Simple/lightweight alternative to GNU Mailman?

Question

I'm looking for a dead simple mailing list (unix friendly). Robustness, fine-grained configurability, "enterprise-readiness" (whatever that means) are not requirements. I just need to set up a tiny mailing list for a few friends. Rather than hack something up myself, I was wondering if anybody knows of anything already out there with a similar goal?

I should note right now that I don't want an externally hosted mailing list -- it needs to be software I can install and run on my server. I know of many places I can host a mailing list at (Google/Yahoo groups), but it would be nice to keep the data local.

Apis

Answer 1

Mailman is one of the simplest mailing list packages I've come across, so if Mailman is more than you want to deal with I'd suggest just adding an entry into /etc/aliases for your mailing list.

Of course you have to manage it by hand, but you said it's only for a few friends so that may not be a problem. Just create an entry in /etc/aliases such as:

mylist: [email protected], [email protected], \
  [email protected]

and then run newaliases. It doesn't get much simpler than that. If you want an archive you can create a dummy account on your mail server and add them to the list.

It's not as user friendly as Mailman but it's simple and you can be up and running in 5 minutes.

Microscopic

That's almost a perfect idea but it would be nice (though not required) to at least have some web-accessible archiving of threads at some location. I'll consider that one though, thanks for reminding me about aliases. – Apis

Actually... I'm going to go with a two part solution here involving your idea. I'll add another dummy user and make a simple PHP script to display its mailbox contents. That should be suitable enough. – Apis

How far can you push this before it's not a good idea? A dozen recipients? A hundred? – Chondroma

Wow, Mailman and simple? Have you looked at the UI? It’s a horror. I hope that’s not the easiest possibility to get a mailinglist up and running. – Overshadow

Answer 2

If you're not afraid of perl, give Minimalist a try.

Gymnosophist

It appears Minimalist is no longer supported, at least as of June 2012. :/ – Damiandamiani

Answer 3

If you want something easy to setup, with a user interface on top then I would recommend to check out WP Mailster (WordPress plugin) or Mailster (Joomla plugin).

No matter which of the two CMS you prefer, you will only need 5 minutes to have a "naked" WordPress or Joomla and the plugin installed.

It really works well and is easy to use. I have used Mailster for years and recently, with my site's move to WordPress have switched wo WP Mailster.

Lianneliao