Alpine vs Sup
Alpine: Menu-driven terminal email client descended from Pine, with built-in help, setup screens and native Windows builds.
Sup: Curses email client in Ruby built around threads, labels and fast full-text search over local mail.
Differences
- Only Alpine has built-in IMAP, POP3 and SMTP.
- Only Sup has built-in Maildir.
- On Windows, Alpine runs natively and Sup runs through WSL.
- On BSD, Alpine runs natively and Sup builds from source.
- On Android, Alpine runs through Termux and Sup is not available.
- Alpine has mouse support; Sup does not.
- Alpine has calendar support; Sup does not.
- Alpine has S/MIME; Sup does not.
- Alpine has OAuth2 sign-in; Sup does not.
- Sup has Vim-style keys; Alpine does not.
- Alpine is written in C; Sup in Ruby.
- Configuration: Alpine uses built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc, and Sup uses ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks.
Side by side
| Alpine | Sup | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | C | Ruby |
| License | Apache 2.0 | GPL 2.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.26 | 1.4 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Through WSL |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | No |
| IMAP | Yes | No |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| JMAP | No | No |
| Maildir | No | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | Yes |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | via plugin | Yes |
| S/MIME | Yes | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | Yes | No |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in search and message selection; server-side for IMAP | Xapian full-text index with a query language |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML-to-text rendering | via the mime-decode hook and an external viewer such as w3m |
| Mouse | Yes | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | reads local Maildir or mbox; sync with isync or OfflineIMAP |
| Calendar | Yes | No |
| Contacts | built-in address book; LDAP lookup | tracks recent contacts automatically |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | built-in setup screens, stored in .pinerc | ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks |
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 Sup for
- Fast full-text search over large archives
- Gmail-style labels, archiving and muting of threads
- Ruby hooks for custom behavior
Watch out for
- No built-in IMAP or SMTP; needs isync (or similar) and msmtp
- Changes sync back to Maildir only with the optional sync-back setting
- Packaged by Debian and Ubuntu (and the AUR); elsewhere installed as a Ruby gem with native Xapian bindings
Questions
What is the difference between Alpine and Sup?
Only Alpine has built-in IMAP, POP3 and SMTP. Only Sup has built-in Maildir. On Windows, Alpine runs natively and Sup runs through WSL.
Which runs on Windows, Alpine or Sup?
On Windows, Alpine runs natively. On Windows, Sup runs through WSL.
See also: Alpine alternatives, Sup alternatives.