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Home/Categories/Communication & Collaboration/Galae Email
icon of Galae Email

Galae Email

Open source alternative to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Zoho Mail

Galae is a self-hosted email server stack forked from Mailcow, tuned for high deliverability and production-ready Docker deployments. GPL-3.0 licensed.

6 stars
JavaScript
GPL-3.0
Active recently
Visit websiteGitHub repo
image of Galae Email
Contents
  1. 01Who Galae Email is for
  2. 02The problem it solves
  3. 03How it solves it
  4. 04Strengths and trade-offs
  5. 05Tech stack
  6. 06FAQ
  7. 07Similar open-source tools
TL;DR

Galae Email is a GPL-3.0 Mailcow fork maintained by Algoo for production email hosting needs. It focuses on Mailcow customizations required by the Galae service, including changes intended for a more scalable stack.GPL-3.0 · JavaScript · 6 stars · Active recently

who it's for

Who Galae Email is for#

Email operators needing Mailcow changes

Galae fits teams that like Mailcow but need specific production customizations documented by the fork.

Skip if:

Stock Mailcow already covers your requirements.

Service providers studying scalable mail stacks

The fork is useful for reviewing how one provider adapts Mailcow for hosted email operations.

Skip if:

You need a hosted email product with vendor support.

the problem
tech stack · detected from GitHub

What it's built on#

Languages
JavaScriptLuaPHPPython
frequently asked

FAQ#

What is Galae Email?
Why does Galae fork Mailcow?
What license does Galae Email use?
also worth a look

Similar open-source tools#

OpenCloud

OpenCloud

File sync for organizations with data sovereignty and S3 storage

5.6KGoApache-2.0

Repository

Stars
6
Forks
2
License
GPL-3.0
Latest
2025-12a
Last commit
32 days ago
Last verified
Jun 6, 2026
Repo
algoo/galae ↗

Additional details

Language
JavaScript
Open issues
13
Contributors
367
First release
2023

Categories

Communication & CollaborationIT ManagementCloud & Hosting

Tags

EmailSelf HostedDocker ManagementSecurityServer ManagementDevOps Tools

The problem it solves#

how Galae Email solves it

How it solves it#

Mailcow-based email stack

Galae is built as a fork of Mailcow, so it starts from a known self-hosted email stack rather than a new mail server design.

Service-driven customizations

The README says the fork was created to implement functionality required for the Galae service launch.

Scalable stack goal

The project states a goal of building a scalable production-ready stack, including customizations such as external database work.

Upstream tracking table

The README maps Galae customizations to Mailcow issues and PRs, making divergence from upstream easier to review.

strengths · trade-offs

Strengths and trade-offs#

Strengths

  • Practical fork documentationThe upstream issue and PR table helps operators understand why the fork exists and which changes may return to Mailcow.
  • Built from a proven baseUsing Mailcow as the base gives Galae a mature email stack foundation instead of asking operators to trust a new mail system.

Trade-offs

  • -Fork maintenance riskA Mailcow fork can lag or diverge from upstream, so operators must evaluate update cadence, security patch handling, and merge practices.
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Galae Email is an Algoo-managed fork of Mailcow with customizations for the Galae email service.

The README says the fork adds functionality required for Galae and aims to build a scalable production-ready stack.

Running email infrastructure is already operationally heavy, and standard self-hosted stacks do not always match service-provider requirements. Teams may need external database support, deployment changes, or behavior that upstream Mailcow has not accepted yet.

Forking a mail stack can solve those gaps, but it also creates maintenance work. Operators need to track which changes came from the fork, which were proposed upstream, and which are still divergent.

Galae Email uses GPL-3.0 according to repository metadata.