The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of email client programs. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.
General
Basic general information about the clients: creator/company, license/price etc.
| Creator | Cost (USD) | Open Source | Software license | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eudora | Qualcomm | Free (Light), Free (Pro, with ads), $49 (Pro) |
No | Proprietary |
| Lotus Notes | Lotus_Software / IBM | online pricelist | No | Proprietary |
| KMail | KDE | Free | Yes | GPL |
| Apple Computer | Part of Mac OS X | No | Proprietary | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | Mozilla Foundation | Part of Mozilla Application Suite | Yes | MPL, MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Mozilla Foundation | Free | Yes | MPL, MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license |
| Mulberry | ISAMET | $35.95 | No | Proprietary |
| Mutt | Michael Elkins | Free | Yes | GPL |
| Novell Evolution | Ximian | Free | Yes | GPL |
| Opera Mail | Opera Software | Part of Opera | No | Proprietary |
| Outlook Express | Microsoft | Part of Windows | No | Proprietary |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | Memecode | Free/$20 | No | Proprietary |
| Sylpheed | Hiroyuki Yamamoto | Free | Yes | GPL |
| The Bat! | RitLabs | $45 | No | Proprietary |
| Creator | Cost (USD) | Open Source | Software license |
Release history
A brief overview of the release history.
| Client | First public release | First stable release | Latest stable release | Latest testing release | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version | |
| Eudora | 1996 | ? | 1988 | ? | ? | 6.2.3 | ? | ? |
| Lotus Notes | 1989 | 1.0 | 1991 | ? | August, 2005 | 7.0 | ? | ? |
| KMail | ? | ? | ? | ? | July 27, 2005 | 1.8.2 | ? | ? |
| ? | ? | ? | ? | July 12, 2005 | 2.0.2 | ? | ? | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups now known as SeaMonkey | December 7, 1998 | "Preview" | March 19, 1999 | M3 | September 21, 2005 | 1.7.12 | September 15, 2005 | SeaMonkey 1.0a |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | July 28 2003 | 0.1 | July 28 2003 | 0.1 | September 29, 2005 | 1.0.7 | October 8, 2005 | 1.5b2 |
| Mulberry | September 20, 1996 | 1.0 | September 20, 1996 | 1.0 | May 20, 2005 | 4.0 | ? | ? |
| Mutt | ? | ? | ? | ? | February 12, 2004 | 1.4.2.1 | September 15, 2005 | 1.5.11 |
| Novell Evolution | ? | ? | ? | ? | July 5, 2005 | 2.2.3 | ? | ? |
| Opera Mail | September, 1996 | 2.1b1 | December, 1996 | 2.1 | September 20, 2005 | 8.50 | October 20, 2005 | 9.0 TP 1 |
| Outlook Express | 1996 | 3.0 | ? | ? | October 25, 2001 | 6.0 | ? | ? |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | 1999 | 1.00 | ? | ? | December 2004 | 1.87 | July 2005 | 1.88 |
| Sylpheed | January, 2000 | 0.1.0 | December, 2004 | 1.0.0 | August, 2005 | 2.0.1 | August, 2005 | 2.1.1 |
| The Bat! | ? | ? | ? | ? | June 14, 2005 | 3.5 | ? | ? |
| Client | Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version | Date | Version |
Operating system support
The operating systems on which the clients can run natively (without emulation).
| Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eudora | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Lotus Notes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| KMail | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No | Yes | No | No | No | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mulberry | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Novell Evolution | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera Mail | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook Express | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | Yes | No (Port in progress) | Yes | No | No |
| Sylpheed | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Bat! | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix |
Features
Information on what features each of the clients support.
| HTML email | Newsgroup | Image blocking | Junk filtering | Thread view | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eudora | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (Pro only) | Yes |
| Lotus Notes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (with Domino server) | Yes Template:Refun |
| KMail | Yes | No (but knode has) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mulberry | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Novell Evolution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera Mail | Partial Template:Refun | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook Express | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft Outlook | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| i.Scribe/InScribe | Partial Template:Refun | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sylpheed | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Bat! | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTML email | Newsgroup | Image blocking | Junk filtering | Thread view |
- ^ HTML handling is read-only (cannot compose HTML emails).
- ^ First release 6.0 (September 2003), enhancements introduced in release 7.0 (August 2005)
Security
This comparison of unpatched known vulnerabilities in latest public version browsers is based on vulnerabilities reports by SecurityFocus. See computer security for more details about the importance of unpatched known flaws.
| Ranking | Client | Number of known vulnerabilities | Oldest known vulnerability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-9 | Eudora | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Lotus Notes | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | KMail | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | 0 | - | |
| 1-9 | Mozilla Mail & Newsgroups | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Mozilla Thunderbird | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Novell Evolution | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | i.Scribe/InScribe | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Opera Mail | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | Sylpheed | 0 | - |
| 1-9 | The Bat! | 0 | - |
| 10 | Outlook Express | 3 | July 12, 2004 |
| 11 | Outlook 2003 | 10 | February 20, 2004 |
| Ranking | Client | Number of known vulnerabilities | Oldest known vulnerability |