8 ms·

Grommunio an open source Exchange replacement

104 points by rmason 5y ago

l-albertovich 5y ago
I really like the concept, the only thing I'd nitpick is that I didn't quite dig the stack spread (C++, go, php and python) and that I found the grommox code very hard to follow, not due to the inherent complexity of the tasks but because of how inconsistent and messy the code is which makes it difficult to consider it an improvement.
jimnotgym 5y ago
I would be fascinated to know 1) is anyone here using it at a scale of say 50+ users 2) What do the company housing this do? Paid support plans?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nix23 5y ago
Free and "Opensource" for less then 5 users, to be more precise...what a stupid price-list.
- capableweb 5y ago
  It's free for less than 5 users and the "open source" part is open source no matter how many users you're using. Not sure where you get the part that it's not open source once you're above a certain number of users? The repository/code is the same for all plans: https://github.com/grommunio https://github.com/grommunio
  - nix23 5y ago
    Again the price-list is pure stupidity. And limiting the usage of a "Opensource" product is even more stupid. >It's free for less than 5 users and the "open source" That's not how Free (yes it's AGPL) and Opensource Software works. In fact i am not even sure if one could do that under the GPL. Give me ONE single other FOSS Project where you have such a restriction (remember it's not a service but software, running on MY instance), restricting the USE and function of the Software on YOUR Computer was probably the first or second point to even invent the GPL.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      > Again the price-list is pure stupidity Could you try to specify why exactly you think so instead of just spewing your opinion without any sort of reasoning? > And limiting the usage of a "Opensource" product is even more stupid Again, why? You seem to be confusing the meaning of "free"/"gratis" with "open source". The code is public and released under the "GNU Affero General Public License", making it open source and even copy-left. What more can you ask for (besides "I WANT FREE/GRATIS SOFTWARE" which is what you seem to actually be annoyed about)
      - nix23 5y ago
        >Again, why? Limiting the USE of a opensource product is a stupid thing todo. The great thing about OSS is that your NOT dependent on a Manufacturer, but here you are if you have more than 5 users (that makes it even worse). IF your are truly OSS don't restrict your product on usage, but present a great Support-Team. This is not better then ANY Microsoft product with it's CAL's, but MS is probably not going bankrupt in the next 5 years, DONT artificially restrict the USE of your Product!
        BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        It's doesn't limit the use of the software, it limits the use of their instance. The licence is GPL, you can use it the way you want on your own machine.
        omnicognate 5y ago
        It's not hosted afaict. They're selling support.
        nix23 5y ago
        >It's doesn't limit the use of the software, it limits the use of their instance. Same same, it's Not a Service but Software, so it's MY instance. >The licence is GPL, you can use it the way you want on your own machine. That's the problem..i cant (5 User limit)...and btw it's AGPL
- jorams 5y ago
  It's straight up FOSS. What they're selling is support. I don't know if anyone responding here has read the rest of the Product page[1], but I thought it was quite clear: > In order to be able to use the features with support... > Our individual support services for the features of the product can be found below under ‘Packages & Pricing‘. The comparison table distinguishes between features with and without support, and "Support not included" in the part of the table that is just about support. They never mention selling anything but support. [1]: https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    Sure, but then they say "Community - Max 5 user - free" (on the page you link), and Community has no support. The point is they can't restrict the user count on a piece of AGPL software they aren't providing any hosting or support for. I suspect it's a mistake on the website tbh.
