Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions
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I got another error while trying to create users which confused me alot.
Documentation says:
Seems reasonable I am using a 64bit OS so I'll do what they say.
So I made the change, but I kept getting errors, this is what the log showed.
Checked the path to see what could be wrong, the folder doesn't exist. So I reverted the user plugin path to /usr/lib/kopano and I could create users finally.
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You aren't installing confidence in me
For a ten year old product, it feels like they are new to this. These are things I expect from new projects just finding their feet. But from someone that's been running a production product for a decade, these kinds of issues feel like the wheels might be coming off. -
@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
The log in screen is schnazzy. Email web interface looks decent.
The interface looks really good and responds quite fast.
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@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
The log in screen is schnazzy. Email web interface looks decent.
The interface looks really good and responds quite fast.
Yes, Zimbra has become much more dated over the years. Barely changed in the last seven or eight years.
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@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
The log in screen is schnazzy. Email web interface looks decent.
The interface looks really good and responds quite fast.
Yes, Zimbra has become much more dated over the years. Barely changed in the last seven or eight years.
Zimbra 8 has improved UI from 7. However, it is without a toll on UI speed (in admin console).
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Just to be clear. I install Kopano on my PRODUCTION systems regularly on Debian and I have ZERO missing packages nor errors.
I just install them, run the dependencies and it just works.
you also have to remember that what's available for the community at their download site is the main development branch not the official releases which are reserved for customers. That said I never had any issues and I do run mainbranch in production
I use it for work the entire day and every single email I send or receive, including cloud, videoconferencing and so on, is via Kopano.
I did say that I am not sure whether Ubuntu 16.10 does work, the packages are for Ubuntu 16.04
I am pretty sure packages do work otherwise it would be all over the place on the kopano forums website.
If you have issues with the packages I would recommend you talking directly to the developers in the kopano forums:
Or otherwise send an e-mail to [email protected]
All I can speak is from my own experience. I am not trying to convince you to use Kopano or otherwise as I do not have any shares in the company nor I am one of their developers.
I can only speak from my own experience and despite me digging around everywhere else (including Zimbra) I have not found a product which gives me the same features in the community.
I have also been successful in building the webapp and plugins code from scratch myself again with little difficulty.
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@vhinzsanchez said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@scottalanmiller said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
The log in screen is schnazzy. Email web interface looks decent.
The interface looks really good and responds quite fast.
Yes, Zimbra has become much more dated over the years. Barely changed in the last seven or eight years.
Zimbra 8 has improved UI from 7. However, it is without a toll on UI speed (in admin console).
I'm testing the latest, looks a good ten years old.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
I did say that I am not sure whether Ubuntu 16.10 does work, the packages are for Ubuntu 16.04
I didn't think that you did. Only that it means Kopano has no enterprise Linux distro on which their packages are tested or up to date. Having to run on a limited support, old version of Ubuntu is a huge red flag that they either aren't bothering to keep up to date, aren't testing, don't understand the Linux ecosystem of Ubuntu or just don't care. They don't have working packages on CentOS either, but that isn't their target. That's all fine, it's up to them, but they can't do those things and then expect to be taken seriously - they can't have it both ways. I've returned commercial paid software for the same reasons - not production ready.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Just to be clear. I install Kopano on my PRODUCTION systems regularly on Debian and I have ZERO missing packages nor errors.
I just install them, run the dependencies and it just works.
you also have to remember that what's available for the community at their download site is the main development branch not the official releases which are reserved for customers. That said I never had any issues and I do run mainbranch in production
That's great and I think Kopano seems worthy of keeping an eye on as an up and coming product. But it comes across as amateur to an incredibly degree. No working documentation, no clear installation method, and obviously they've never run through it, even casually, on a current system. For production I need systems I can trust, not just get working one time. Part of that means a vendor that is dedicated to having systems that are tested and working, not just blinding throwing code over the wall and hoping for the best.
Zimbra has battle tested installs that work on multiple, current, enterprise OSes and has, without fail, for well over a decade. Zimbra's open source code is the same code as their production product, not a second class citizen that isn't tested. Zimbra uses licenses, not code quality, as the differentiator between their two products. So if their open source doesn't work, they lose business. If Kopano uses the excuse that "well the paid product doesn't do that", all I hear is "we don't stand by our product, we don't recommend it."
I'll give their community a try. But what I see of them says "has potential, but they aren't familiar with business use and see themselves as a hobby project that hasn't gotten to the point of being ready to really use yet." That doesn't mean that with effort someone can't get it working, it simply means that I can't trust it.
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Kopano uses NodeBB just like we do here
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Please note that Kopano (commercial version) is a production software which runs.
I am sure if you took the time to actually contact Kopano and ask their advise, they would be very happy to assist you and explain you how it works.Have you tried downloading their demo system by the way on their website?
I cannot comment on which distributions the software is built for, but personally I'd rather run in production with Ubuntu 16.04 (marketd as LTS by the way) rather than the latest Ubuntu.
Same as I run Centos 7 in place of the latest Fedora which keeps changing.
I do not believe Kopano is an amateur project at all, at least not to my experience.
If you are however happy with other solutions such as Zimbra or others, by all means use those.
As I said I have no affiliation with Kopano whatsoever, I am just a happy user and, for what I do, I have not found anything else that I can use in the same way. I did look at Zimbra, sadly it is missing features (at least in the community edition) that I need to use.
