Cone vs Sup
Cone: Full-screen console mail client and newsreader from the Courier mail server project.
Sup: Curses email client in Ruby built around threads, labels and fast full-text search over local mail.
Differences
- Only Cone has built-in IMAP, POP3 and SMTP.
- On Linux, Cone builds from source and Sup runs natively.
- On macOS, Cone is not available and Sup runs natively.
- On BSD, Cone runs natively and Sup builds from source.
- Sup has Vim-style keys; Cone does not.
- Cone is written in C++; Sup in Ruby.
- Configuration: Cone uses interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone, and Sup uses ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks.
Side by side
| Cone | Sup | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | C++ | Ruby |
| License | GPL 3.0 | GPL 2.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.5 | 1.4 |
| Linux | Build from source | Native |
| macOS | No | Native |
| Windows | Through WSL | Through WSL |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | No | No |
| IMAP | Yes | No |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| JMAP | No | No |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | Yes |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | Yes |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | No |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Search | built-in folder search; server-side on IMAP | Xapian full-text index with a query language |
| HTML mail | built-in HTML renderer | via the mime-decode hook and an external viewer such as w3m |
| Mouse | No | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | No | reads local Maildir or mbox; sync with isync or OfflineIMAP |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | built-in address books, stored locally, in an IMAP folder, or on LDAP | tracks recent contacts automatically |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | interactive setup screens; settings saved under ~/.cone | ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks |
Which to choose
Choose Cone for
- Handles IMAP, POP3, local mbox and Maildir folders, and newsgroups in one folder tree.
- Built-in OpenPGP signing and encryption with per-account keys.
- Optional master password encrypts saved server passwords.
Watch out for
- Not packaged by Debian, Fedora, Arch or Homebrew; usually built from source.
- No offline mode for IMAP accounts and no OAuth2.
- No S/MIME support.
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 Cone and Sup?
Only Cone has built-in IMAP, POP3 and SMTP. On Linux, Cone builds from source and Sup runs natively. On macOS, Cone is not available and Sup runs natively.
Which runs on Windows, Cone or Sup?
On Windows, Cone runs through WSL. On Windows, Sup runs through WSL.
See also: Cone alternatives, Sup alternatives.