I checked my repo to see which Stalwart version I was running and if I could update, and I was surprised to find that the Arch package has been deleted due to FOSS licensing concerns[1], the most severe of which seems to be that Stalwart can no longer build without proprietary code[2]. Other smaller issues include the fact that the web admin interface isn't included in the source distribution, but is downloaded from GitHub on first run, and _also_ seems to contain proprietary code[3].<p>These issues, which would be showstoppers for a real free software project, and pretty easy to fix if you were the rightsholder of the code, were promised to be fixed "in a few weeks" in September last year, and "in a few months" in January this year, however they're still not fixed, which means I can't upgrade - not that I probably want to anymore. I truly believe in free software, so I find the idea of using "open source" as an empty marketing bullet-point for at least eight months to be fairly distasteful. Might be time to switch to Maddy.<p>[1]: <a href="https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/stalwart-mail-server/-/issues/1" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/st...</a>
[2]: <a href="https://github.com/stalwartlabs/stalwart/issues/783">https://github.com/stalwartlabs/stalwart/issues/783</a>
[3]: <a href="https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/stalwart-mail-server/-/issues/1#note_211407" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/st...</a>
I really like where Stalwart is going, but I am quite hesitant to use it when basically all commits are authored by a single person. What would happen if he abandons the project or disappears?
I applaud the technical achievement, but I fear this is the kind of feature creep that kills projects. There were quite a few open source "groupware" projects that are now close to forgotten because what people really needed was a [email server] that integrated nicely with their existing [files,office,ticketing...], but the "groupware" options were too tightly bundled and hard to integrate.<p>Swap the brackets for any feature and you'll probably find a "suite" that did that thing the best, but ultimately failed because it wasn't the best at everything else too.<p>Nextcloud already has calendar, contacts and especially files covered quite well, but it can't be configured to use external providers for those. Anyone who wants a complete self-hosted solution (everything from federated file shares to web forms, collaborative editing, appointments, tasks...) will definitely want to stick with Nextcloud, so they'll have to turn off all these new features.<p>I just worry that with time, this will become another "all in one" suite that does one or even a few things reeeally well (email), but is too annoying to properly integrate with everything else.<p>Yes, Nextcloud is also in danger of becoming that, but they've done a very good job of moving things into optional extensions and giving you plenty of integration options for plugging in external software. It's very good at being the hub that other things plug into, but you can't have two hubs...
This is interesting because Stalwart has a built-in clustering feature and can use distributed databases as its storage layer, so you get high-availability options out of the box. I've struggled with doing similar HA on Dovecot, never quite being true HA (for the open source version of Dovecot) for a while and never found a good other open source option.
I’ve always found stalwart interesting but have been a bit sceptical due to the main developer being quite anonymous. It seems that there is a company behind it as well "Stalwart Labs" but I cannot find information about it either, no linkedin and no people. I might just be used to openess as in devs not being anonymous though.
What is the reason to pick Stalwart over Nextcloud? Nextcloud also has calendars, contacts, files, and integrated mail client. And a reasonably sized ecosystem of apps.