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Mail-in-a-box VS Nginx Proxy Manager

Compare Mail-in-a-box VS Nginx Proxy Manager and see what are their differences

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Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Mail-in-a-box logo Mail-in-a-box

Mail-in-a-Box provides webmail and an IMAP/SMTP server for use with mobile devices and desktop mail software and also includes contacts and calendar synchronization.

Nginx Proxy Manager logo Nginx Proxy Manager

Docker container and built in Web Application for managing Nginx proxy hosts with a simple, powerful interface, providing free SSL support via Let's Encrypt
  • Mail-in-a-box Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-21
  • Nginx Proxy Manager Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-06-17

Mail-in-a-box features and specs

  • Ease of Setup
    Mail-in-a-Box provides a simplified setup process with comprehensive documentation, making it accessible even for users with limited technical knowledge.
  • Full Control
    Running your own mail server gives you full control over your email, including data privacy, security, and customization options.
  • Cost-effective
    By using Mail-in-a-Box, you can avoid subscription fees associated with commercial email services, reducing long-term costs.
  • Open Source
    Mail-in-a-Box is open-source software, which means you can audit the code, contribute to the project, and ensure there are no backdoors.
  • Additional Features
    Mail-in-a-Box offers more than just email; it can also set up DNS, backups, spam filtering, and other useful features.

Possible disadvantages of Mail-in-a-box

  • Maintenance
    Running your own mail server requires ongoing maintenance, including software updates, hardware monitoring, and troubleshooting.
  • Security Risks
    Improperly configured mail servers can be susceptible to security vulnerabilities, such as hacking, spam, and data breaches.
  • Technical Knowledge
    Although the setup process is simplified, users still need a basic understanding of Linux systems, DNS, and email protocols.
  • Reliability
    Your email availability is dependent on the reliability of your server hardware and network connection, which may not match the uptime of commercial mail providers.
  • Scalability
    Mail-in-a-Box may not be suitable for very large organizations or high-volume email needs, as it is designed for small to medium-sized deployments.

Nginx Proxy Manager features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Nginx Proxy Manager comes with an intuitive, easy-to-use graphical interface that simplifies the setup and management of proxies.
  • Free and Open Source
    It is free to use and is open-source software, allowing for community contributions and customizable features.
  • SSL Certificate Management
    The platform allows for straightforward management of SSL certificates, including automatic renewal with Let's Encrypt.
  • Docker Integration
    Nginx Proxy Manager is available as a Docker container, making it easy to integrate into various environments and simplifying deployment.
  • Multi-Host Support
    Easily configure multiple hosts and services through the management interface, which is useful for managing a large number of services.
  • Access Control
    It provides customizable access lists and HTTP Basic Authentication to secure your services.

Possible disadvantages of Nginx Proxy Manager

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While suitable for most basic proxy needs, Nginx Proxy Manager lacks some advanced features and customizability that power users might require.
  • Performance Overhead
    Running the platform through Docker can introduce a minor performance overhead compared to a native Nginx setup.
  • Community Support
    Community-driven support might not be as robust or timely as professional, enterprise-level support services.
  • Dependency on Docker
    Requires Docker to run, which may not be ideal for all environments or fit into existing infrastructure without adjustments.
  • Resource Consumption
    Running the web interface alongside Nginx can incrementally increase resource consumption, especially in resource-constrained environments.

Analysis of Mail-in-a-box

Overall verdict

  • Mail-in-a-Box is a solid choice for individuals and small organizations looking to run their own email server with minimal hassle. However, it may not have the same level of advanced features or customization options found in more complex solutions, which can be a limitation for demanding or large scale use cases.

Why this product is good

  • Mail-in-a-Box (Mail-in-a-Box) is often lauded for its simplicity and comprehensive documentation, which make setting up a personal mail server accessible even for those with minimal technical expertise. It provides a full suite of email features such as IMAP, SMTP, spam filtering, and webmail access without requiring in-depth server management knowledge.

Recommended for

    Mail-in-a-Box is recommended for privacy-conscious individuals, small businesses, and hobbyists looking to maintain control over their own email server without the need for extensive technical resources or a steep learning curve.

Mail-in-a-box videos

+ Add

Setup and Install your Email server easily with this Free, Open Source Option - Mail-In-A-Box.

