# Alpine vs Matcha

- Alpine: Menu-driven terminal email client descended from Pine, with built-in help, setup screens and native Windows builds.
- Matcha: Terminal email client written in Go with the Bubble Tea TUI library, with IMAP, JMAP and POP3 support.

## Differences

- Only Alpine has built-in mbox.
- Only Matcha has built-in JMAP and Maildir.
- On BSD, Alpine runs natively and Matcha builds from source.
- On Android, Alpine runs through Termux and Matcha is not available.
- Matcha has Vim-style keys; Alpine does not.
- Alpine is written in C; Matcha in Go.
- Configuration: Alpine uses built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc, and Matcha uses ~/.config/matcha/config.json plus in-app settings.

## Side by side

| | Alpine | Matcha |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | C | Go |
| License | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Native |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | Not supported |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | Yes |
| Maildir | No | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | No |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | via plugin | Yes |
| S/MIME | Yes | Yes |
| OAuth2 sign-in | Yes | Yes |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in search and message selection; server-side for IMAP | built-in search and filter |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML-to-text rendering | built-in rendering, with inline images in supported terminals |
| Mouse | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | local cache of message lists and bodies |
| Calendar | Yes | shows .ics invites and sends RSVP replies |
| Contacts | built-in address book; LDAP lookup | address book built from sent and received mail |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc | ~/.config/matcha/config.json plus in-app settings |

Pages: [Alpine](https://terminalemail.com/clients/alpine/index.md), [Matcha](https://terminalemail.com/clients/matcha/index.md)