Gnus vs Himalaya
Gnus: Mail and news reader built into GNU Emacs, with back ends for IMAP, POP3, local mail folders and NNTP.
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
Differences
- Gnus is a mail client that runs inside Emacs; Himalaya is a command-line program.
- Only Gnus has built-in POP3 and mbox.
- Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP.
- On BSD, Gnus runs natively and Himalaya builds from source.
- On Android, Gnus runs through Termux and Himalaya is not available.
- Gnus has mouse support; Himalaya does not.
- Gnus has calendar support; Himalaya does not.
- Gnus has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- Gnus has S/MIME; Himalaya does not.
- Gnus is written in Emacs Lisp; Himalaya in Rust.
- Configuration: Gnus uses Emacs Lisp in init.el or ~/.gnus.el, and Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard.
Side by side
| Gnus | Himalaya | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Runs inside Emacs | Command-line tools and prompts |
| Language | Emacs Lisp | Rust |
| License | GPL 3.0 or later | MIT or Apache 2.0 |
| Latest version | 5.13 (bundled with Emacs 31.1) | 2.1.0 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Native |
| BSD | Native | Build from source |
| Android | Through Termux | No |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | Yes | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | No | Yes |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | Yes | No |
| notmuch | Through a separate tool | No |
| OpenPGP | Yes | No |
| S/MIME | Yes | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | via plugin | via script |
| Threads | Yes | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands |
| Search | gnus-search: IMAP SEARCH, or notmuch, mu, mairix and other local indexers | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP |
| HTML mail | built-in, rendered with the Emacs shr library | No |
| Mouse | Yes | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | via the Gnus agent or local Maildir back ends | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync |
| Calendar | replies to invitations with gnus-icalendar | No |
| Contacts | via BBDB or EUDC | No |
| Vim-style keys | No | No |
| Configuration | Emacs Lisp in init.el or ~/.gnus.el | TOML file; interactive setup wizard |
Which to choose
Choose Gnus for
- Included with every GNU Emacs install, including native Windows builds.
- Reads IMAP directly, plus local Maildir, MH and mbox stores and NNTP newsgroups.
- Scoring, splitting and the Gnus agent allow detailed filtering and offline reading.
Watch out for
- The group, summary and article model takes time to learn.
- IMAP access runs inside Emacs, so large mailboxes can make Emacs wait.
- Configuration is Emacs Lisp spread across many variables.
Choose Himalaya for
- Every action is a shell command with optional JSON output, suited to scripts
- Native Windows binary through Scoop and GitHub releases
- Also supports JMAP, the Gmail API and Microsoft Graph
Watch out for
- No interactive interface; himalaya-tui is still pre-release
- Composing rich MIME or PGP messages needs the separate mml tool
- Version 2 dropped the notmuch and sendmail backends
Questions
What is the difference between Gnus and Himalaya?
Gnus is a mail client that runs inside Emacs; Himalaya is a command-line program. Only Gnus has built-in POP3 and mbox. Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP.
Which runs on Windows, Gnus or Himalaya?
On Windows, Gnus runs natively. On Windows, Himalaya runs natively.
See also: Gnus alternatives, Himalaya alternatives.