Himalaya vs NeoMutt
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
NeoMutt: Full-screen terminal mail reader forked from Mutt, with notmuch, NNTP, Lua scripting and a sidebar built in.
Differences
- Himalaya is a command-line program; NeoMutt is a full-screen terminal client.
- Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP.
- Only NeoMutt has built-in POP3, mbox and notmuch.
- On Windows, Himalaya runs natively and NeoMutt runs through WSL.
- On BSD, Himalaya builds from source and NeoMutt runs natively.
- On Android, Himalaya is not available and NeoMutt runs through Termux.
- NeoMutt has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- NeoMutt has S/MIME; Himalaya does not.
- NeoMutt has Vim-style keys; Himalaya does not.
- Himalaya is written in Rust; NeoMutt in C.
- Configuration: Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard, and NeoMutt uses neomuttrc text file.
Side by side
| Himalaya | NeoMutt | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Command-line tools and prompts | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | Rust | C |
| License | MIT or Apache 2.0 | GPL 2.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.1.0 | 20260616 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Through WSL |
| BSD | Build from source | Native |
| Android | No | Through Termux |
| IMAP | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 | No | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| JMAP | Yes | No |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | No | Yes |
| notmuch | No | Yes |
| OpenPGP | No | Yes |
| S/MIME | No | Yes |
| 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 patterns; notmuch for full-text |
| HTML mail | No | via mailcap and an external viewer such as w3m or lynx |
| Mouse | No | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync | with isync or OfflineIMAP; IMAP header and body cache |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | No | via query_command with abook or khard |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | TOML file; interactive setup wizard | neomuttrc text file |
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 NeoMutt for
- Built-in notmuch support for tag-based virtual mailboxes and full-text search
- Reads Usenet over NNTP and supports Lua scripting
- Reads most existing muttrc files with few or no changes
Watch out for
- Configuration is a text file with hundreds of options and no setup wizard
- HTML mail needs an external viewer set up in mailcap
- OAuth2 needs an external token script such as mutt_oauth2.py
Questions
What is the difference between Himalaya and NeoMutt?
Himalaya is a command-line program; NeoMutt is a full-screen terminal client. Only Himalaya has built-in JMAP. Only NeoMutt has built-in POP3, mbox and notmuch.
Which runs on Windows, Himalaya or NeoMutt?
On Windows, Himalaya runs natively. On Windows, NeoMutt runs through WSL.
See also: Himalaya alternatives, NeoMutt alternatives.