Himalaya vs Sup
Himalaya: Command-line email client written in Rust that lists, reads, sends and moves mail through shell commands with JSON output.
Sup: Curses email client in Ruby built around threads, labels and fast full-text search over local mail.
Differences
- Himalaya is a command-line program; Sup is a full-screen terminal client.
- Only Himalaya has built-in IMAP, SMTP and JMAP.
- Only Sup has built-in mbox.
- On Windows, Himalaya runs natively and Sup runs through WSL.
- Sup has OpenPGP; Himalaya does not.
- Himalaya has OAuth2 sign-in; Sup does not.
- Sup has Vim-style keys; Himalaya does not.
- Himalaya is written in Rust; Sup in Ruby.
- Configuration: Himalaya uses TOML file; interactive setup wizard, and Sup uses ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks.
Side by side
| Himalaya | Sup | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Command-line tools and prompts | Full-screen terminal interface |
| Language | Rust | Ruby |
| License | MIT or Apache 2.0 | GPL 2.0 or later |
| Latest version | 2.1.0 | 1.4 |
| Linux | Native | Native |
| macOS | Native | Native |
| Windows | Native | Through WSL |
| BSD | Build from source | Build from source |
| Android | No | No |
| IMAP | Yes | No |
| POP3 | No | No |
| SMTP | Yes | Through a separate tool |
| JMAP | Yes | No |
| Maildir | Yes | Yes |
| mbox | No | Yes |
| notmuch | No | No |
| OpenPGP | No | Yes |
| S/MIME | No | No |
| OAuth2 sign-in | via script | No |
| Threads | through the IMAP, JMAP and Gmail subcommands | Yes |
| Search | built-in query syntax across backends; server-side for IMAP and JMAP | Xapian full-text index with a query language |
| HTML mail | No | via the mime-decode hook and an external viewer such as w3m |
| Mouse | No | No |
| Multiple accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline use | with the Maildir backend and a sync tool such as mbsync | reads local Maildir or mbox; sync with isync or OfflineIMAP |
| Calendar | No | No |
| Contacts | No | tracks recent contacts automatically |
| Vim-style keys | No | Yes |
| Configuration | TOML file; interactive setup wizard | ~/.sup/config.yaml and ~/.sup/sources.yaml, plus Ruby hooks |
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 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 Himalaya and Sup?
Himalaya is a command-line program; Sup is a full-screen terminal client. Only Himalaya has built-in IMAP, SMTP and JMAP. Only Sup has built-in mbox.
Which runs on Windows, Himalaya or Sup?
On Windows, Himalaya runs natively. On Windows, Sup runs through WSL.
See also: Himalaya alternatives, Sup alternatives.