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Self hosted and open source newsletter app Mailtrain

by Andris Reinman
5 replies
Hi, I created a newsletter app / EMS that is self hosted and open source (GPL licensed, which means it is completely free to use, to modify and to share) called Mailtrain (www.mailtrain.org).

It has got some really great response so far but I'd still like to ask more feedback about the software. Would be great if you could list some must-have features that such a software should have and can't do without.

The software is self hosted which means it requires some tech knowledge to set up (requires Node.js v5.0+ and MySQL v5.5+/MariaDB). I want to make setup easier in the future but at this stage there's only an installation script for Ubuntu 14.04 to help to get started more easily, so you still need to know how to use command line.

I know my software can never be as good as Mailchimp's because you can't really beat 15 years and hundreds of people but the cost of free is a also a pretty good feature to have.
#app #hosted #mailtrain #newsletter #open #source
  • Profile picture of the author WebMarketingTool
    A few important things I didn't see in the features on your home page:
    - Be CAN-SPAM compliant (optout removal, forced address, etc)
    - Remove bounced emails
    - Grouping (I know you have List Segmentation but grouping is still useful)
    - Foreign character support
    - Email templates (even if it is just 1, but so that people don't start from scratch each time)
    - HTML and Text emails (and ability to edit plain text content of HTML email)
    - Opened email stats (you have link click but I didn't see where you said opened email).

    Many of these you might have already, you just didn't add to your list of features on the site (or I didn't notice them).

    Also, biggest thing, you must make installation dead easy for people using CPanel hosting and a video tutorial (even if it is dead easy and you use RoundCube installer or something like that and it only takes a minute, make a minute video showing how easy and fast it is).
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    • Profile picture of the author Andris Reinman
      Originally Posted by WebMarketingTool View Post

      Also, biggest thing, you must make installation dead easy for people using CPanel hosting and a video tutorial (even if it is dead easy and you use RoundCube installer or something like that and it only takes a minute, make a minute video showing how easy and fast it is).
      Thanks for the feedback! I already have most of this stuff, except for groups, but I don't think that I can start supporting CPanel any time soon as Mailtrain has some system requirements that are not supported by CPanel or by most other traditional web hosts.

      Currently you would have to rent a VPS server from Amazon, DigitalOcean, Rackspace or any other such provider and install the software using an installation script. I know that this is a show stopper for many but it is needed for better performance - Mailtrain needs only a fraction of system resources (CPU, RAM) that a more regular application would need while on the same time being much faster.
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  • Profile picture of the author mijnpc
    Hello,

    I've been searching for a solution like yours for a while now... but couldn't find one :/
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    Cheap email marketing -- www.kingmailer.co

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  • Profile picture of the author mijnpc
    Oops, I hit the enter button, anywho.

    I don't know how to install your software :'(

    I've uploaded it to my server using FTP, but don't know how to continu... Please help, I'm willing to pay for the installation.
    Signature

    Cheap email marketing -- www.kingmailer.co

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    • Profile picture of the author Andris Reinman
      Originally Posted by mijnpc View Post

      Oops, I hit the enter button, anywho.

      I don't know how to install your software :'(

      I've uploaded it to my server using FTP, but don't know how to continu... Please help, I'm willing to pay for the installation.
      You can not use this software on a regular virtual hosting server because Mailtrain does not run on PHP (the "P" in LAMP) but on Node.js. So what you really need is a VPS (virtual private server) that is basically a regular Linux box.

      I've been successful using VPS "droplets" from DigitalOcean but any other VPS provider should work as well. If you have an account at DigitalOcean, create a new "droplet", select "Ubuntu" as the platform (both versions 16.04 and 14.04 are good), select either $10 or $20 month package, pick your datacenter region and hit "Create".

      Once the droplet has been deployed, you should receive an email with the root user password for the droplet. Next you need a SSH client (puTTY is probably the most popular version). Use it to connect to the server. Once logged in and able to type commands you can test if everythin works by typing "uptime" (without quotes) and hitting the enter key. If you see a message like this: "12:15:34 up 1 minute, 3:59, 1 user, load average..." then you are all good to go.

      Once you are logged in as root user in a blank Ubuntu Linux VPS, run the install command shown in Mailtrain docs here (just copy and paste it and hit enter). I'm not copying it here because I'm not sure how the forum software retains the correct formatting of the command.

      Anyway, once you have started the command you should see a some log messages. The installation should probably take a few minutes. If the installation succeeds then you should see a "Success" message at the end of the log text.

      If you managed to install the software successfully, try to open the webpage of the service at http://ip-address-of-the-vps/ (you should probably set up a domain name pointing to this IP but at first, using the IP directly is ok). If everything worked you should see a webpage similar to the one you can see at mailtrain.org. Now try to log in with username "admin" and password "test". Once logged in, head to the settings page and update all the settings.
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