Alpine, Mulberry, or Seamonkey?

[anj]

I have been using Thunderbird, but I am tired of how slow it is, and increasingly find myself using webmail, just to avoid the slowness. (I have tried reinstalling.) So, I am ready to try something new.

It seems I am spoilt for choice... :-) Reading through Nancy McCough's blog it appears that while I was sleeping there has been some growth in open-source IMAP clients which support tagging. Namely:
Mulberry 4.0.5+ (now open-source)
Alpine (Pine 5.00+) (now an open Apache license)
SeaMonkey Suite (open MPL) (& not for-profit, unlike Mozilla's Thunderbird)

So, I am seeking thoughts from current users of these clients. My particular concerns are:
- support for flags
- support for tags, and ease of use
- speed
(... and while I'm making wishlists...)
- threaded conversations, ala Gmail (would be lovely)

I am not so concerned about ease of installation or learning curve, so long as its worth it.
Please share your impressions and comparisons.

[adam15c]

My personal favourite remains Thunderbird I'm afraid. I have found Mulberry to be inherently buggy, SeaMonkey is behind Thunderbird in development I believe, and Alpine, is it released yet? I thought it was still in Alpha testing. Sorry but not much help here.

[ReuvenNY]

anj, I am surprised you find Thunderbird slow. The only way I can imagine it slow is if you have too many extensions installed.
Try to run it in "safe mode" to check the speed without the extensions.

[Mechant Loup]

Originally Posted by ReuvenNY

anj, I am surprised you find Thunderbird slow. The only way I can imagine it slow is if you have too many extensions installed.
Try to run it in "safe mode" to check the speed without the extensions.

I find Thunderbird much slower on a fast IMAP server than Pine or KMail, both of which I use regularly. Pine is the fastest IMAP client I've come across. On the other hand, Thunderbird should support IMAP IDLE, if that is of any importance. I don't know if Alpine has added that.

IMAP speed aside, and considering the software itself, Thunderbird is still rather slow, yes, compared to other GUI clients, such as KMail, Evolution etc. Of course, that may have something to do with using GTK on KDE or something.

Alpine is in alpha stage, sure, but for what I've observed on alpine-alpha mailing list, it is quite stable as it is. And certainly, it has not been built from scratch or anything. It is not your typical "alpha" stage software, as people actually use it as their main email client.

Mulberry is said to be rather good, but I've heard it is not developed any more? I personally would not like to settle on email software that will not be maintained. At least not as a "permanent" solution.

[anj]

Mulberry
Prognosis: now open-source, and given its following, I can only imagine it will be developed. People often complain it has fantastic features, but is clunky. Not sure what is meant by that.
Labels: This is my main complaint hold-off -- only 5 labels (last I heard)!
Reliability: Highly acclaimed IMAP implementation
Speed: Super

Alpine I can actually play with easily through telnet at SDF.
Prognosis: Actively developed. Loyal following. Now with an open Apache license.
Reliability: Seems like trusty ol' Pine to me. I guess I shouldn't use it exclusive though, huh? Ok, if I select Alpine, I'll use another client occasionally too, just for backup.
Labels: IIRC Nancy McGough said it has unlimitted labels... love that!
Speed: Super

Thunderbird, I do have a couple extensions. I'll try uninstalling them. Not too motivated to spend time troubleshooting this though...
Labels: Still only 5 labels IIRC.
Reliability: Super popular, must be reliable :-)
Prognosis: Most active development, but I wonder how this will change now that Mulberry and Alpine have open licenses.
Speed: a total drag for me, but lots of satisfied users

Seamonkey... I've no idea about this. Just read it at Nancy McGough's.

And I've no idea how to do threaded conversations (ala Gmail) in any of these...

[rmns2bseen]

SeaMonkey Mail is practically identical to Thunderbird, minus the built-in RSS reader and a few UI differences. RSS-reading capabilities for SM Mail though are available through the Forumzilla extension. I guess it comes down to whether or not you want an integrated suite of apps.

