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Smtp4dev VS Ethereal Email

Compare Smtp4dev VS Ethereal Email and see what are their differences

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Smtp4dev logo Smtp4dev

Smtp4dev is an all-in-one SMTP server designed to develop and test emails in your applications.

Ethereal Email logo Ethereal Email

Ethereal is a fake SMTP service, mostly aimed at Nodemailer users (but not limited to). It's a completely free anti-transactional email service where messages never get delivered.
  • Smtp4dev Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24
  • Ethereal Email Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-21

Smtp4dev features and specs

  • Open Source
    SMTP4dev is open-source, allowing developers to access, modify, and contribute to the code. This promotes community collaboration and transparency.
  • Local Testing
    Provides an easy way to test emails locally without the need to send messages through external servers, which can speed up development and debugging.
  • Cross-Platform
    Compatible with multiple operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux), making it versatile for developers using different environments.
  • Web Interface
    Features a user-friendly web interface for viewing and managing received emails, simplifying the process for users to interact with the tool.
  • No Configuration Needed
    Runs with minimal configuration, enabling easy setup and use for developers who need a quick solution.

Possible disadvantages of Smtp4dev

  • Limited Features
    Lacks advanced email testing features such as spam score analysis or integration with CI/CD pipelines, which could be needed for more comprehensive testing.
  • Not Suitable for Production
    Designed for local testing and is not intended to be used as a production mail server, limiting its use case to development environments only.
  • Security Concerns
    Running an SMTP server locally might pose security risks if not properly managed, especially when testing with real data.
  • Dependency Management
    Since it's a third-party tool, it can require management of dependencies and regular updates to ensure compatibility with existing workflows.

Ethereal Email features and specs

  • Debugging Tool
    Ethereal Email provides a safe environment for developers to test and debug email functionality without sending actual emails to real users.
  • Free Service
    The platform is free to use, making it accessible for developers who need temporary email accounts for testing purposes.
  • SMTP Support
    Ethereal supports Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), allowing developers to test email sending in their applications seamlessly.
  • No Email Sending
    Emails are not actually delivered to real addresses, preventing any accidental sending of test emails to customers or users.
  • Intuitive User Interface
    Ethereal provides a straightforward and easy-to-use interface, which makes setting up and managing test email accounts simple for developers.

Possible disadvantages of Ethereal Email

  • Limited to Testing
    Ethereal is not intended for production use, so it cannot be used to send real emails to end-users.
  • Temporary Accounts
    The email accounts generated are temporary and cannot be used for long-term projects or permanent email storage.
  • Potential for Misunderstanding
    New users might misunderstand the service and assume it sends real emails, which could lead to configuration errors or incorrect use.
  • Not Suitable for High-Volume Testing
    Ethereal might not be suitable for testing scenarios that require a high volume of emails or complex email scenarios.
  • Dependence on Another Tool
    Ethereal is a tool specifically for testing, which means developers also need other services to handle real email delivery in production environments.

Smtp4dev videos

+ Add

Sending Email with SMTP4Dev and MailKit (#210)

More videos:

  • Review - send email to localhost using smtp4dev and view in outlook

Ethereal Email videos

No Ethereal Email videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Smtp4dev and Ethereal Email)

Smtp4dev

Ethereal Email

Email Testing
57 57%
Email Testing
43% 43
Office Suites
49 49%
Office Suites
51% 51
Email
50 50%
Email
50% 50
Tool
100 100%
Tool
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Smtp4dev and Ethereal Email. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ethereal Email should be more popular than Smtp4dev. It has been mentiond 8 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.

Smtp4dev mentions (2)

  • How do you guys write end to end test which will trigger a mailer endpoint?
    Depends on the infrastructre setup, but if you're able to specify smtp server the backend will use you can you something like https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog or https://github.com/rnwood/smtp4dev to catch any sent email, regardless of email address and read it via the respective api. Both mailhog and smtp4dev have decent api documentation. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Make smtp server
    If so you could check out smtp4dev, it gives you a locally hosted client that you can use to intercept any mail send out by your app and displays them in a nice web based gui interface so can see what they look like. Source: almost 3 years ago

Ethereal Email mentions (8)

  • Adding user registration and authentication to your application with open web services
    Email service for sending email verification codes. In this example we will use the fake SMTP service. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to build a Cron Job using Node.js
    Sending periodic emails is an important area of application for cron job. In this section, we will use the Node.js nodemailer and node-cron module to implement sending periodic email functionality. Nodemailer module support test account created with Ethereal Email. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Top External Email Providers for Your Strapi Application
    For Nodemailer to work we will need to provide it with an SMTP service and the auth credentials, let's use Ethereal which is a fake SMTP service. Navigate to - https://ethereal.email and click the button to create an Ethereal account. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    EtherealMail - Ethereal is a fake SMTP service, mainly aimed at Nodemailer and EmailEngine users (but not limited to). It's an entirely free anti-transactional email service where messages never get delivered. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • What’s really going on with mail?
    Since this is node subreddit, I would suggest you use nodemailer. You can create a free account on https://ethereal.email to test with, then when you are ready to go, sign up with whichever transactional mail service you choose (there will likely be a nodemailer extension for it, or it will just print vide SMTP creds to add to nodemailer) and update the config in your app. Source: almost 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Smtp4dev and Ethereal Email, you can also consider the following products

Mailtrap - Email Delivery Platform that delivers just in time.
 Great for businesses and individuals.

MailHog - MailHog is an email testing tool inspired by MailCatcher, but easier to install.

FakeSMTP - FakeSMTP is a Free Fake SMTP Server with GUI for testing emails in applications easily.

Mailosaur - Email Testing for QA & Development Teams.

MailCatcher - MailCatcher runs a super simple SMTP server which catches any message sent to it to display in a...

mailslurp - Email and SMS testing and development platform for software engineers and QA testers

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