    - jagger27 5y ago
      What clause of the AGPL forbids this?
      - omnicognate 5y ago
        It's more that the AGPL allows you to use the software without any such restriction. If they license it under the AGPL you can use it with as many users as you want. In fact it requires that if you host an instance you make the code available to the users, for them to use/host/modify/distribute themselves (section 13, "Remote Network Interaction"). They could publish it under a modified AGPL, an "AGPL with user count restriction" of some kind (which wouldn't be AGPL at all - they would have to modify it heavily for it not to be a self-contradictory mess). However: A) They would need to own the copyright in all of the code involved so they can publish it under whatever license they want. To the extent their system contains GPL/AGPL code copyrighted by others (and I expect it does), distributing it under an incompatible license like this would be a copyright violation by them against the owners of that code. (This is in section 10, "Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients", where it says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.") B) There is no indication they are attempting to do this, other than that one mention on pricing page, which I suspect is a mistake. The repos simply contain the AGPL license.
- ABS 5y ago
  never heard of this, it took me 3 clicks to find that: 1) "grommunio is an open source based groupware product with supported features and offers companies and users various packages as subscriptions." https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/ 2) the actual open source project grommunio is based on is called Gromox https://gromox.com/ https://gromox.com/
  - nix23 5y ago
    Then don't click, but read would be the great idea -> Community Max 5 Users. https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/
    - croes 5y ago
      And what prevents you from downloading the code, compiling it yourself and using it for any number of users?
      - nix23 5y ago
        In the true spirit of opensource, make some barriers in your code.
        croes 5y ago
        So the barrier is in the code or is it not?
        nix23 5y ago
        Is it a sensible thing todo then? It's completely senseless to implement such a restriction in a opensource software. What other GPL project thinks that's a good way to force someone to pay you?
        croes 5y ago
        You didn't answer the question. Is the 5 user limit part of the code in the repository?
rcarmo 5y ago
As an old Exchange admin and e-mail product manager (back when telcos were selling Blackberry and ActiveSync services), I'm fascinated that this exists and can run on a Raspberry Pi today. Have to give it a try...
shever73 5y ago
This reminds me of the old Samsung Contact product that I used to be a reseller for. That was based on HP OpenMail as a replacement for Exchange.
rkagerer 5y ago
As someone who ran their own Exchange server for a couple decades and is tired of the deteriorating admin experience, this excites me. Can anyone comment on how bug-free, battle-tested and performant it is? Has anyone used Outlook Redemption against it (which IIRC exercises a lot of the MAPI protocol)?
- rapsey 5y ago
  Seems to be all c++. Likely performant but no way would I run this for my company. God knows how many security issues it has.
  - topspin 5y ago
    > God knows how many security issues it has. Are you sure absolute omnipotence is sufficient to calculate that?
    - danuker 5y ago
      I'd bet on the omniscience part.
mattowen_uk 5y ago
Took me a while to find the protocols it actually supports: https://grommunio.com/features/architecture/ https://grommunio.com/features/architecture/ I'm midway migrating my own Exchange infra to Azure, if I wasn't I'd give this a serious look.
pvitz 5y ago
