head to head · open source
goaccess vs mailtrain
goaccess has 21,110 GitHub stars, 1,210 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. mailtrain has 5,754 stars, 706 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. goaccess leads on adoption by 267% (21,110 vs 5,754 stars). goaccess is written in C under MIT; mailtrain is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. goaccess has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, mailtrain 12%. goaccess 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
| goaccess | mailtrain | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2025-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 706 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick goaccess if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mailtrain if
- You want the mailtrain feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and mailtrain fits your workflow better
About goaccess
GoAccess ======== What is it? GoAccess is an open source, real time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal on nix systems or directly in your browser. Designed with system administrators, DevOps engineers, and security professionals in mind, it delivers fast, actionable HTTP statistics and visual server reports on the fly. GoAccess parses your web server logs in real time and presents the data directly in the terminal or via a live HTML dashboard, making it easy to monitor traffic, detect anomalies, and troubleshoot issues instantly. More info at: Features GoAccess parses the specified…
read the full goaccess overview →
About mailtrain
Mailtrain v2 Mailtrain is a self hosted newsletter application built on Node.js (v14+) and MySQL (v8+) or MariaDB (v10+). This is version 2 of Mailtrain. It mostly implements all features of v1 and add some more. It is a complete rewrite, so you will have to install it from scratch. If you are upgrading from Mailtrain v1, backup the DB and use it for Mailtrain v2. Mailtrain v2 should be able to upgrade the DB to the new schema. Features Subscriber lists management List segmentation Custom fields Email templates (including MJML based templates) Custom reports Automation (triggered and RSS campaigns) Multiple…
read the full mailtrain overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is goaccess or mailtrain more popular?
goaccess has 21,110 GitHub stars and mailtrain has 5,754. goaccess has the larger community by that measure.
Are goaccess and mailtrain free?
Both are open source. goaccess is licensed under MIT and mailtrain under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between goaccess and mailtrain?
goaccess is written in C and mailtrain in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, goaccess or mailtrain?
Choose goaccess if you want the larger community (21,110 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mailtrain if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.