OttoKit
OttoKit keeps widening its WordPress trigger surface one plugin at a time
Comparison · Mkt Auto
Craft CMS vs MailPoet
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Craft CMS and MailPoet — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Craft CMS vs MailPoet: at a glance
What is Craft CMS?
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
What is MailPoet?
MailPoet's feed is near-dormant: one 2026 post, and it's about consent-gating open tracking.
This feed has almost stopped. Six of the last ten entries predate 2025, and the only substantive recent activity is a July 2026 post on French and Italian regulators deciding that email open-tracking pixels require consent — which notes MailPoet now ships controls for it. Apart from an April 2026 review-request explainer, there is no visible release cadence to read.
Craft CMS vs MailPoet: editorial side-by-side
Craft CMS
6.3MKT AUTO
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
◆ Current state
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern established at alpha 14 has not changed shape, only advanced: every alpha retires another Yii-era extension point and re-lands it on the new stack, with craftcms/yii2-adapter carrying the compatibility burden. Alpha 17 adds an Inertia-native slideout system that renders any CpScreenResponse as an in-page panel, which is the control panel moving from a legacy JavaScript layer to a genuinely Inertia/Vue one rather than wrapping it. The long fix list — stale permission trees, autosave firing on unchanged values, provisional drafts created on page open, queue jobs stuck reserved — reads as the cost of that churn being paid down alpha by alpha.
◆ Prediction
Expect further alphas that remove specific Yii-era plugin APIs with adapter fallbacks, and the 5.10 line to keep shipping single-fix patches until a Craft 6 beta absorbs the team's attention.
MailPoet
2.5MKT AUTO
MailPoet's feed is near-dormant: one 2026 post, and it's about consent-gating open tracking.
◆ Current state
This feed has almost stopped. Six of the last ten entries predate 2025, and the only substantive recent activity is a July 2026 post on French and Italian regulators deciding that email open-tracking pixels require consent — which notes MailPoet now ships controls for it. Apart from an April 2026 review-request explainer, there is no visible release cadence to read.
◆ Where it's heading
What signal exists points at compliance rather than product ambition: sender-requirement explainers in 2024, tracking-pixel consent controls in 2026. The older entries show a product that once announced features here — custom automation triggers, segmentation, automation analytics — but that stream stopped years ago. Whether development continues on another surface is not something this feed can answer.
◆ Prediction
There is not enough recent activity to forecast a next move; one product-relevant post in over a year cannot support a prediction. If consent-gated open tracking spreads past France and Italy, more compliance controls are the likeliest thing to appear.
Alternatives to Craft CMS and MailPoet
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Craft CMS or MailPoet.
Joomla
Two security releases ship the same day, and 6.2 finally clears alpha
Buttondown
Buttondown ships almost daily, and most of it is someone else's bug report closed.
Flodesk
Flodesk just moved its analytics out of the dashboard and into Claude and ChatGPT.
Formidable Forms
Formidable widens MCP compatibility and locks down signature files
Mailtrap
Mailtrap is assembling a full email operations platform, one category step at a time
See all Craft CMS alternatives → · See all MailPoet alternatives →
Recent activity from Craft CMS and MailPoet
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 15h agoCraft CMSAlpha 17 retires plugin settingsHtml and adds Inertia slideouts
- 13d agoCraft CMSAlpha 16 fixes double-required migrations and a widget gap
- 13d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.2 fixes a SQL error on empty Categories fields
- 14d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.1 restores rendering of sanitized SVGs
- 14d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 swaps its image pipeline to intervention/image and libvips
- 20d agoMailPoetTracking pixels now need consent in France and Italy
- 27d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 alpha 14 breaks plugin providers and lifecycle hooks ⚡
- 4mo agoMailPoet10 Ways to Get More Product Reviews Using Email
- 2y agoMailPoetHow to Identify and Fix Low Email Engagement
- 2y agoMailPoetNavigating Google’s and Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements: What Email Marketers Need to Know
- 2y agoMailPoetHow to Upgrade Your Email Content Using AI and ChatGPT
- 2y agoMailPoetMailPoet’s Custom Trigger: Unleash Your Automations
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Craft CMS and MailPoet?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Craft CMS better than MailPoet?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Craft CMS?
Top Craft CMS alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Craft CMS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/craft-cms for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to MailPoet?
Top MailPoet alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "MailPoet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mailpoet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.