I don't know about Alpine, but in Pine 4.64 threaded views are had by typing "$" and "H" while viewing the message list (without the quotation marks, of course).

My own opinion is that you can't really go wrong with any of the clients discussed.

[anj]

Two months later, none of these options have presented a winning or even promising combo:

• Gmail with the notifier -- No paid option to regain screen real-estate from ads. No way to view multiple email accounts in a single interface, no instant notifications of new mail for multiple accounts. No simple portability (to take message store to another service)
• Alpine - Tagging is not simple enough. Same goes for the whole UI to a lesser extent. Not sure if it supports IMAP idle, or if there is another way to obtain instant notification of new mail; I am using it server-side.
• Thunderbird - Only 5 labels. Correction: Now has tags, but not apparent enough to be usable. You have to open up a search.
  
  Not much promise from any of them to improve these drawbacks either.

As for the others:

• Mulberry - not actively developed - last release was in 6 months ago
• Seamonkey - largely same as Thunderbird, why bother.

With Mozilla Corp's announcement that they are kicking Thunderbird out of the house, I suppose that Thunderbird and Seamonkey will either converge or disintegrate. So right now, the only other one with active development is Alpine. I guess I am happiest with Alpine, despite its poor UI. Without a commitment to improving the UI, I doubt it has much of a future though.

Other options?
Outlook 2007 is not really a long-term option, even if they have made a superior product this time. With Outlook we are stuck with Windows and Microsoft's dodgy commitment to improving the user-experience. They did well this time under the gun from Google, but I have no reason to believe they won't go back to taking their users for granted once they have a foothold.

[Mechant Loup]

Originally Posted by anj

Two months later, none of these options have presented a winning or even promising combo:

• Gmail with the notifier -- No paid option to regain screen real-estate from ads. No way to view multiple email accounts in a single interface, no instant notifications of new mail for multiple accounts. No simple portability (to take message store to another service)
• Alpine - Tagging is not simple enough. Same goes for the whole UI to a lesser extent. Not sure if it supports IMAP idle, or if there is another way to obtain instant notification of new mail; I am using it server-side.
• Thunderbird - Only 5 labels. Correction: Now has tags, but not apparent enough to be usable. You have to open up a search.
  
  Not much promise from any of them to improve these drawbacks either.

As for the others:

• Mulberry - not actively developed - last release was in 6 months ago
• Seamonkey - largely same as Thunderbird, why bother.

With Mozilla Corp's announcement that they are kicking Thunderbird out of the house, I suppose that Thunderbird and Seamonkey will either converge or disintegrate. So right now, the only other one with active development is Alpine. I guess I am happiest with Alpine, despite its poor UI. Without a commitment to improving the UI, I doubt it has much of a future though.

Other options?
Outlook 2007 is not really a long-term option, even if they have made a superior product this time. With Outlook we are stuck with Windows and Microsoft's dodgy commitment to improving the user-experience. They did well this time under the gun from Google, but I have no reason to believe they won't go back to taking their users for granted once they have a foothold.

If *NIx platform is availabe, considering Evolution or KMail (or whole Kontact suite) would be an option. KMail is very fast and rock solid, and has a devoted and sizable user base. Evolution seems rather heavy to me, although better than Thunderbird.

[Scott Kitterman]

Originally Posted by Mechant Loup

If *NIx platform is availabe, considering Evolution or KMail (or whole Kontact suite) would be an option. KMail is very fast and rock solid, and has a devoted and sizable user base.

I've used Kmail as my primary desktop mail client for two years now. It's very reliable and capable for my needs. I particularly like that it stores mail in the maildir format so each message is it's own file. This is very good for both reliabilty and performance reasons. It also allows me to use regular file system search tools to find stuff in my mail.

[anj]

I kept my eye on Evolution for a couple years; frankly, the name seemed rather apt. Has there been more development of late?
Kmail doesn't meet my preference for a multi-platform app, but efficient performance is a big plus. I'll give it a go if it has tags and search.

