Add built-in Mail Server / Mail Service Support in Dokploy

[fabriceyopa]

Hello Dokploy team — first of all, thank you for building and maintaining such a promising open-source PaaS alternative.

I want to propose adding support for hosting a mail server/mail service as a first-class feature inside Dokploy. The idea is to let users deploy and manage their own email infrastructure (SMTP, IMAP/POP, webmail, etc.) via Dokploy in a way similar to how Cloudron integrates email.

Below are motivations, use-cases, and a rough sketch of how this could be architected.

Why a built-in mail service is valuable

1. Full autonomy & ownership
   Many users self-host their applications, but still rely on external email services (Gmail, SendGrid, etc.). Having email integrated means they can fully own their stack.

2. Better integration
   • Automatic DNS / MX / SPF / DKIM / DMARC management
   • Seamless certificate management (e.g. via Let’s Encrypt)
   • Sending transactional email from apps (e.g. password resets) with local SMTP
   • Inbound mail forwarding, aliases, webmail, etc.

3. Competitive differentiation
   Cloudron is often praised for its built-in email support. Having this in Dokploy would strengthen its position as a full self-hosted PaaS.

4. User convenience
   Many users already deploy webapps, databases, etc. Adding email as a first-class service would reduce friction and the need to spin up a separate mail server or external service.

[djsisson]

Self hosted email servers are highly likely to get blocked, either directly by the hosting provider or from the receiving mail server even when correctly configured

I'm not saying it's not possible, it's just far easier to use ses

[everonegraham]

What about adding openship mail as a template? 🤔 https://github.com/oblien/openship/blob/main/apps/email/Dockerfile

[imrja8]

A fully native mail server integration like Cloudron does (with DNS/MX/DKIM/DMARC management built into the panel) isnt there right now, but Dokploy already has a bunch of mail related one click templates that can get you going:

1. Stalwart is a lightweight and powerful mail server with JMAP, IMAP4, POP3 and SMTP support. If you want a modern, resource efficient option this is the one. It doesnt come with a mailbox UI on its own but you can deploy Roundcube alongside it (also available as a template) for webmail.
2. Mailu is more of an all in one setup. You get Postfix for SMTP, Dovecot for IMAP, Rspamd for antispam, an admin UI with DKIM management, and Roundcube webmail all bundled together.

For something bigger like Mailcow, you can run it using a Docker Compose type deployment. Point it to the Mailcow repo URL, set the target compose file, pass config values as env variables and handle networking in the compose. It works fine as long as the correct ports are open (25, 143, 465, 587, 993 etc).

That said, as @djsisson also mentioned, self hosting mail is genuinely painful long term. I've personally run Mailcow, Axigen, Stalwart and Mailu. IP reputation, deliverability issues, spam filtering, DKIM/SPF/DMARC tuning, blacklist monitoring... it never really ends. A lot of hosting providers also block port 25 by default. After going through all of them I ended up switching to third party providers like Google Workspace, Proton Mail, Spaceship Mail and its been way less headache.

If you still want to self host, the templates above will get you there. But if its mainly about sending transactional email from your apps, something like a dedicated SMTP relay is usually a more reliable path than running a full mail server.