More videos:

  • Review - Mail-in-a-Box Setup Guide (v0.16 - January 2016)
  • Review - Setting up your own mail server with Mail-In-A-Box

Nginx Proxy Manager videos

+ Add

Nginx Proxy Manager Overview/Review

More videos:

  • Review - Nginx Proxy Manager - How-To Installation and Configuration
  • Review - NginX Proxy Manager is a free, open source, GUI for the NginX Reverse Proxy making it easy to use.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Mail-in-a-box and Nginx Proxy Manager)

Mail-in-a-box

Nginx Proxy Manager

Email
100 100%
Email
0% 0
Load Balancers
0 0%
Load Balancers
100% 100
Self-hosted Email
100 100%
Self-hosted Email
0% 0
Web Servers
0 0%
Web Servers
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Mail-in-a-box and Nginx Proxy Manager

Mail-in-a-box Reviews

15 Best Email Hosting for Small Business (2019)
Mail-in-a-Box is an open source software bundle that make it easy to turn a cloud server into your own email server for multiple domains.
Source: blog.runcloud.io

Nginx Proxy Manager Reviews

We have no reviews of Nginx Proxy Manager yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Nginx Proxy Manager should be more popular than Mail-in-a-box. It has been mentiond 293 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Mail-in-a-box mentions (122)

  • Mox – modern, secure, all-in-one email server
    - You have to search for old emails through RoundCube's byzantine UI (and eventually giving up) [1] https://mailinabox.email/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Purelymail: Cheap Email for Everyone
    I looked into Purelymail when searching around for good email solution. Google Workspace was getting a bit costly and there were too many things I did not need. Zoho Mail provides another option - $1.95 per month I think for my use where I am (AU) and has all the features I need for my small indie business. One other option I tried was to actually run mail myself with Linode VPS - https://mailinabox.email/ I know... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Purelymail: Cheap Email for Everyone
    I installed Mailinabox [1] four years ago. There was one annoying upgrade, whose process needs to improved, but outside of that haven't touched anything. Only a couple of random domains where email delivery has failed. Otherwise, it just works for all the big providers. [1] https://mailinabox.email/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Purelymail: Cheap Email for Everyone
    Very honest Landing Page. If anyone is interested in self hosting their own emails, I have found mailinabox to be a useful start: https://mailinabox.email/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Tmpmail: Temporary email right from your terminal written in POSIX sh
    Sorry for the late reply. I've heard good things about Mail-in-a-Box[0], but haven't used it myself (although I have/do use(d) a bunch of the servers/tools amalgamated into the product). The setup guide[1][2] also gives a good overview of implementation requirements. Have fun! [0] https://mailinabox.email/ [1] https://mailinabox.email/guide.html [2] Annoyingly, the setup guide wants to you 'curl setup.sh | bash'.... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
View more

Nginx Proxy Manager mentions (293)

  • Adventures in Homelabbing: From Cloud Obsession to Self-Hosted Shenanigans
    I began to self-host a Minecraft server using Crafty Controller, an Excalidraw instance, Docmost to replace Notion, Plane to replace Jira, and Penpot to replace Figma. To be able to access them from the internet, I used Nginx Proxy Manager to set up reverse proxies with SSL. You can use Traefik or Caddy instead, but I enjoyed the ease-of-use of NPM. For a dashboard solution, I started with Homarr, but later... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Pihole v6
    Pi-hole is a killer application and I've loved it since I got it setup. One other app I highly recommend to run on your Pi in addition to Pi-hole is Nginx Proxy Manager[1]. [1]: https://nginxproxymanager.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • A story on home server security
    If anyone is looking for one, https://nginxproxymanager.com/ Been using it for years and it’s been solid. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Blackcandy: Self hosted music streaming server
    Most people will use nginx-proxy [0] or Traefik [1] for front ending home labs with LetsEncrypt certs... Beyond that people will protect them with things like Tailscale [2], Cloudflare Tunnels [3] or even just mTLS [4] for protected access. Home labbing today has a lot of amazing software and it's hard to keep up! And as for dashboarding [5] on top of all this there are a lot of options. [0]... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Can I put multiple services on one web domain using subdomains?
    Take a look at NginxProxyManager. This would give you the opportunity to put everything in the form of service1.domain.com , service2.domain.com ,etc. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Mail-in-a-box and Nginx Proxy Manager, you can also consider the following products

mailcow - An open source mailserver suite.

Traefik - Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy

iRedMail - A fully fledged, free email server solution, an open source project (GPL v2).

Caddy - The HTTP/2 Web Server with Automatic HTTPS

Modoboa - Modoboa is a mail hosting and management platform including a modern and simplified Web User Interface.

nginx - A high performance free open source web server powering busiest sites on the Internet.

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