head to head · open source
marketingskills vs mailtrain
marketingskills has 58,064 GitHub stars, 8,533 forks, 154 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. mailtrain has 5,754 stars, 706 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. marketingskills leads on adoption by 909% (58,064 vs 5,754 stars). marketingskills is written in JavaScript under MIT; mailtrain is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. marketingskills has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, mailtrain 12%. marketingskills 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
| marketingskills | mailtrain | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2025-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.5K | ⑂ 706 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick marketingskills if
- You weight community size — 58K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 marketingskills
Marketing Skills for AI Agents A collection of AI agent skills focused on marketing tasks. Built for technical marketers and founders who want AI coding agents to help with conversion optimization, copywriting, SEO, analytics, and growth engineering. Works with Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, and any agent that supports the Agent Skills spec. Built by Corey Haines. Need hands on help? Check out Conversion Factory — Corey's agency for conversion optimization, landing pages, and growth strategy. Want to learn more about marketing? Subscribe to Swipe Files. Want to get dangerously good at using AI for…
read the full marketingskills 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 marketingskills or mailtrain more popular?
marketingskills has 58,064 GitHub stars and mailtrain has 5,754. marketingskills has the larger community by that measure.
Are marketingskills and mailtrain free?
Both are open source. marketingskills is licensed under MIT and mailtrain under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between marketingskills and mailtrain?
marketingskills is written in JavaScript 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, marketingskills or mailtrain?
Choose marketingskills if you want the larger community (58,064 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mailtrain if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.