So as far as I am concerned, I have ONE choice and that's Kopano. That said not everyone needs what I need, therefore by all means if Zimbra does what you need, go with it. You are the one that has to be happy, not me.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Please note that Kopano (commercial version) is a production software which runs.
"Runs" and "I trust it" are not synonymous. If their open source code of that commercial version doesn't get tested, I can only assume that either they are not open sourcing the full product or they are just living on a prayer and hoping things don't fall apart with the commercial product. Either these are two unrelated products, or the failure of the one speaks to the other. They can't have it both ways.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
I cannot comment on which distributions the software is built for, but personally I'd rather run in production with Ubuntu 16.04 (marketd as LTS by the way) rather than the latest Ubuntu.
We only run the supported Ubuntu, old Ubuntu that is out of full support like LTS is not acceptable to us. Why would you want the unsupported and older version? What's the benefit - remember that LTS is not long term FULL support in Ubuntu world, it's not how the term LTS is used by any other operating system, it's partial support meaning security patches and little things, but not what the industry normally calls "supported". We consider it "unsupported" as stability issues will not be addressed.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/8737/how-ubuntu-lts-support-works
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As I said I do run Kopano every day and I do not have any reported bugs.
If I did I wouldn't be able to use it for my company.
That said, I am not a kopano employee so you should direct your questions to them.
As of today, I have no knowledge of anyone complaining in the forums of packages not installable nor I have any bugs that stop me from working.
I think we should stop here.
I am happy with Kopano and you with Zimbra, so that's great, everyone happy.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Same as I run Centos 7 in place of the latest Fedora which keeps changing.
That's WHY we only run Ubuntu current (supported) and not LTS. Ubuntu has no system like CentOS does, only like Fedora does. Like Fedora, only the current release is fully supported. So to use Fedora, you have to understand this and keep up to date all the time. Same with Ubuntu. To counter the negative connotations of this, Ubuntu names every fourth package with an LTS moniker hoping that people don't realize the difference between a name and a support commitment. CentOS is what the IT industry calls long term support, Ubuntu LTS is not. So think of it just like Fedora. If you want the vendor to stand behind you, you have to keep your systems up to date.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
As I said I do run Kopano every day and I do not have any reported bugs.
You also had to resort to running on Debian. Have you tried with one of the enterprise, currently supported OSes? Nothing wrong with Debian, it's a great product, but it seems a stretch to keep to move to it just for the email product to install.
Given that you have to do that, and that we can find no working packages or documentation for any supported enterprise OS - doesn't that worry you? You may easily have "gotten lucky" that your install on Debian worked. What if that one stops working like the others?
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Hi just to be clear I run on Debian. In any case please feel free to talk to Kopano. I am not an employee just a user and I may be giving you incorrect information.
If you are trying to buy a car at the very least you go to see the dealership, not a random buyer that may be biased or otherwise.
I would therefore recommend you to contact them directly and see what they say.
If you are happy with Zimbra, do stick with it. Your users are your customers not mine.
I am happy with my setup which is Debian (8) and Centos for mailscanner etc.
As I said I would be very happy to consider Zimbra etc. etc. except it does NOT have the features that I (meaning me not perhaps you) actually need. Therefore I stick with Kopano.
Zimbra is better? Perhaps, I don't know, I haven't tried it. However, it does NOT have the features that I need to use it successfully unless I pay for it. And since I am a community user, I can NOT use it. That's about it for me!
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
As of today, I have no knowledge of anyone complaining in the forums of packages not installable nor I have any bugs that stop me from working.
The forum has only a handful of posts and users. I would guess that no one is complaining because no one is installing it. There are so few people there and most appear to have already running systems. People testing out a new product rarely take the time to tell someone that it's broken, they just assume that they tested themselves and don't care, or didn't test in which case, why would we care?
The lack of forum activity is the bigger indicator rather than the lack of people telling them that auditions of their product have failed. You've seen two people in one day on two different OSes have the product fail, and then issues on 16.04 and both noted that the docs weren't right. So this forum already, literally, has more Kopano traffic this week than their own forum does.
That's the bigger indicator.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Hi just to be clear I run on Debian. In any case please feel free to talk to Kopano.
I'm in the process of doing so and I'll point them here.
I totally appreciate your help and that it is working for you and you are the one voice making it even seem reasonable to bother telling them how broken their system appears to be and how shoddy they are marketing themselves to engineers looking to see if they make a valid product.
But please understand, if you weren't here to say that it works for you.... we'd literally have written it off as "not even a real thing."
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Again... All I did was to go on the community website (which I do regularly nowadays) get the packages and install them.
I did NOTHING else and it just worked.
Even if I had some tweaking to do (which I do not in my case) I would still do it because simply the functionality compared to Zimbra (for what I need, that is me not you) is vastly better to the point that Zimbra just doesn't have it in the community edition!!!
That said, I have been running this stuff in production and the only downtime I had was when I had a hardware failure and that had nothing to do with them.
As I said, talk to them, not me, as I am a happy user that's all I can say.
But there again, some people buy Italian cars (well, me), some German, some British, whatever.
When you do, you go to the dealership and ask them what they have to say and check if it works for YOU
I do consider Kopano to be a very professional company and in my experience when I did have queries or anything else, they have always been very responsive and I had my answers quickly.
