Himalaya vs meli
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
meli: Terminal email client written in Rust with IMAP, JMAP, notmuch, Maildir, mbox and NNTP backends and TOML configuration.
Differences
- Himalaya is a command-line program; meli is a full-screen terminal client.
- Only meli has built-in mbox and notmuch.
- On Windows, Himalaya runs natively and meli is not available.
- On BSD, Himalaya builds from source and meli runs natively.
- meli has mouse support; Himalaya does not.
- meli has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- meli has Vim-style keys; Himalaya does not.
- Configuration: Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard, and meli uses TOML file (config.toml).
Side by side
| Himalaya | meli | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Command-line tools and prompts | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| License | MIT or Apache 2.0 | EUPL 1.2 or GPL 3.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.1.0 | 0.8.13 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | No |
| BSD | Build from source | Native |
| Android | No | No |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | No | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | Yes | Yes |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | No | Yes |
| notmuch | No | Yes |
| OpenPGP | No | Yes |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | via script | via script |
| Threads | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands | Yes |
| Search | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP | built-in; sqlite3 index by default; notmuch queries |
| HTML mail | No | via filter command, w3m by default |
| Mouse | No | Yes |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync | IMAP header cache in sqlite3; full offline use with Maildir and mbsync |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | No | built-in contact list; reads vCard and mutt alias files |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | TOML file; interactive setup wizard | TOML file (config.toml) |
Which to choose
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
Choose meli for
- Supports JMAP, notmuch, IMAP, Maildir and NNTP in one client
- Single TOML file with per-account and per-mailbox overrides
- Embedded terminal runs the editor inside the compose view
Watch out for
- No POP3 or S/MIME support
- mbox support is read-only
- No Windows or Termux packages
Questions
What is the difference between Himalaya and meli?
Himalaya is a command-line program; meli is a full-screen terminal client. Only meli has built-in mbox and notmuch. On Windows, Himalaya runs natively and meli is not available.
Which runs on Windows, Himalaya or meli?
On Windows, Himalaya runs natively. On Windows, meli is not available.
See also: Himalaya alternatives, meli alternatives.