Best Self Hosted Alternatives to EmailOctopus

Keila is an open-source newsletter platform for creating, sending, and analyzing email campaigns while keeping control of your data. It provides multiple editor options, contact management, segmentation, and flexible signup forms for growing and maintaining mailing lists.

Key Features

• Campaign editor with multiple workflows, including block-based editing, Markdown, and template-based approaches
• Signup form builder with custom fields and double opt-in support
• Contact management with custom JSON data and personalization via Liquid templates
• Segmentation using a visual segment editor and an advanced segment language
• Sending options ranging from SMTP to provider integrations (e.g., Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark)
• Email analytics with privacy-conscious tracking controls, including disabling tracking
• API for managing contacts and campaigns to enable integrations and automation
• Captcha support to reduce bot signups and protect list quality

Use Cases

• Run a self-hosted alternative to services like Mailchimp for newsletters and announcements
• Collect subscribers via embedded forms and send targeted campaigns using segments
• Automate newsletter operations by integrating Keila with existing tools through its API

Keila is well-suited for individuals and organizations that want a reliable newsletter workflow, flexible email creation options, and practical deliverability and privacy controls without vendor lock-in.

Notifuse is a modern emailing platform for sending newsletters and transactional emails from your own infrastructure. It combines marketer-friendly campaign tools with developer-focused APIs and integrations.

Key Features

• Visual email builder with MJML components and real-time preview
• Campaign creation, scheduling, targeting, and list segmentation
• A/B testing for subject lines, content, and timing
• Transactional email REST API for application-triggered messages
• Webhooks for delivery and engagement events
• Contact profiles with custom fields
• Analytics including open and click tracking with campaign reports
• Multi-provider delivery support (SMTP and common ESP integrations)
• Workspace management for teams (multi-tenant)
• Integrated S3-compatible file manager and embeddable notification center widget

Use Cases

• Run a newsletter platform for a product, community, or company
• Send transactional emails (sign-up, password reset, receipts) from applications
• Manage multiple brands/clients with separate workspaces and reporting

Notifuse is a strong fit for teams that want Mailchimp-like workflows while keeping data and delivery control in-house, with the flexibility to integrate via API and webhooks.

phpList is an open source email marketing and newsletter manager for creating, sending, and analyzing email campaigns. It provides subscriber list management, campaign scheduling, and deliverability tooling, designed for organizations that want to run email programs on their own infrastructure.

Key Features

• Web-based admin interface plus command-line tools for management and sending
• Subscriber management with custom attributes, preferences, and segmentation
• Campaign scheduling controls (pause, resume, repeat, requeue)
• Personalization of message content based on subscriber data
• Real-time campaign analytics for engagement and delivery outcomes
• Bounce processing with policy/regex-based handling and bounce archiving
• Message queue management with throttling and load balancing across campaigns
• Import/export of subscribers (including CSV and spreadsheet-based workflows)
• RSS-to-email capability for sending updates on a schedule
• Extensible plugin-based architecture and multiple APIs for integration

Use Cases

• Sending newsletters for communities, nonprofits, and membership organizations
• Running segmented marketing campaigns and automated scheduled mailings
• Managing deliverability workflows such as throttling and bounce handling

Limitations and Considerations

• Requires careful configuration of sending infrastructure and deliverability settings for large-scale mailings
• Feature set and UI can depend on installed themes and plugins

phpList is a mature, widely used platform focused on operational control of email campaigns, list hygiene, and reporting. It suits teams that need a reliable newsletter system with integration options and full control over data and sending policies.

Geoposler is a Dockerized email campaign management application for creating and sending HTML-based email campaigns. It provides a React-based admin UI and a TypeScript/Node.js backend, and stores campaign data in a MySQL database.

Key Features

• Create, edit and manage HTML email templates
• Manage contact lists and basic contact metadata
• Send HTML emails through configurable SMTP parameters
• Persistent storage using MySQL for templates, contacts, and campaign data
• Frontend built with Vite, React and Tailwind CSS; backend written in TypeScript/Node.js
• Distributed via Docker and Docker Compose for easy deployment; expects a healthy MySQL service

Use Cases

• Small businesses or projects sending newsletters and announcements using their SMTP provider
• Developers or teams testing and previewing HTML email templates against an SMTP server
• Self-hosted campaign management for organizations that require on-premise control of contact data

Limitations and Considerations

• Lacks built-in deliverability features such as DKIM signing, bounce handling, or advanced analytics
• No built-in campaign scheduling, detailed tracking, or unsubscribe management documented
• Relies on an external SMTP server for delivery; deliverability and rate limiting are dependent on that provider

Geoposler is suitable for straightforward, self-hosted email campaigns where control over templates and contacts is required. It provides a lightweight, containerized stack but may need extensions or integrations for production-grade deliverability and tracking.