head to head · open source
Gitea vs davmail
Gitea has 58,048 GitHub stars, 7,153 forks, 2,455 open issues and last shipped yesterday. davmail has 758 stars, 110 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Gitea leads on adoption by 7,558% (58,048 vs 758 stars). Gitea is written in Go under MIT; davmail is written in Java under GPL-2.0. Gitea has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, davmail 15%. Gitea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Gitea | davmail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 758 |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 110 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Gitea if
- You weight community size — 58K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick davmail if
- You want the davmail feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and davmail fits your workflow better
About Gitea
Gitea is a self hosted, all in one software development service written in Go. It provides Git hosting, code review, issue tracking, project management (kanban), wiki, team collaboration, package registry, and CI/CD capabilities. The project aims to deliver a lightweight, painless alternative to larger platforms by running as a single binary across Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows on multiple architectures.
read the full Gitea overview →
About davmail
DavMail is a Java gateway that connects standard mail, calendar, contact, and directory protocols to Exchange and Office 365. It presents itself to client software through POP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV, and LDAP, while communicating with the target service behind that interface. The project is distributed under GPL 2.0 and is packaged for macOS, Linux, and Windows.
read the full davmail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Gitea or davmail more popular?
Gitea has 58,048 GitHub stars and davmail has 758. Gitea has the larger community by that measure.
Are Gitea and davmail free?
Both are open source. Gitea is licensed under MIT and davmail under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Gitea and davmail?
Gitea is written in Go and davmail in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Gitea or davmail?
Choose Gitea if you want the larger community (58,048 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose davmail if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.