Listmonk
Listmonk is a high-performance, open-source, self-hosted newsletter and mailing-list manager for sending and analysing bulk and transactional email at scale. It runs as a single Go binary with a Vue web UI and stores data in PostgreSQL. The project is AGPL v3 licensed and exposes REST-like APIs for automation.
It is aimed at newsletter authors, small engineering teams, and compliance-conscious organisations that need data residency and ownership. Listmonk handles subscriber management and segmentation, high-throughput sending via SMTP relay, campaign analytics (opens, clicks, bounces), automations for sequences and triggered sends, and integrates via webhooks and APIs.
Use Cases
- Personal newsletter with branded templates and segmented subscribers.
- Side project transactional emails like signup confirmations and receipts.
- Family or community announcement lists with controlled opt‑in management.
- Company newsletters and product announcements with campaign analytics.
- Event invites and automated follow‑ups using sequences and autoresponders.
- Integrate ETL or Snowflake exports to drive segmented sends.
Strengths
- High-throughput sender design for large lists and fast send times.
- Full subscriber management: segmentation, bulk edit, import and export.
- Campaign composer and templating for consistent branded emails.
- Analytics: opens, clicks, bounces to monitor deliverability and performance.
- REST-like APIs expose dashboard actions for automation and integration.
- OIDC and multi-user roles enable team access control and SSO.
- Extensible via webhooks and APIs for CRM or ETL connections.
- Self-hosting retains full data control and supports residency requirements.
Limitations
- Requires operational capacity for Postgres, SMTP, backups, and upgrades.
- You must manage deliverability, IP warmup, and sender reputation.
- AGPL v3 copyleft imposes redistribution and modification obligations.
- No upstream hosted SaaS or official SLA; support is community-based.
- Infrastructure costs (SMTP fees, DB, host) and maintenance time.
Final Thoughts
Try it now if you can run Postgres, configure SMTP, and accept AGPL obligations for full data control.
Choose a managed cloud when you lack ops resources or need guaranteed SLA, deliverability handling, and vendor support.