Roundcube vs. Horde vs. Squirrelmail - that's the best webmail application

When looking for a suitable webmail application, three popular alternatives stand out, each focusing on its own strengths and presenting corresponding advantages and disadvantages. For a long time, the lightweight SquirrelMail was considered the top choice, while the Horde Framework provided a comprehensive and extensible option for more complex tasks. Since around 2010, Roundcube has emerged as a serious competitor to both, combining some of their advantages and attracting its own clientele. Due to their different approaches, it is important to understand the features of the various webmail applications in order to make an optimal choice.

If you are directly looking for web hosting with your webmail app, check here:

Web Hosting Comparison with SquirrelMail
Web Hosting Comparison with Horde
Web Hosting Comparison with Roundcube

What are important features of a webmail application?

In principle, it is possible to read and send emails solely through text inputs in a terminal by directly connecting to a mail server. However, this approach is extremely cumbersome and requires specific expertise - the webmailer serves as a user-friendly, graphical interface where all steps and actions can be conveniently carried out through a browser. Additionally, it integrates external applications that provide additional functions such as spell-checking. The key criteria for choosing an optimal solution include:

• Extent of inherent functionality within the base system
• Potential extensions through modules, plugins, or custom code
• Configuration and compatibility with external mail servers
• Security and stability in productive use
• Performance and resource consumption on the server
• Easy and extensive customisation of design for commercial use
• Incurred costs through proprietary software or free open-source licensing

What sets SquirrelMail, Roundcube, and Horde apart?

The long-standing standard webmail application SquirrelMail is characterised by a simple interface that focuses on basic functionality. As a result, it is very lightweight and resource-efficient, but from a current perspective, it lacks essential features, such as support for different devices like smartphones, tablets, and desktop PCs. In comparison, Roundcube is a modern webmail application that, due to its modular design, also allows for integration of additional features. Even more versatile is the Horde framework, which evolved from the Internet Messaging Program (IMP) and has been increasingly expanded. It stands out for its exceptional versatility, ranging from an address book, calendar, and task manager to a wiki, file manager, and media gallery.

What requirements do webmail applications place on web hosting?

In a broader sense, a webmail application is a specialised Content Management System (CMS) that imposes specific requirements on the IT environment. These essentially include a web server such as Apache 2, NGINX, IIS, or HTTPD, a dedicated database, and interpreters for the programming languages used - PHP and possibly JavaScript and AJAX. Furthermore, it should be noted that while the installation does not necessarily have an impact on the performance of a virtual or dedicated server, as it does not initiate additional processes without queries, the computational effort is higher than with simple websites. Therefore, with numerous simultaneous accesses on a weak infrastructure like a VPS hosting, problems can quickly arise.

How do SquirrelMail, Roundcube, and Horde compare directly?

It depends on the specific situation whether SquirrelMail, Roundcube or Horde are suitable, with the purpose and the infrastructure used determining their suitability. In general, for modern web hosting, one should choose between the rather lightweight yet functional Roundcube and the more comprehensive Horde Framework, which in turn has higher resource requirements. While SquirrelMail is still suitable for private or experimental use, it has not been in active development since 2017 and is only provided as a rolling release with patches for bugs or security vulnerabilities.

If you are looking for web hosting with your webmail app, check here:

Web Hosting Comparison with SquirrelMail
Web Hosting Comparison with Horde
Web Hosting Comparison with Roundcube

Photo: Muhammad Ribkhan on Pixabay