I used to run an exchange4linux server as well as another open-source variant before that (but forgot the name... This must have been 20 years ago). The biggest issue was always the Outlook plugin that had to be used, so if Grommunio has really managed to do the communication with the server natively, this seems like a big win.
psd1 5y ago
Delighted to hear about this. I'm very over the limitations of the outlook/o365 solution I use for my personal mail. I give a different address for every sign-up. Outlook connecting to a mapi account just won't let you do that. No matter what you set as a from:, some genuine mailbox address gets inserted into the headers. On-prem exchange had powerful transport rules. O365 has toy transport rules. Obviously the answer is to move to IMAP and, probably, change hosting provider. But I'm really familiar with mapi, outlook anywhere, and all the good bits of the ecosystem. Might have to consider going back on-prem, this may be the answer. Certainly not running full-fat exchange in my house. Claims to support mapi. Devil is in the details. (MS Word's doc format is nominally an open standard, good luck anyone trying to implement it though!)
psd1 5y ago
Tangent, apologies! But vaguely related to topic of mail migrations. What are people using as desktop mail clients on Windows? I think I'm finally ready to drop outlook - keyboard navigation is shit - modal dialogues everywhere - obstinate about headers on outbound mail I had a look at emClient but the trial ran out before I could evaluate it, lol. I'll spend money but not without evaluating it first. I need: - good search - flexibility of outbound "from" address - strong rules and filters. Ability to run external script on an incoming mail would be a game changer. Thunderbird is too graphically ugly for my eyeballs. I want a product that looks like it was developed after 2003...
- jraph 5y ago
  Getting used to Thunderbird's appearance is probably worth it. It's just a question of habit and the UI itself is very efficient. It can be customized, too, I think, but I have never bothered with this. It seems to fulfill your requirements.
- sunsetandlabrea 5y ago
  I use Postbox on Windows at least. Have done for years. Far from perfect, based on Thunderbird so under the hood pretty solid, and looks and feels better mostly.
denton-scratch 5y ago
So this is an assemblage of FOSS software, presumably with a bit of custom glue software thrown in. The 5-user limit is if you want FREE-BEER support. It's not very clear. I'd like to know what they used to build it. Postfix, apparently (good choice). I'd like to know what other components they are relying on: Dovecot? Some OSS CALDAV server? Many people have tried to implement a free version of Exchange Server/Outlook. Despite the overall crapness of both MS products, those people have struggled. If these people have managed to do it using COTS FOSS components, I'd like to know what components they are relying on. They don't seem to be offering that information on their website.
- tssva 5y ago
  There is a link to their GitHub page on the website.
  - aucp 5y ago
    Interesting...seems a fork of kopano for some things https://marijuanapy.com/kopano-vs-grammm-dispute-over-open-source-groupware/amp/ https://marijuanapy.com/kopano-vs-grammm-dispute-over-open-s... They then use upstream of jitsi onlyoffice and piler for video chat files and archiving.
    - aucp 5y ago
      And this was gramms response https://grommunio.com/news/statement-grommunio-to-kopano/ https://grommunio.com/news/statement-grommunio-to-kopano/
jvdvegt 5y ago
Wow, not sure I've seen a more messed-up page in Firefox on Android then that homepage!
- luguenth 5y ago
  I'm using FF on Android as well. It seems ok to me. Except for the contact button and the very big menu.
robxu9 5y ago
There's also SOGo (https://www.sogo.nu/ https://www.sogo.nu/), which I'd be interested to see how Grommunio stacks up against that. SOGo has been pretty reliable for my personal deployments.
giancarlostoro 5y ago
Posting the GitHub profile since I didnt see it on the front page of their site: https://github.com/grommunio https://github.com/grommunio Looks to be implemented in varying programming languages.
rhax 5y ago
anyone else having trouble sign into the demo?

