Stalwart and other similar projects might be decent to use, but they lack one detail which is a deal-breaker for me: maildir format for storage. It’s really easy to move between installations and even between different servers, easy and efficient to back up, doesn’t require any fancy databases or anything to be in order and it just works. Sure, it might need few megabytes more memory and search times might be couple milliseconds longer but it just works. My personal maildir has been around from at least 2008 and it’s moved around between servers multiple times without any hiccups ever.
I tried stalwart. Could not run reliably on the server I rent. Too slow.
Instead postfix + dovecot just fly and barely used any resources.
Maybe tools like stalwart have use for bigger email servers, but for my use case it’s just massive overkill. Easy to setup tough.
Can you give this a slop disclaimer at least?
Submitter here, this blog is usually written in German so there may be some language issues or automatic translation happening. I’ll agree that I don’t like the writing style, slop or otherwise. The notes on Stalwart seem valuable.
I’ve asked the author and they responded
[my question, translated]
Hi,
just a quick question about the 2nd latest blog-article “Five daemons or one binary” “Postfix and friends against Stalwart, tested side by side”:
[…] and it came into discussion if/in which way it was written/translated using AI/LLMs?[response, german, translated by me]
Hi,yes I use LLMs as support. But I test everything properly/carefully, [and then also(?)] by hand. I only trust the output after tests and when I understand it.
I released the tests for Stalwart today. https://www.behindtheconsole.com/2026/11/11/testing-stalwart-before-trusting-it-with-mail-the-test-catalogue/
Cheers, -mat-.
There’s no way that’s a german accent. There may be some human some ai parts, but that does still call into question if they made sure everything came out correct. Just a human translation from someone not familiar with every detail can already imply something wrong due to slight changes in wording if you are unlucky.
And the main original issue was “if they used ai for the writing, what else did they use it for?”. AI is a sign of low quality, and with lots of 100% slop creations posted on this com I wouldn’t read that sort of thing without someone vouching for the quality of the source (Which I take it you do?).
tldr Because of the ai slopocalypse I just don’t like being hit in the face by ai text from opening a random post.
PS: would a human let this graphical issue slip through?
I noticed that together with the presumed-ai text earlier, but chocked it up to mobile layouting. But it’s the exact same on desktop.
