Alpine vs Himalaya
Alpine: Menu-driven terminal email client descended from Pine, with built-in help, setup screens and native Windows builds.
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
Differences
- Alpine is a full-screen terminal client; Himalaya is a command-line program.
- Only Alpine has built-in POP3 and mbox.
- Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP and Maildir.
- On BSD, Alpine runs natively and Himalaya builds from source.
- On Android, Alpine runs through Termux and Himalaya is not available.
- Alpine has mouse support; Himalaya does not.
- Alpine has calendar support; Himalaya does not.
- Alpine has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- Alpine has S/MIME; Himalaya does not.
- Alpine is written in C; Himalaya in Rust.
- Configuration: Alpine uses built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc, and Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard.
Side by side
| Alpine | Himalaya | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | C | Rust |
| License | Apache 2.0 | MIT or Apache 2.0 |
| Latest version | 2.26 | 2.1.0 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Native |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | No |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | Yes |
| Maildir | No | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | No |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | via plugin | No |
| S/MIME | Yes | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | Yes | via script |
| Threads | Yes | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands |
| Search | built-in search and message selection; server-side for IMAP | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML-to-text rendering | No |
| Mouse | Yes | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync |
| Calendar | Yes | No |
| Contacts | built-in address book; LDAP lookup | No |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc | TOML file; interactive setup wizard |
Which to choose
Choose Alpine for
- Command list on every screen and built-in help for each option
- Official native Windows builds alongside Unix packages
- Built-in XOAUTH2 for Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, and built-in S/MIME
Watch out for
- PGP needs external display and sending filters
- No Maildir, notmuch or JMAP support
- Last stable release is 2.26; newer work is in alpha builds
Choose Himalaya for
- Every action is a shell command with optional JSON output, suited to scripts
- Native Windows binary through Scoop and GitHub releases
- Also supports JMAP, the Gmail API and Microsoft Graph
Watch out for
- No interactive interface; himalaya-tui is still pre-release
- Composing rich MIME or PGP messages needs the separate mml tool
- Version 2 dropped the notmuch and sendmail backends
Questions
What is the difference between Alpine and Himalaya?
Alpine is a full-screen terminal client; Himalaya is a command-line program. Only Alpine has built-in POP3 and mbox. Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP and Maildir.
Which runs on Windows, Alpine or Himalaya?
On Windows, Alpine runs natively. On Windows, Himalaya runs natively.
See also: Alpine alternatives, Himalaya alternatives.