails sent. The trade is that you take care of deliverability yourself, which means setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your domain and handling bounces. We checked each license and latest release on November 5, 2026.

Quick comparison

Tool	License	Built with	Automation	Best for
listmonk	AGPL-3.0	Go, single binary, PostgreSQL	Transactional API, basic segmentation	Large newsletters on small servers
Mautic	GPL-3.0	PHP, MySQL or MariaDB	Full marketing automation	Marketing teams replacing Mailchimp and HubSpot
Keila	AGPL-3.0	Elixir	Sign-up forms, segments	Small newsletters that want simplicity
SendPortal	MIT	PHP, Laravel	Campaigns and tracking	Laravel shops and agencies

listmonk: a newsletter engine in one binary

listmonk is a single Go binary backed by PostgreSQL, and it is known for handling lists of millions of subscribers on modest hardware. It has subscriber lists and segmentation with SQL queries, campaign templates with a visual and a code editor, double opt-in, public subscription forms, analytics, multiple SMTP and messaging backends, and a transactional email API. Install it with Docker Compose or download the binary.

listmonk is AGPL-3.0. The latest release on its GitHub page, published on October 20, 2026, is a beta of version 7.0, so check whether 7.0 is final before you upgrade a production list. Choose listmonk when you send a regular newsletter to a big list and want the lowest running cost.

Mautic: full marketing automation

Mautic is the open source answer to Mailchimp’s paid automation features and to tools like HubSpot. Beyond email campaigns, it tracks contacts across your website, scores leads, builds landing pages and forms, and runs multi-step campaigns that branch on what each contact does. It is a community project with a large plugin ecosystem.

Mautic is GPL-3.0 and version 7.2.2 shipped on October 26, 2026. It is the most capable tool here and the most demanding to run: plan for a PHP application, a database, background workers and regular maintenance. Choose it when a marketing team needs real automation, not just newsletters.

Keila: simple newsletters with a friendly editor

Keila focuses on the essentials: a clean campaign editor (including a visual WYSIWYG mode and Markdown), sign-up forms, contacts and segments, and sending through SMTP, Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun or Postmark. For small lists you can even send through your own mailbox. It runs as a Docker image or with the sample Docker Compose file, and a hosted version is available.

Keila is AGPL-3.0 (its logo and the files in its extra directory are excluded), and version 0.40.2 shipped on November 4, 2026. Choose it for a small newsletter where ease of use matters more than automation.

SendPortal: email campaigns in Laravel

SendPortal handles subscribers, lists, campaigns, message tracking and reports across multiple workspaces, and sends through Amazon SES, Postmark, SendGrid, Mailgun or Mailjet. Its core is a Laravel package, so a PHP team can embed it in an existing application. Version 4 requires PHP 8.3 and Laravel 13, and v4.0.0.1 shipped on October 22, 2026. It is MIT licensed.

How to choose

• You send one newsletter to a large list: listmonk.
• You need lead scoring, landing pages and branching campaigns: Mautic.
• You want something simple for a small audience: Keila.
• You build with Laravel and want email inside your own app: SendPortal.

Before you import a list from Mailchimp, warm up your sending domain gradually and remove contacts who have not opened an email in a long time, so your first campaigns do not land in spam. Need forms to grow the list? See our Typeform alternatives. You can browse every project in the directory.