Every plan here is unmanaged, so the amount of software you have to keep patched is a real cost. listmonk is the answer to that: a single self-contained Go binary and a Postgres database. No PHP, no web server, no dependency tree. It does less than Mautic on purpose.
2
The binary, and Postgres. That is the stack.
listmonk is a free, AGPL v3 newsletter and mailing list manager that ships as one self-contained Go binary. The entire stack is that binary plus a PostgreSQL database, version 12 or newer — no PHP, no web server in front of it, no dependency tree to keep current. That makes it the lightest of the six to host and by a distance the least demanding to maintain, which matters on unmanaged plans where every piece of software is yours to patch. It sends through an external SMTP server, so you pair it with an MTA on the same VPS or a relay. The current release is v6.1.0, published on 29 March 2026.
Related: All six compared · Mautic · SMTP VPS · Port 25 · How many emails can a VPS send?
On an unmanaged plan, every dependency is something you are responsible for.
A PHP application means PHP itself, its extensions, a web server, Composer packages and the application — five things with their own security advisories. listmonk is a compiled binary and a database. Upgrading is replacing one file and running migrations.
No visual automation, no lead scoring, no landing pages. That is a design decision, not a gap to be filled later. If your plan involves behaviour-triggered journeys, choose Mautic now rather than discovering the limit after you have imported your list.
Taken from the project's own documentation on 17 August 2026, not from a hosting page's estimate. The source is named underneath so you can check it.
| Licence | AGPL v3 |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free |
| Version | v6.1.0, released 29 March 2026 |
| Stack | Go (single self-contained binary) |
| Database | PostgreSQL 12 or newer |
| Also needs | No PHP, no web server and no dependency stack to maintain — the binary serves its own admin interface. |
| Sends mail itself | No — it hands mail to an MTA or a relay |
Sources, checked 17 August 2026
Read at each vendor's own documentation rather than taken from a summary. Follow the links and check for yourself — figures like these move.
It is the easiest recommendation here, and it is not the most capable.
Import, segment, schedule, send, read the stats. Done well and quickly, with almost no upkeep.
Fewer moving parts means fewer things to patch at 2am. On unmanaged hosting that is worth real money.
Hosted tools price per contact. A fixed monthly server cost stops scaling with your list.
listmonk exposes a clean HTTP API, so subscribing users from your own application is straightforward.
Branching campaigns and lead scoring are not here and are not planned to be. That is Mautic's job.
PostgreSQL 12+ is required, with no MySQL alternative. Adding a second engine may not suit your setup.
listmonk is single-tenant in practice. MailWizz was built for the multi-customer case.
It does not. You still need an MTA on the box or a relay behind it, like every campaign application here.
listmonk is the cheapest of the six to host because there is so little of it. A single core handles the binary and Postgres comfortably; what benefits from good hardware is the database, so fast storage is worth more here than extra cores.
A Go binary and Postgres are comfortable on a single core; NVMe keeps subscriber queries quick.
1 Core · 2 GB RAM
20 GB NVMe · 10 Gbps Port
$9.95/mo
+ $1.00 one-time setup
This is a starting point, not a rule — list size and sending frequency matter more than the software itself. See all plans · compare all six packages · ask before you order.
From $4.95 a month with Port 25 open, a dedicated IPv4 address and reverse DNS set free on request — plus a 7-day money-back guarantee.
