# Cone vs meli

- Cone: Full-screen console mail client and newsreader from the Courier mail server project.
- meli: Terminal email client written in Rust with IMAP, JMAP, notmuch, Maildir, mbox and NNTP backends and TOML configuration.

## Differences

- Only Cone has built-in POP3.
- Only meli has built-in JMAP and notmuch.
- On Linux, Cone builds from source and meli runs natively.
- On macOS, Cone is not available and meli runs natively.
- On Windows, Cone runs through WSL and meli is not available.
- meli has mouse support; Cone does not.
- meli has OAuth2 sign-in; Cone does not.
- meli has Vim-style keys; Cone does not.
- Cone is written in C++; meli in Rust.
- Configuration: Cone uses interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone, and meli uses TOML file (config.toml).

## Side by side

| | Cone | meli |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | C++ | Rust |
| License | GPL 3.0 | EUPL 1.2 or GPL 3.0 or later |
| Linux | Build from source | Native |
| macOS | Not supported | Native |
| Windows | Through WSL | Not supported |
| BSD | Native | Native |
| Android | Not supported | Not supported |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | Yes |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | Yes |
| notmuch | No | Yes |
| OpenPGP | Yes | Yes |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | via script |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in folder search; server-side on IMAP | built-in; sqlite3 index by default; notmuch queries |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML renderer | via filter command, w3m by default |
| Mouse | No | Yes |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | IMAP header cache in sqlite3; full offline use with Maildir and mbsync |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | built-in address books, stored locally, in an IMAP folder, or on LDAP | built-in contact list; reads vCard and mutt alias files |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone | TOML file (config.toml) |

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