listmonk: A Self-Hosted Newsletter Powerhouse

If you’ve ever wrestled with bloated, expensive, or overly complex newsletter tools, listmonk is a breath of fresh air. It’s a high-performance, self-hosted mailing list manager that packs a modern dashboard, scalability, and simplicity into a single binary. With over 17K stars on GitHub, it’s clearly resonating with developers who want control without sacrificing usability.

What It Does

listmonk is a standalone newsletter and mailing list manager built in Go, with PostgreSQL as its backend. It handles everything from subscriber management to campaign tracking—without relying on third-party services. Key features include:

• Single binary deployment (no sprawling dependencies)
• Modern dashboard with real-time analytics
• Multi-tenant support (manage multiple lists from one install)
• Templating with Go’s html/template and Markdown
• Webhooks and API for automation

Why It’s Cool

Unlike SaaS alternatives, listmonk gives you full ownership of your data—no vendor lock-in, no surprise pricing. It’s also fast: optimized for high-volume sends, with benchmarks showing ~10K emails/minute on modest hardware. The UI is clean and functional, not bogged down by enterprise fluff. Plus, it’s AGPL-licensed, so you can self-host freely or contribute back.

How to Try It

1. Quick demo: Check out the live demo.
2. Self-host:

   # Docker (PostgreSQL included)  
   curl -LO https://github.com/knadh/listmonk/raw/master/docker-compose.yml  
   docker-compose up -d  
   

   Binaries are also available for direct download on the official site.

Final Thoughts

listmonk is perfect for indie devs, small teams, or anyone who wants a no-nonsense, self-hosted alternative to Mailchimp or Sendy. It’s not for everyone—you’ll need to handle your own email deliverability—but if you value control and performance, it’s worth a spin.

Got thoughts on self-hosted email tools? Hit us up @githubprojects.