Open-source alternatives to Mailchimp

Listmonk is a free, open-source Mailchimp alternative for sending newsletters to lists of any size. Mailchimp’s price grows with every contact you add; self-hosted Listmonk has no per-subscriber fee.

2 alternatives Free apps Our pick: listmonk

At a glance

App	Good for	Code	Import from Mailchimp	Ease of use
listmonk	Regular newsletters to large lists at a low cost per email	Code Open source	Import from Mailchimp Yes	Some setup
Ghost	Writers, creators and small publishers who want a blog, newsletter and paid memberships in one place	Code Open source	Import from Mailchimp Yes	Some setup

Why look for an alternative to Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is one of the best-known email marketing services: lists of contacts, email designs, campaigns, automations, landing pages and reports, now owned by Intuit.

Businesses look for an alternative mainly because of price. Mailchimp charges by the number of contacts in your audience, so the bill rises as your list grows, even if you only send a monthly newsletter. Its free plan has tight sending limits, and many features sit on higher plans. A self-hosted newsletter app such as listmonk has no limit on subscribers: you pay for your server and a sending service, usually a small fee per thousand emails.

The alternatives, compared

listmonk

Our pick

Send newsletters to any size of list, without paying per subscriber.

Our pick for sending newsletters and campaigns to a large list cheaply. It handles lists, subscriber import, templates, scheduling and open and click statistics, and stays fast with very large lists. It has fewer ready-made designs and no landing pages or ads.

What you gain

No price per subscriber, however big your list grows
Your contact list stays on your own server
You choose the email sending service and its price

What is different

You set up an email sending service yourself
Fewer ready-made email designs than Mailchimp
No built-in landing pages, ads or customer journeys

Some setup Open source · AGPL-3.0-only

Deploy listmonk About listmonk

Ghost

Publish a blog and paid newsletter on a site that you own.

A better fit if your emails are articles. Ghost publishes each post on your website and emails it to subscribers in one step, and can charge for paid memberships. It is not built for marketing campaigns or automated sequences.

Some setup Open source · MIT

Deploy Ghost About Ghost

Moving from Mailchimp

Export your audience from Mailchimp as a CSV file and import it into listmonk, keeping names, email addresses and any extra fields as attributes; Ghost imports members from a CSV in the same way. Only import people who are still subscribed. You will also need an email sending service such as Amazon SES, Postmark or Mailgun, and you should set up its sender records on your domain before the first big send.

Questions

What is the best open-source alternative to Mailchimp?

Start with listmonk. Both are free and open source.

What does it cost to send email with listmonk?

listmonk is free. You pay your email sending service, which usually charges a small amount per thousand emails, and your hosting.

Do I need my own email server?

No. listmonk and Ghost send through an email sending service you connect, which handles delivery to inboxes.

Is it really free?

Yes, the apps are free. To run them you need Cloudgate and a server. Use hosted Cloudgate, which can also provide the server, or install Cloudgate on a server of your own for free. Cloudgate's plans and prices are at cloudgate.octabyte.io/pricing. One server can run several apps.

Do I need a developer?

No. Cloudgate installs the app on your server and gives it a secure web address. You use it in your browser.