# Which is the best SMTP server



## mgp (Jan 21, 2009)

Hi,
I'd like to bring this topic as a poll
which, do you think, is the best SMTP server around (that is free software of course ) and why is it the best

sendmail
postfix
qmail
exim
courier
other
and by "the best" I mean for professional usage not which is the easiest to configure or something like that

and as a sub-topic: Why did FreeBSD choose sendmail and not any of the others ?

thank you

Regards
mgp


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 21, 2009)

I think FreeBSD are including Sendmail for historical reasons (it's always 'been there') and because it is unencumbered by license restrictions. I've used Sendmail since < 8.8, and I like its extendability, flexibility, reliability and insanely fine-grained configuration options using .mc files. I'm currently running it with MailScanner, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, Bitdefender, DKIM-milter, a host of IP/domain blacklists, procmail, several features like greet_pause, delay_checks, etc. etc.). So a vote for Sendmail on my part. Love it.


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## hydra (Jan 21, 2009)

I'm happy with Postfix, it's easy to configure, and it just works. Haven't tried the other ones...


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## gnemmi (Jan 22, 2009)

Postfix in here ..
The day FreeBSD switches from Sendmail to Postfix by default will be a really happy one for me 

Cold day in hell? 
Perhaps .. 
But .. you know .. hope is the last thing to loose ...


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 22, 2009)

Postfix is one of those license-encumbered MTAs which will not make it to the base install for (at least) that reason.


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## trev (Jan 22, 2009)

Once upon a time in the dim, distant past when Coherent was the only affordable Unix OS for the PC, I used to run Qmail in combination with uucp. It was trivial to configure and setup and just worked. Not sure about its features... this was 14 years ago!

Then, when Mark Williams Company folded and Coherent died, FreeBSD 2.0 came along and saved me. It came with sendmail and the huge O'Reilly BAT book was essential to configure the sendmail.cf file plus lots of trial and error.

Finally, sendmail configuration became trivial with the sendmail.mc file now used to generate the cf file via m4. Sendmail is the ultimate in configurability and extensibility.

Market share 2007-05-01:

Sendmail 12,3%
Postfix 8.6%
Postini 8.5%
Microsoft Exchange 7.6%
MXLogic 6.0%
qmail 5.3%
Exim 5.0%
Concentric Hosting 4.5%
Cisco 3.0%
Barracuda 2.8%

Source: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/sysadmin/2007/01/05/fingerprinting-mail-servers.html


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