# Cone vs S-nail

- Cone: Full-screen console mail client and newsreader from the Courier mail server project.
- S-nail: Command-line mail program that implements POSIX mailx, with MIME, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Maildir and S/MIME support.

## Differences

- Cone is a full-screen terminal client; S-nail is a command-line program.
- On Linux, Cone builds from source and S-nail runs natively.
- On macOS, Cone is not available and S-nail runs natively.
- Cone has OpenPGP; S-nail does not.
- S-nail has S/MIME; Cone does not.
- S-nail has OAuth2 sign-in; Cone does not.
- Cone is written in C++; S-nail in C.
- Configuration: Cone uses interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone, and S-nail uses ~/.mailrc command file.

## Side by side

| | Cone | S-nail |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | C++ | C |
| License | GPL 3.0 | ISC and BSD 2-Clause and BSD 3-Clause and BSD 4-Clause |
| Linux | Build from source | Native |
| macOS | Not supported | Native |
| Windows | Through WSL | Through WSL |
| BSD | Native | Native |
| Android | Not supported | Not supported |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | No |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | Yes |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | No |
| S/MIME | No | Yes |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | via script |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in folder search; server-side on IMAP | built-in message specifications and the search command; IMAP SEARCH on IMAP folders |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML renderer | built-in tag-soup filter or external viewer via mailcap |
| Mouse | No | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | IMAP cache with disconnected mode |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | built-in address books, stored locally, in an IMAP folder, or on LDAP | aliases via the alias command |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone | ~/.mailrc command file |

Pages: [Cone](https://terminalemail.com/clients/cone/index.md), [S-nail](https://terminalemail.com/clients/s-nail/index.md)