Exim
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Exim, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
Plans and prices
From Exim's own pricing page, checked 8 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Exim | Free | GNU General Public Licence · self-managed mail transfer agent |
The facts
Each one read from Exim's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Download verification
- Published source tarballs are cryptographically signed with OpenPGP, and signatures are distributed alongside them.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Filtering
- Users can use Sieve filters or Exim’s own filter language, which the manual describes as more powerful than Sieve.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Intended use
- The manual says Exim is designed for Internet mail transfer and that using it to send bulk unsolicited email conflicts with the project’s aims.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Mail routing
- Exim provides flexible facilities for routing mail and checking incoming mail.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Mail transport
- The implemented external transport mechanisms are SMTP and LMTP over TCP/IP, including IPv6.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Policy controls
- Access control lists can grant or deny access at points in the SMTP dialogue, including after recipient commands and at the end of a message.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Release signing
- The project says all releases receive a signed Git tag.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Scanning integrations
- When built with the content-scanning extension, Exim can pass messages to external virus or spam scanning software through its ACL mechanism.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Security updates
- The website identifies version 4.100.1 as a security release addressing four listed security issues.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Support and community
- The project provides announcement, development, and user mailing lists, including searchable archives for the user list.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Virus and spam scanning limit
- The manual says Exim’s basic incoming-message scanning is not comprehensive enough for full virus or spam scanning and recommends specialized additional software.checked 8 Oct 2026
- What it does
- Exim is a mail transfer agent for hosts running Unix or Unix-like operating systems.checked 8 Oct 2026
Where it runs
- Platform support
- The documentation lists configuration files for several operating systems, including Darwin (Mac OS X), FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and GNU/Linux; it cautions that some older systems may no longer be testable.checked 8 Oct 2026
- Windows support
- Configuration files exist for compiling Exim in the Cygwin environment on Windows, but the manual does not explain running Exim there.checked 8 Oct 2026
Alternatives to Exim
- 1

mailcow
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MailEnable
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SmarterMail
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Stalwart Mail Server
Free planWebAPILinuxmacOS7.1From $1.09 a year ($0.09 a month) - 5

IceWarp
AndroidiOSWebAPI7.0From $1.35 a month - 6

Axigen
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI6.9Free plan