104 points by rmason 5y ago

I really like the concept, the only thing I'd nitpick is that I didn't quite dig the stack spread (C++, go, php and python) and that I found the grommox code very hard to follow, not due to the inherent complexity of the tasks but because of how inconsistent and messy the code is which makes it difficult to consider it an improvement.

jimnotgym 5y ago

I would be fascinated to know 1) is anyone here using it at a scale of say 50+ users 2) What do the company housing this do? Paid support plans?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nix23 5y ago

Free and "Opensource" for less then 5 users, to be more precise...what a stupid price-list.

capableweb 5y ago
It's free for less than 5 users and the "open source" part is open source no matter how many users you're using. Not sure where you get the part that it's not open source once you're above a certain number of users? The repository/code is the same for all plans: https://github.com/grommunio https://github.com/grommunio
- nix23 5y ago
  Again the price-list is pure stupidity. And limiting the usage of a "Opensource" product is even more stupid. >It's free for less than 5 users and the "open source" That's not how Free (yes it's AGPL) and Opensource Software works. In fact i am not even sure if one could do that under the GPL. Give me ONE single other FOSS Project where you have such a restriction (remember it's not a service but software, running on MY instance), restricting the USE and function of the Software on YOUR Computer was probably the first or second point to even invent the GPL.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > Again the price-list is pure stupidity Could you try to specify why exactly you think so instead of just spewing your opinion without any sort of reasoning? > And limiting the usage of a "Opensource" product is even more stupid Again, why? You seem to be confusing the meaning of "free"/"gratis" with "open source". The code is public and released under the "GNU Affero General Public License", making it open source and even copy-left. What more can you ask for (besides "I WANT FREE/GRATIS SOFTWARE" which is what you seem to actually be annoyed about)
    - nix23 5y ago
      >Again, why? Limiting the USE of a opensource product is a stupid thing todo. The great thing about OSS is that your NOT dependent on a Manufacturer, but here you are if you have more than 5 users (that makes it even worse). IF your are truly OSS don't restrict your product on usage, but present a great Support-Team. This is not better then ANY Microsoft product with it's CAL's, but MS is probably not going bankrupt in the next 5 years, DONT artificially restrict the USE of your Product!
      - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        It's doesn't limit the use of the software, it limits the use of their instance. The licence is GPL, you can use it the way you want on your own machine.
        omnicognate 5y ago
        It's not hosted afaict. They're selling support.
        nix23 5y ago
        >It's doesn't limit the use of the software, it limits the use of their instance. Same same, it's Not a Service but Software, so it's MY instance. >The licence is GPL, you can use it the way you want on your own machine. That's the problem..i cant (5 User limit)...and btw it's AGPL
jorams 5y ago
It's straight up FOSS. What they're selling is support. I don't know if anyone responding here has read the rest of the Product page[1], but I thought it was quite clear: > In order to be able to use the features with support... > Our individual support services for the features of the product can be found below under ‘Packages & Pricing‘. The comparison table distinguishes between features with and without support, and "Support not included" in the part of the table that is just about support. They never mention selling anything but support. [1]: https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/
- omnicognate 5y ago
  Sure, but then they say "Community - Max 5 user - free" (on the page you link), and Community has no support. The point is they can't restrict the user count on a piece of AGPL software they aren't providing any hosting or support for. I suspect it's a mistake on the website tbh.
  - jagger27 5y ago
    What clause of the AGPL forbids this?
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      It's more that the AGPL allows you to use the software without any such restriction. If they license it under the AGPL you can use it with as many users as you want. In fact it requires that if you host an instance you make the code available to the users, for them to use/host/modify/distribute themselves (section 13, "Remote Network Interaction"). They could publish it under a modified AGPL, an "AGPL with user count restriction" of some kind (which wouldn't be AGPL at all - they would have to modify it heavily for it not to be a self-contradictory mess). However: A) They would need to own the copyright in all of the code involved so they can publish it under whatever license they want. To the extent their system contains GPL/AGPL code copyrighted by others (and I expect it does), distributing it under an incompatible license like this would be a copyright violation by them against the owners of that code. (This is in section 10, "Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients", where it says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.") B) There is no indication they are attempting to do this, other than that one mention on pricing page, which I suspect is a mistake. The repos simply contain the AGPL license.
ABS 5y ago
never heard of this, it took me 3 clicks to find that: 1) "grommunio is an open source based groupware product with supported features and offers companies and users various packages as subscriptions." https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/ 2) the actual open source project grommunio is based on is called Gromox https://gromox.com/ https://gromox.com/
- nix23 5y ago
  Then don't click, but read would be the great idea -> Community Max 5 Users. https://grommunio.com/product/ https://grommunio.com/product/
  - croes 5y ago
    And what prevents you from downloading the code, compiling it yourself and using it for any number of users?
    - nix23 5y ago
      In the true spirit of opensource, make some barriers in your code.
      - croes 5y ago
        So the barrier is in the code or is it not?
        nix23 5y ago
        Is it a sensible thing todo then? It's completely senseless to implement such a restriction in a opensource software. What other GPL project thinks that's a good way to force someone to pay you?
        croes 5y ago
        You didn't answer the question. Is the 5 user limit part of the code in the repository?

rcarmo 5y ago

As an old Exchange admin and e-mail product manager (back when telcos were selling Blackberry and ActiveSync services), I'm fascinated that this exists and can run on a Raspberry Pi today. Have to give it a try...

shever73 5y ago

This reminds me of the old Samsung Contact product that I used to be a reseller for. That was based on HP OpenMail as a replacement for Exchange.

rkagerer 5y ago

As someone who ran their own Exchange server for a couple decades and is tired of the deteriorating admin experience, this excites me. Can anyone comment on how bug-free, battle-tested and performant it is? Has anyone used Outlook Redemption against it (which IIRC exercises a lot of the MAPI protocol)?

rapsey 5y ago
Seems to be all c++. Likely performant but no way would I run this for my company. God knows how many security issues it has.
- topspin 5y ago
  > God knows how many security issues it has. Are you sure absolute omnipotence is sufficient to calculate that?
  - danuker 5y ago
    I'd bet on the omniscience part.

