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mailcow vs Roundcube

A side-by-side editorial comparison of mailcow and Roundcube — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

mailcow vs Roundcube: at a glance

FeaturemailcowRoundcube
SectorCommsComms
Velocity score5.05.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesmail-server, self-hosted, security-updates, dockersecurity-patching, webmail, dual-branch-releases, xss-sanitization
Last editorial update1d ago9d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is mailcow?

mailcow's release notes are almost entirely upstream security currency.

mailcow ships named seasonal releases with lettered revisions, and nearly every revision exists to pull in an upstream security fix - Redis, ClamAV, SOGo, Rspamd, nginx, unbound, Postfix. Revision B of the Mooly 2026 release updates Redis 7.4.10, ClamAV 1.4.6, and SOGo 5.12.10, adds minor web UI and nginx hardening, and removes a legacy DeltaChat sieve rule. The last release with genuinely new features was the March cut, which added forced 2FA, ACME DNS-01 challenges, and a passwordless autodiscover endpoint.

Read the full mailcow trajectory →

What is Roundcube?

Roundcube is shipping matched security pairs across 1.7 and 1.6 LTS, roughly monthly.

Every release in this window is a security update, and they arrive in matched pairs — the same fix set landed on the 1.7 stable branch and backported to the 1.6 LTS branch minutes apart. The August pair closes eleven reported issues, including remote code execution through the markasjunk plugin's cmd_learn driver, IMAP command injection via LITERAL+ byte-count desynchronization, LDAP filter injection through unescaped substitution in search_filter, arbitrary Sieve script injection past managesieve_disabled_actions, multiple SSRF filter bypasses, and stored XSS. The June and July pairs follow the same structure with different findings.

Read the full Roundcube trajectory →

mailcow vs Roundcube: editorial side-by-side

M
mailcow
COMMS
5.0

mailcow's release notes are almost entirely upstream security currency.

◆ Current state

mailcow ships named seasonal releases with lettered revisions, and nearly every revision exists to pull in an upstream security fix - Redis, ClamAV, SOGo, Rspamd, nginx, unbound, Postfix. Revision B of the Mooly 2026 release updates Redis 7.4.10, ClamAV 1.4.6, and SOGo 5.12.10, adds minor web UI and nginx hardening, and removes a legacy DeltaChat sieve rule. The last release with genuinely new features was the March cut, which added forced 2FA, ACME DNS-01 challenges, and a passwordless autodiscover endpoint.

◆ Where it's heading

For a self-hosted mail stack that bundles a dozen upstream components, keeping current with their CVEs is the product, and mailcow has organized its release cadence around exactly that. The pattern is consistent: a named release with some feature content every few months, then lettered revisions that are pure security currency plus small web UI escaping and validation fixes. The web interface is where mailcow's own code gets hardened - HTML escaping in quarantine views and sieve editors recurs across several revisions.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next entry to be another lettered revision carrying upstream updates, with the next named release likely bundling whatever feature work has accumulated since March.

R5.0

Roundcube is shipping matched security pairs across 1.7 and 1.6 LTS, roughly monthly.

◆ Current state

Every release in this window is a security update, and they arrive in matched pairs — the same fix set landed on the 1.7 stable branch and backported to the 1.6 LTS branch minutes apart. The August pair closes eleven reported issues, including remote code execution through the markasjunk plugin's cmd_learn driver, IMAP command injection via LITERAL+ byte-count desynchronization, LDAP filter injection through unescaped substitution in search_filter, arbitrary Sieve script injection past managesieve_disabled_actions, multiple SSRF filter bypasses, and stored XSS. The June and July pairs follow the same structure with different findings.

◆ Where it's heading

Roundcube is absorbing sustained external security-research attention and has settled into a repeatable response cadence: fix, pair the branches, ship. The recurring categories are telling — HTML and CSS sanitizer bypasses via SVG attributes, SSRF filters defeated by address-space and hostname tricks, and injection through plugin drivers — which means the same attack surfaces keep yielding new variants rather than being closed once. The 1.5 branch received its last pair in March; since 1.7.0 arrived in May, maintenance has narrowed to two branches instead of three.

◆ Prediction

Expect the next release to be another 1.7/1.6 security pair rather than a feature drop, and to include further sanitizer or URL-fetch bypass fixes, since those two categories have recurred in every pair in this window.

Alternatives to mailcow and Roundcube

Other Comms 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 mailcow or Roundcube.

See all mailcow alternatives → · See all Roundcube alternatives →

Recent activity from mailcow and Roundcube

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 1d agomailcow🏖️🐮 Mooly 2026 | Postfix 3.10.12, Rspamd 4.1.0 & Nginx 1.30.3 - Revision B
  2. 10d agoRoundcube1.7.3 fixes 11 issues including plugin RCE and IMAP injection
  3. 10d agoRoundcube1.6.18 backports the same 11 security fixes to the LTS branch
  4. 20d agomailcow🏖️🐮 Mooly 2026 | Postfix 3.10.12, Rspamd 4.1.0 & Nginx 1.30.3 - Revision A
  5. 1mo agomailcow🏖️🐮 Mooly 2026 | Postfix 3.10.12, Rspamd 4.1.0 & Nginx 1.30.3
  6. 1mo agoRoundcube1.6.17 fixes CVE-2026-54432/54433 and a TNEF decoder loop
  7. 1mo agoRoundcube1.7.2 ships July's security set to the stable branch
  8. 2mo agoRoundcube1.6.16 fixes pre-auth SQL injection and arbitrary file delete
  9. 2mo agoRoundcube1.7.1 pairs June's fixes with Enigma HKP key lookup
  10. 2mo agomailcowThird May revision: unbound CVE and nginx 1.30.2
  11. 3mo agomailcowSecond May revision: quarantine table HTML escaping
  12. 3mo agomailcowSOGo 5.12.8 covering four upstream security issues

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between mailcow and Roundcube?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. mailcow and Roundcube are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is mailcow better than Roundcube?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. mailcow and Roundcube are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Comms products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to mailcow?

Top mailcow alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "mailcow alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/mailcow for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Roundcube?

Top Roundcube alternatives in Comms are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Roundcube alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/roundcube for the full list with editorial commentary on each.