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Comment by sea-gold | Hacker News Reader

Here is a very similar project: https://emailengine.app/

Similar to Bichon, it also has a commercial license[1]:

> EmailEngine is not free open-source software. It is "source available" software, meaning you can view and copy the source code, but you need a paid subscription[2] to run it beyond the free 14-day trial. Each EmailEngine instance comes with this trial, so you can test EmailEngine without any commitment.

EmailEngine is based on ImapFlow[3], a modern and easy-to-use IMAP client library for Node.js that is MIT-licensed.

[1] https://github.com/postalsys/emailengine/blob/master/LICENSE...

[2] https://postalsys.com/plans

[3] https://github.com/postalsys/imapflow

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For anyone reading, I would highly recommend steering clear of EmailEngine.

Why?

EmailEngine author here. The commenter tried the EmailEngine trial back in 2024 and appears to have had a negative experience. Since then, he’s repeatedly criticized EmailEngine and related components like the ImapFlow IMAP library, often while promoting his own product.

It’s a great honor to be able to talk with Andris. A few months ago I learned that the author of EmailEngine not only created EmailEngine, but is also behind many foundational Node.js email libraries that are widely used. My own projects, RustMailer and Bichon, are built on the shoulders of many great Rust email libraries. EmailEngine is undoubtedly a success, and Andris has spent years quietly and diligently contributing to these core libraries. I have deep respect for you.

Thanks, and best of luck with Rustmailer! I believe there’s plenty of room for multiple solutions in this space.

Yes indeed. The criticism is well-founded and comes from months of experience with the product.

It's slow, unreliable, very feature-limited, and extremely expensive for what it is.

Especially these days, you could vibe-code something an order of magnitude better within a day or two and not be locked into a single author's rat's nest of code.

At this point, almost all new EmailEngine customers are AI startups. These are teams that know how to use LLMs well, which makes it interesting that they still opt for EmailEngine despite the extremely expensive $83/month price tag.

At this point in time you don't consider using an LLM to "vibe" code a "rat's nest"?

An LLM with a strongly-typed language and capable dev would produce better results. If you don't believe me, have a look through the codebase.

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