Originally Posted by Scott Kitterman

I particularly like that it stores mail in the maildir format so each message is it's own file.

I can see how that would be a good thing. I'd suppose Thunderbird does not do this. I found my Thunderbird hang problems improved when I turned on mailbox compressing. So, it interrupts me sometimes to do the compressing, but overall is faster. Would be great if this were not necessary at all. Anyhow, I am still not satisfied with the progress on annotation and search. I hope this improves with their spinoff from Mozilla Corp, but I am not waiting for it.

"It also allows me to use regular file system search tools to find stuff in my mail."
Hmm. Is this because the K-mail search is slow/non-existant/or...? Not sure I would find system search satisfactory for searching tags. Or are there no tags?

[theog]

Originally Posted by anj

Other options?
Outlook 2007 is not really a long-term option, even if they have made a superior product this time. With Outlook we are stuck with Windows and Microsoft's dodgy commitment to improving the user-experience. They did well this time under the gun from Google, but I have no reason to believe they won't go back to taking their users for granted once they have a foothold.

Outlook will be around and being worked on from now until Microsoft folds. Think about it: outlook is a cash cow in its own right. I don't think you have anything to worry about with outlook... if something is broke, they will fix it... but so far, I've not found anything broke in outlook 2007. It is the best desktop app on the market right now.... hands down. Granted, they won't storm through and upgrade every six or even 12 months, but it will get an update (or refresh) every now and again.

And no, it was not google... outlook 2007 compared to gmail is like comparing apples to crap... gmail does not have the reach of outlook. My guess was they were fending off what they thought thunderturd was to be.... but of course, never actually made it. That app is dead, unless google gets it.

Then again, it might have just been outlook's time to shine... MS often has "breakthrough" products... but I'd agree, I think we are stuck with outlook 2007, with small changes, until at least 2010 or 2011. Then again, I don't want them mucking with a good thing anyway....

[gunnarj]

Has anyone had any experience with the email client Koma-Mail?

For your safety:
- Save download via SSL and APOP
- Scripts-, active x- and html-Blocker
- Encrypting of the database and contacts
- Muli-User support, every user can define several eMail-accounts

Easy communication:
- Multilingual (German, English, Greek, Dutch)
- Support of IMAP/POP3/SMTP and WebDav (Hotmail)
- Html eMails, inline-eMails
- Spam-Filter and own filters
- RSS Feeds

For your comfort:
- No installation required, runs from an USB-stick
- Unlimited amount of folders to save your eMails in
- Individual templates and signatures for each mail-account
- No sound when only spam arrives
- EMail-Groups, contact-managment and import
- Zip attachments
- Filter possibilities

[dashavoo]

I thoroughly recommend claws mail (fork of sylpheed), it supports the gmail style threading of emails, it has a very good range of plugins for extra functionality, using the plugins you can read html mail, but if you would rather not it will automatically try and display it as text only. The only drawback that some users will find is that you cannot use it to create html mail, but who wants to do that anyway? It just clogs the pipes.

I have been using it for a few months now, very happily, since I refused to install evolution due to its heavy gnome dependencies (I hate installing the libraries for a desktop environment I don't use, and since I use openbox that leaves me limited in the applications I will use).

Give it a try, you might like it

[emoore]

"On the other hand, Thunderbird should support IMAP IDLE, if that is of any importance."

Its supported it for several years. I have three IMAP accounts (fastmail, aim, and my isp) and it works with all three.

[FMRocks]

Originally Posted by anj

With Mozilla Corp's announcement that they are kicking Thunderbird out of the house, I suppose that Thunderbird and Seamonkey will either converge or disintegrate.

Wow, I just discovered how long I have been out of touch with hot tech news. I didn't even know this was going on with Thunderbird - but I did a quick search and of course, it's right. Can't say I'm not a little saddened, but Thunderbird is an excellent product, and it will survive. I've been using Thunderbird for a long, long time now, and I have tried other programs, including Apple's Mail, Eudora, and of course, Outlook and Outlook Express, but I've always felt at home with Thunderbird.