head to head · open source
BillionMail vs Mautic
BillionMail has 15,611 GitHub stars, 1,702 forks, 239 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Mautic has 10,525 stars, 3,448 forks, 193 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BillionMail leads on adoption by 48% (15,611 vs 10,525 stars). BillionMail is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Mautic is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. BillionMail has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Mautic 33%. Mautic was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (email-marketing), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| BillionMail | Mautic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 11K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-06-11 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BillionMail if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Mautic if
- You want the Mautic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Mautic fits your workflow better
About BillionMail
BillionMail is an open source mail server, newsletter, and email marketing platform that runs entirely on infrastructure the operator controls. It is written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license, and it lives in the self hosted email and marketing ecosystem alongside the mail transfer and delivery components it bundles, including Postfix, Dovecot, and Rspamd. The project ships as a complete stack rather than a single binary, combining a sending server, a campaign manager, and a webmail client so that one deployment covers transactional mail, promotional campaigns, and newsletters.
read the full BillionMail overview →
About Mautic
Mautic is open source marketing automation software written in PHP. It lives in the PHP open source marketing automation ecosystem and positions itself as an alternative to Mailchimp and SendGrid. It targets businesses and organizations that need campaign delivery, audience segmentation, email marketing, multi channel messaging, and direct control over marketing data.
read the full Mautic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BillionMail or Mautic more popular?
BillionMail has 15,611 GitHub stars and Mautic has 10,525. BillionMail has the larger community by that measure.
Are BillionMail and Mautic free?
Both are open source. BillionMail is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Mautic has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between BillionMail and Mautic?
BillionMail is written in Go and Mautic in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BillionMail or Mautic?
Choose BillionMail if you want the larger community (15,611 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Mautic if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.