listmonk

What is listmonk?

listmonk is an open source newsletter and mailing list manager you self-host. It ships as a single Go binary backed by PostgreSQL, manages millions of subscribers, and sends bulk campaigns and transactional email through your own SMTP server — giving you Mailchimp-style sending without per-subscriber pricing or handing your list to a third party.

What is listmonk best for?

Teams and creators who run large lists and want to control their own subscriber data and costs. It fits people comfortable with a server and SMTP setup who’d rather pay a few dollars for a VPS than a monthly fee that scales with their subscriber count. It’s a strong fit for high-volume senders — one production instance pushed 7+ million emails on minimal CPU and 57MB of RAM.

What can listmonk do?

• Manage millions of subscribers across single and double opt-in lists
• Segment and query subscribers with raw SQL expressions
• Build campaigns in a WYSIWYG editor, Markdown, raw HTML, or Go templates
• Send transactional messages over email, SMS, or WhatsApp via a messaging API
• Run multi-threaded SMTP queues with per-server rate limiting
• Track opens, clicks, and bounces with built-in analytics
• Secure access with OIDC single sign-on, granular roles, and API tokens

Where does listmonk fall short?

• It has no built-in drag-and-drop visual builder on par with Mailchimp’s, and ships with few pre-made templates — you design most emails yourself in HTML, Markdown, or Go templating.
• It doesn’t send email on its own — it’s a list manager, not a mail server, so you bring an external SMTP relay (your own or a provider) and own deliverability, IP reputation, and spam-compliance yourself.
• Automation is basic. There are no advanced marketing workflows, onboarding drip sequences, or visual journey builders — it’s built for bulk and transactional sending, not campaign orchestration.

Is listmonk free?

Yes — listmonk is fully free and open source under the AGPL-3.0 license, with no paid tier, subscriber caps, or feature gates. There’s no official managed cloud, so your only real costs are the server you run it on and an SMTP provider to relay the mail. At 10,000 subscribers that’s often under $20/month all-in, versus well over $100/month on a hosted service.

What does listmonk replace?

listmonk is a self-hosted Mailchimp alternative for newsletters and mailing lists. It covers the core job — managing subscribers, composing campaigns, and sending at scale — but you run it on your own infrastructure and route mail through your own SMTP, so cost stays flat as your list grows instead of climbing with every subscriber.

FAQ

Is listmonk open source? Yes. listmonk is released under the AGPL-3.0 license, a strong copyleft OSI-approved license. The full source is public on GitHub and free to self-host.

Can I self-host listmonk for free? Yes — the software is free. You only pay for the server you run it on and an external SMTP service to send the email, since listmonk doesn’t deliver mail itself.

Is listmonk a good Mailchimp alternative? For technical users with large lists, yes — you get bulk and transactional sending at a fraction of the cost and full data ownership. If you need a polished visual builder, marketing automation, and zero server maintenance, a hosted tool like Mailchimp is easier.

What do I need to run listmonk? A server (binary or Docker), a PostgreSQL database, and an external SMTP server to relay outgoing email.