# Cone vs mblaze

- Cone: Full-screen console mail client and newsreader from the Courier mail server project.
- mblaze: Set of small Unix utilities for reading, searching, threading and composing mail stored in Maildir folders.

## Differences

- Cone is a full-screen terminal client; mblaze is a command-line program.
- Only Cone has built-in IMAP, POP3, SMTP and mbox.
- On Linux, Cone builds from source and mblaze runs natively.
- On macOS, Cone is not available and mblaze runs natively.
- Cone is written in C++; mblaze in C.
- Configuration: Cone uses interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone, and mblaze uses ~/.mblaze/profile (header-style key: value lines).

## Side by side

| | Cone | mblaze |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | C++ | C |
| License | GPL 3.0 | CC0 1.0 and MIT |
| Linux | Build from source | Native |
| macOS | Not supported | Native |
| Windows | Through WSL | Through WSL |
| BSD | Native | Native |
| Android | Not supported | Not supported |
| IMAP | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| POP3 | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| SMTP | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| JMAP | No | No |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | No |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | via contrib scripts |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | No |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in folder search; server-side on IMAP | mpick and magrep filter messages by headers, flags and content |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML renderer | via a filter command in ~/.mblaze/filter used by mshow |
| Mouse | No | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | via separate Maildirs and profile settings |
| Offline use | No | full; works only on local Maildir |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | built-in address books, stored locally, in an IMAP folder, or on LDAP | No |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone | ~/.mblaze/profile (header-style key: value lines) |

Pages: [Cone](https://terminalemail.com/clients/cone/index.md), [mblaze](https://terminalemail.com/clients/mblaze/index.md)