Gmail (Google Workspace) vs Mail-in-a-Box
Gmail (Google Workspace) and Mail-in-a-Box are both email server software. Gmail (Google Workspace) is a commercial product from Google. Mail-in-a-Box is open source under CC0-1.0, with 15k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Gmail (Google Workspace) when
- A business wants reliable hosted email with strong spam filtering and works mostly in the browser.
- Pick Mail-in-a-Box when
- You want your own email on a dedicated VPS with as few decisions as possible.
Side by side
Business email on your own domain using Gmail, with spam filtering, shared calendars and admin controls through Google Workspace.
A setup script that turns a fresh Ubuntu server into a complete mail server with Postfix, Dovecot, Roundcube webmail, Nextcloud contacts and calendars, spam filtering, DNS and TLS.
Moving away later is a chore, and shared mailboxes and delegation are weaker than in Exchange.
It takes over the whole machine, allows almost no customisation, and depends on a specific Ubuntu LTS release.
Production-ready (both)
Cloud service and mobile app
Self-hosted server
Not published
Python, Shell, Postfix, Dovecot, Roundcube and Nextcloud
Closed source, sold by Google
Open source, CC0-1.0 (public domain)
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
You can take the code into anything, including a product you sell, with no conditions.
90k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
15k GitHub stars
Not known
Established: started 13 years ago, latest release v77.
Other comparisons
More email servers and webmail
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.