Alpine vs meli
Alpine: Menu-driven terminal email client descended from Pine, with built-in help, setup screens and native Windows builds.
meli: Terminal email client written in Rust with IMAP, JMAP, notmuch, Maildir, mbox and NNTP backends and TOML configuration.
Differences
- Only Alpine has built-in POP3.
- Only meli has built-in JMAP, Maildir and notmuch.
- On Windows, Alpine runs natively and meli is not available.
- On Android, Alpine runs through Termux and meli is not available.
- Alpine has calendar support; meli does not.
- Alpine has S/MIME; meli does not.
- meli has Vim-style keys; Alpine does not.
- Alpine is written in C; meli in Rust.
- Configuration: Alpine uses built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc, and meli uses TOML file (config.toml).
Side by side
| Alpine | meli | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | C | Rust |
| License | Apache 2.0 | EUPL 1.2 or GPL 3.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.26 | 0.8.13 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | No |
| BSD | Native | Native |
| Android | Through Termux | No |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | Yes |
| Maildir | No | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | Yes |
| notmuch | No | Yes |
| OpenPGP | via plugin | Yes |
| S/MIME | Yes | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | Yes | via script |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in search and message selection; server-side for IMAP | built-in; sqlite3 index by default; notmuch queries |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML-to-text rendering | via filter command, w3m by default |
| Mouse | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | IMAP header cache in sqlite3; full offline use with Maildir and mbsync |
| Calendar | Yes | No |
| Contacts | built-in address book; LDAP lookup | built-in contact list; reads vCard and mutt alias files |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc | TOML file (config.toml) |
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 meli for
- Supports JMAP, notmuch, IMAP, Maildir and NNTP in one client
- Single TOML file with per-account and per-mailbox overrides
- Embedded terminal runs the editor inside the compose view
Watch out for
- No POP3 or S/MIME support
- mbox support is read-only
- No Windows or Termux packages
Questions
What is the difference between Alpine and meli?
Only Alpine has built-in POP3. Only meli has built-in JMAP, Maildir and notmuch. On Windows, Alpine runs natively and meli is not available.
Which runs on Windows, Alpine or meli?
On Windows, Alpine runs natively. On Windows, meli is not available.
See also: Alpine alternatives, meli alternatives.