[ILUG] Webmail comparison

[Tor Bendiksen]

Philip Reynolds wrote:
> Gary Pigott wrote:
>> Just to add another one to the list... RoundCube webmail
>> (http://www.roundcube.net/). It's a PHP IMAP client that I've been
>> using for
>> a few months and it's quite nice. It supports my vast IMAP folder
>> structure
>> (which was my key requirement) and uses a MySQL DB for "stuff". It talks
>> IMAP, so doesn't need to be on the same box as the mail spool. It's
>> still in
>> beta, but I've not run into any problems with the latest release (yet!)

To top that off it's just very recently gone beta. First beta release
was about a month ago if I'm not mistaken.

On that note though, this is like any other good OSS project. Very
stable, but the alpha/beta classification means that it's under heavy
development at the moment. New features (and bugfixes) are being
committed daily. I would recommend using the cvs version, since the
developer(s) are quick to release fixes to any problems that may occur.

The IMAP part is based on Ilohamail, and the rest is developed from
scratch using AJAX (think gmail and it's interface).

> Very nice looking, but the double-clickedness is annoying. (double
> clicking on the web.. who woulda thunk it?)
Very true, but you get used to that quite quickly. It reminds me of an
application more so than a webapp. Works quite well to be honest.

> LDAP support is experimental and I can't say I've used it, but the
> client itself is reasonable under load and looks purdy.
Same experiences here. Not used LDAP, but the rest looks good.

> Consider using something like imapproxy to lighten the load on your IMAP
> server.
Well, one of the nice features it has is that it will use a MySQL table
for caching if you want. This means that if you run the webserver on a
different machine than the IMAP server it can still be quick and
responsive. I have not used this feature much except from basic testing,
so I can't really say how good it is. Reports say this is a nice feature.

In the end of the day I would recommend roundcube, but NOT as a
production webmail app. It is *very* nice and works well, but it is
still lacking some of the basic features you expect from a MUA, and due
to the rapid development it can/will change quite often.

This all depends on what your "production" environment is. Me, I run it
as the main webmail app for about 8 users, but I make sure I also have
squirrelmail running in case you come across a problem accessing your mail.

YMMV

> 
> Phil.

-- 
Tor