A self hosted email server on Selfhost.dev is Stalwart on a dedicated server we provision, secure and run. Its eight mail ports open on their own and your admin password is set before it starts, so mail, calendars and contacts live on a machine you control.
One program on one server. Every mailbox included, no fee per user.
A self hosted email server is mail you run yourself: the SMTP server that sends and receives, plus IMAP and JMAP for your mail apps. Stalwart does all of it in one program, with calendars and contacts too.
Small companies and privacy-minded teams who want their domain's mail on a server they control, without a fee for every new mailbox.
When you will look after your DNS records and sending reputation. If you want mailboxes run end to end by someone else, a hosted email provider fits better.
Stalwart in Docker is one container with its own embedded store, so there is no separate database to run. This template keeps configuration and mail in two volumes, opens the eight mail ports when the service goes public and serves the web admin on HTTPS.
Other mail servers, your mail apps and your phone
TLS, routing and the mail ports
Stalwart v0.16.19
stalwart-data
stalwart-mail
Admin password
| Component | Image or port | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stalwart | stalwartlabs/stalwart:v0.16.19 | SMTP, IMAP, POP3, JMAP and Sieve, plus the web admin |
| Volumes | stalwart-mail, stalwart-data | Configuration and the mail store |
| Mail ports | 25, 465, 587, 993, 995, 143, 110, 4190 | Incoming mail, submission, IMAP, POP3 and Sieve filters |
Self hosted email server guides end with a firewall to open, an admin password to find in the logs and a hostname to set. Here each of those is done before Stalwart first starts. The ports close again when you delete the server.
| Setting up Stalwart by hand | Stalwart on Selfhost.dev |
|---|---|
| Find the one-time admin password Stalwart prints to its logs | Your admin password is set before the first boot |
| Open eight mail ports on the host firewall | Opened when the service is public, closed again on delete |
| Point the server's name and public address at your domain | STALWART_HOSTNAME and STALWART_PUBLIC_URL follow your live domain |
| Keep a second mail server off the same ports | One Stalwart per server, refused up front with the reason |
Self hosted email server requirements are a static IP, open mail ports and DNS records. This server brings the IP and the ports. Receiving, IMAP and submission work at once; new accounts send to other servers after a port 25 unblock request or through a relay set in Stalwart.
One container, eight ports, no firewall to open.
Launch opens the Stalwart template in the console. Choose a location and give the admin account a password of 8 characters or more.
The template deploys in about four minutes. The eight mail ports open as the service goes public; your admin login works from the first page.
Sign in to the web admin, add your mail domain and copy the records it lists. For outbound mail on a new account, request the port 25 unblock or set a relay.
A self hosted email server here costs the server and nothing else. Stalwart Community is free with no mailbox limit and the template adds no fee. A European 4 GB server is $0.02/hr, about $15 to $16 a month, billed by the hour against prepaid credits.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Stalwart Community | $0 |
| Mailboxes, domains and aliases | $0 at any number |
| Bandwidth | $0, traffic is included in the server price |
| Optional daily backups | +20% of the server price |
| Server | RAM, cores, disk | Where | Rate | About a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
cx23 (recommended) | 4 GB, 2 cores, 40 GB | Europe | $0.02/hr | $15.18 |
cax11 (ARM) | 4 GB, 2 cores, 40 GB | Europe | $0.02/hr | $16.35 |
cpx21 | 4 GB, 3 cores, 80 GB | US | $0.12/hr | $87.75 |
cpx22 | 4 GB, 2 cores, 80 GB | Singapore | $0.10/hr | $72.56 |
cx33 (a bigger mail store) | 8 GB, 4 cores, 80 GB | Europe | $0.03/hr | $23.36 |
Monthly figures assume 730 hours.
A server with a card on file or a past top-up is powered off and held for 24 hours; mail sent to you waits on other servers' retries meanwhile. A top-up in that window restarts it. Welcome-credit-only servers are deleted at zero.
Price another size or region in the calculator, no signup.
Stalwart pricing has three parts. The Community edition is free under the AGPL-3.0 with no mailbox limit. The Enterprise licence adds features from $2.40 per mailbox a year, 25 mailboxes minimum. Stalwart Labs' own managed service opens in 2027, so hosted Stalwart today means a server of your own.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Stalwart Community | Free | Mail, calendars, contacts and the admin, no mailbox limit |
| Stalwart Enterprise licence | $2.40 per mailbox a year, from 25 mailboxes | Multi-tenancy, archiving and un-deletion, SCIM provisioning; still needs a server |
| Stalwart on Selfhost.dev | $0.02/hr for 4 GB in Europe | Community on a dedicated server; an Enterprise licence can be added |
Stalwart figures from stalw.art's pricing and managed e-mail pages.
When you want mailboxes that just work, with deliverability and support handled by someone else in return for a fee per user. Here you get the server and Stalwart; the domain, the DNS and the sending reputation stay yours.
The Stalwart template deploys in about four minutes. That is the platform's own budget, not an estimate.
Nothing here in your way? The template deploys in about four minutes.
Launch StalwartStalwart backup works at two levels here. The server can take an optional daily image of everything on it, the configuration and the mail store included. Every mailbox is also reachable over IMAP and JMAP, so any mail client or migration tool can copy your mail out without going through us.
| Method | What it covers | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Daily server backup (optional, +20%) | Stalwart's configuration and the whole mail store; the last 7 kept | With the server; deleted with it |
| A copy over IMAP or JMAP | Every mailbox you sign in to | Wherever your mail client or tool keeps it |
Tell us how many mailboxes you plan and how much mail they keep. We send back the size and its monthly cost.
Yes, from the community: stalwart-mcp and similar servers connect Claude or Cursor to your mailboxes over JMAP, some with admin tools too. Our own MCP server works on the server Stalwart runs on: it deploys the template and manages its domain from the same AI clients.
Yes. The Community edition is free under the AGPL-3.0 with no mailbox limit. An optional Enterprise licence adds features such as multi-tenancy and SCIM provisioning, priced per mailbox per year. Here the only bill is the server Stalwart runs on, whatever the number of mailboxes. See pricing.
You can receive mail and use IMAP and submission as soon as your DNS records point at the server. Sending straight to other mail servers needs outbound port 25, which new Hetzner accounts keep closed until you request an unblock. Until then, a relay set in Stalwart sends for you.
Yes, mail moves over IMAP: a migration tool or your mail client copies each mailbox across. Calendars and contacts export from Google and import over CalDAV and CardDAV. Stalwart replaces Gmail, Calendar and Contacts, not Docs, Drive or Meet, so plan for those separately.
Selfhost.dev is a managed self hosting platform for developers and small teams. Open source apps and databases on dedicated servers you control, billed by the hour, in six locations across three continents.
Best for: Stalwart, Nextcloud, Mautic and managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ClickHouse, OpenSearch and Kafka.
