Comparison of email clients
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The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of e-mail client programs. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.
General
Basic general information about the clients: creator/company, license/price etc.
Release history
A brief overview of the release history.
Operating system support
The operating systems on which the clients can run natively (without emulation).
| Microsoft Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citadel | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Eudora | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Lotus Notes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| KMail | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Outlook | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Mulberry | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mutt | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Novell Evolution | No (Port in progress) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera Mail | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook Express | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Pine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | Yes | No (Port in progress) | Yes | No | No |
| Sylpheed | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Bat! | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Zimbra | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
Protocol support
What email and related protocols and standards are supported by each client.
| POP3 | IMAP4 | SMTP | NNTP | SMTP/Auth | LDAP | IMSP | ACAP | Feeds | iCalendar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KMail | Yes | Yes | Yes | No Template:Refun | Yes | ? | ? | ? | No Template:Refun | ? |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | ? | No | Yes | Yes (with extension) |
| Mulberry | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mutt | Yes | Yes | No (uses sendmail) | No (slrn looks alike) | No | Partial (resolve real names through NSS) | ? | ? | No | No |
| Opera | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (feature forthcoming) | ? | ? | Yes | No |
| Pine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| POP3 | IMAP4 | SMTP | NNTP | SMTP Auth | LDAP | IMSP | ACAP | Feeds | iCalendar |
- ^ KDE supports Newsgroups (NNTP) by the use of KNode
- ^ KDE supports feeds by the use of Akregator
- table is missing info on POPS, IMAPS, SMTPS, NNTPS (SSL/TLS) - field values should be changed (Yes/No/Partial) and notes should be added
- table is also missing extra info about authentication (SMTP Auth, POP3 Secure Auth, IMAP Secure Auth) - field values should be changed (Yes/No/Partial) and notes should be added again
- table is also also missing extra info on Web Feeds (RSS 0.90, 1.0, 2.0, ATOM, etc) - field values should be changed (Yes/No/Partial) and notes should be added once more
Features
Information on what features each of the clients support.
| HTML e-mail | UTF-8 support | Newsgroup | Image blocking | Junk filtering | Thread view | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citadel | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes (plugs into SpamAssassin) | No |
| Eudora | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes (Pro only) | Yes |
| FastTrackMail | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lotus Notes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (with Domino server) | Yes Template:Refun |
| KMail | Yes | Yes | No Template:Refun | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mulberry | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Mutt | Partial Template:Refun | Yes | No (slrn looks alike) | Yes (no support for images) | Yes | Yes |
| Novell Evolution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera Mail | Partial Template:Refun | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook Express | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Microsoft Outlook | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pine | Partial Template:Refun | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | Partial Template:Refun | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sylpheed | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Bat! | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zimbra | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTML e-mail | UTF-8 support | Newsgroup | Image blocking | Junk filtering | Thread view |
- ^ HTML handling is read-only (cannot compose HTML e-mails).
- ^ First release 6.0 (September 2003), enhancements introduced in release 7.0 (August 2005)
- ^ KDE supports Newsgroups (NNTP) by the use of KNode
- Newsgroup (NNTP) should be moved over to the previous table to go along with the other Protocols and Standards
Security
This comparison of unpatched known vulnerabilities in latest public version browsers is based on vulnerabilities reports by SecurityFocus. See computer security for more details about the importance of unpatched known flaws.
| Ranking | Client | Number of known vulnerabilities | Oldest known vulnerability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-9 | Eudora | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Lotus Notes | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | KMail | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Mutt | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Novell Evolution | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Opera Mail | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | i.Scribe/InScribe | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Sylpheed | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | The Bat! | 0 | - |
| 10-11 | 1 | January 26, 2005 | |
| 10-11 | Outlook Express | 1 | July 12, 2005 |
| 12 | Mozilla Thunderbird | 2 | February 8, 2006 |
| 13 | Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | 3 | November 4, 2005 |
| 14 | Outlook 2003 | 15 | February 10, 2004 |
| Ranking | Client | Number of known vulnerabilities | Oldest known vulnerability |