mattowen_uk 5y ago

Took me a while to find the protocols it actually supports: https://grommunio.com/features/architecture/ https://grommunio.com/features/architecture/ I'm midway migrating my own Exchange infra to Azure, if I wasn't I'd give this a serious look.

pvitz 5y ago

I used to run an exchange4linux server as well as another open-source variant before that (but forgot the name... This must have been 20 years ago). The biggest issue was always the Outlook plugin that had to be used, so if Grommunio has really managed to do the communication with the server natively, this seems like a big win.

psd1 5y ago

Delighted to hear about this. I'm very over the limitations of the outlook/o365 solution I use for my personal mail. I give a different address for every sign-up. Outlook connecting to a mapi account just won't let you do that. No matter what you set as a from:, some genuine mailbox address gets inserted into the headers. On-prem exchange had powerful transport rules. O365 has toy transport rules. Obviously the answer is to move to IMAP and, probably, change hosting provider. But I'm really familiar with mapi, outlook anywhere, and all the good bits of the ecosystem. Might have to consider going back on-prem, this may be the answer. Certainly not running full-fat exchange in my house. Claims to support mapi. Devil is in the details. (MS Word's doc format is nominally an open standard, good luck anyone trying to implement it though!)

psd1 5y ago

Tangent, apologies! But vaguely related to topic of mail migrations. What are people using as desktop mail clients on Windows? I think I'm finally ready to drop outlook - keyboard navigation is shit - modal dialogues everywhere - obstinate about headers on outbound mail I had a look at emClient but the trial ran out before I could evaluate it, lol. I'll spend money but not without evaluating it first. I need: - good search - flexibility of outbound "from" address - strong rules and filters. Ability to run external script on an incoming mail would be a game changer. Thunderbird is too graphically ugly for my eyeballs. I want a product that looks like it was developed after 2003...

jraph 5y ago
Getting used to Thunderbird's appearance is probably worth it. It's just a question of habit and the UI itself is very efficient. It can be customized, too, I think, but I have never bothered with this. It seems to fulfill your requirements.
sunsetandlabrea 5y ago
I use Postbox on Windows at least. Have done for years. Far from perfect, based on Thunderbird so under the hood pretty solid, and looks and feels better mostly.

denton-scratch 5y ago

So this is an assemblage of FOSS software, presumably with a bit of custom glue software thrown in. The 5-user limit is if you want FREE-BEER support. It's not very clear. I'd like to know what they used to build it. Postfix, apparently (good choice). I'd like to know what other components they are relying on: Dovecot? Some OSS CALDAV server? Many people have tried to implement a free version of Exchange Server/Outlook. Despite the overall crapness of both MS products, those people have struggled. If these people have managed to do it using COTS FOSS components, I'd like to know what components they are relying on. They don't seem to be offering that information on their website.

tssva 5y ago
There is a link to their GitHub page on the website.
- aucp 5y ago
  Interesting...seems a fork of kopano for some things https://marijuanapy.com/kopano-vs-grammm-dispute-over-open-source-groupware/amp/ https://marijuanapy.com/kopano-vs-grammm-dispute-over-open-s... They then use upstream of jitsi onlyoffice and piler for video chat files and archiving.
  - aucp 5y ago
    And this was gramms response https://grommunio.com/news/statement-grommunio-to-kopano/ https://grommunio.com/news/statement-grommunio-to-kopano/

jvdvegt 5y ago

Wow, not sure I've seen a more messed-up page in Firefox on Android then that homepage!

luguenth 5y ago
I'm using FF on Android as well. It seems ok to me. Except for the contact button and the very big menu.

robxu9 5y ago

There's also SOGo (https://www.sogo.nu/ https://www.sogo.nu/), which I'd be interested to see how Grommunio stacks up against that. SOGo has been pretty reliable for my personal deployments.

giancarlostoro 5y ago

Posting the GitHub profile since I didnt see it on the front page of their site: https://github.com/grommunio https://github.com/grommunio Looks to be implemented in varying programming languages.

rhax 5y ago

anyone else having trouble sign into the demo?