# Forward Email vs Himalaya

- Forward Email: Forward Email's webmail in the terminal: mail, calendar, contacts and settings, with mouse support and a key hint bar.
- Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.

## Differences

- Forward Email is a full-screen terminal client; Himalaya is a command-line program.
- Forward Email connects to Forward Email accounts through its API; Himalaya works with any provider over IMAP, including Forward Email.
- On BSD, Forward Email runs natively and Himalaya builds from source.
- On Android, Forward Email runs through Termux and Himalaya is not available.
- Forward Email has mouse support; Himalaya does not.
- Forward Email has calendar support; Himalaya does not.
- Forward Email has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- Himalaya has OAuth2 sign-in; Forward Email does not.
- Forward Email is written in TypeScript; Himalaya in Rust.
- Configuration: Forward Email uses settings screens, keyboard shortcut editor and an optional user.css, and Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard.
- Forward Email is source-available (Business Source License 1.1); Himalaya is open source (MIT or Apache 2.0).

## Side by side

| | Forward Email | Himalaya |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interface | Full-screen terminal interface | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | TypeScript | Rust |
| License | Business Source License 1.1 | MIT or Apache 2.0 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Native |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | Not supported |
| IMAP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| POP3 | Forward Email API | No |
| SMTP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| JMAP | Forward Email API | Yes |
| Maildir | Forward Email API | Yes |
| mbox | Forward Email API | No |
| notmuch | Forward Email API | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | No |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | No | via script |
| Threads | Yes | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands |
| Search | built-in, across messages, contacts and events | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP |
| HTML mail | shown as formatted text with links; plain text by default | No |
| Mouse | Yes | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | drafts and changes made offline are sent when the connection returns | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync |
| Calendar | Yes | No |
| Contacts | Yes | No |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | settings screens, keyboard shortcut editor and an optional user.css | TOML file; interactive setup wizard |

Pages: [Forward Email](https://terminalemail.com/clients/forward-email/index.md), [Himalaya](https://terminalemail.com/clients/himalaya/index.md)