How does my app connect to Mailpit?

Set your application SMTP host to 127.0.0.1 and port to 1025. If your app runs on the same VPS as Mailpit, it reaches the server over the loopback interface. No username, password or TLS are required unless you enable them explicitly.

Why replace MailHog with Mailpit?

MailHog has been unmaintained since 2020 and carries an unpatched stored XSS vulnerability (Exploit-DB 50971). Mailpit is its actively maintained successor, ships as the default in Laravel Sail and DDEV, and adds full-text search, spam scoring, HTML compatibility checks and a REST API for CI.

How many messages does Mailpit keep?

By default up to 500 messages. Older messages are automatically deleted when the limit is reached. Adjust it with the MP_MAX_MESSAGES environment variable.

Can I use Mailpit for a production SMTP relay?

No. Mailpit is a development tool that intentionally discards all emails. For production transactional email use a relay like Postfix, Brevo or Amazon SES. Use Mailpit only in development and staging environments.

Kick off a software project quickly.

Mailpit

Capture and preview emails sent by your app without delivering them. Replace MailHog — open source, single Docker container.

50 MB minimum RAM 1 vCPU Available

Mailpit is a developer SMTP server that intercepts every email your application sends and displays them in a clean web UI instead of delivering them. It replaces the abandoned MailHog (unpatched stored XSS since 2020) with full-text search, TLS support, spam scoring, HTML compatibility checks, mobile preview, a REST API for CI integration, and a POP3 interface — all in a single Go binary under 50 MB RAM. Deploy it on the same VPS as your web application, point your SMTP config to localhost:1025, and every email lands in the Mailpit inbox in real time.

Key features

SMTP server on port 1025 — configure your app to send to localhost:1025, no real emails are delivered.

Clean web UI on port 8025 with full-text search across subject, sender, recipient and body.

REST API for CI pipelines — assert email content, attachment count and recipients in automated tests.

Spam scoring with SpamAssassin rules — catch deliverability issues before they reach production.

HTML compatibility checker — identify CSS properties unsupported in major email clients.

Mobile preview and raw source view for HTML and plain-text parts.

POP3 interface to fetch captured emails with any mail client.

Single Go binary, under 50 MB RAM, SQLite database on a named volume.

When to use this solution?

1

Test email sending during development

Run your web application and Mailpit on the same VPS. Configure your SMTP settings to host localhost, port 1025. Every password reset, notification or invoice email appears instantly in the Mailpit inbox — no risk of sending to real users.

2

Assert emails in CI pipelines

Query the REST API from your test suite to verify that the correct email was sent, that the subject matches, that attachments are present, and that the right recipient received the message — without a real SMTP relay.

3

Catch deliverability issues before production

Use the spam scoring and HTML compatibility report to detect missing headers, broken HTML and CSS properties that will be stripped by Gmail or Outlook — before the email reaches a single real inbox.

Deploy Mailpit on your VPS

Guide optimized for ServOrbit Cloud VPS.

01

Deploy Mailpit from the marketplace

Open your ServOrbit control panel, go to Marketplace → Development → Mailpit, and click Deploy. Docker pulls the axllent/mailpit image and starts the server. The web UI is ready in under 10 seconds.

02

Configure your application SMTP

In your web application's environment or config file, set the SMTP host to 127.0.0.1 and the port to 1025. No authentication, no TLS required. If your app runs on the same VPS, every sent email will be intercepted by Mailpit.

03

Open the Mailpit web UI

Browse to the domain attached to your Mailpit instance (or SSH-tunnel port 8025). You will see the inbox list: click any message to inspect its HTML rendering, plain-text version, raw source, headers and spam score.

04

Use the REST API in your tests

Call GET /api/v1/messages to list intercepted emails. Filter by recipient, subject or date. Assert the exact content your application sent — no mock, no stub, the real email over real SMTP.

05

Check the HTML compatibility report

Open any HTML email and click the Compatibility tab. Mailpit highlights CSS properties that are unsupported or partially supported in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail and other major clients, so you can fix them before going live.

Frequently asked questions

No. Mailpit is a trap server: it accepts all SMTP connections on port 1025 and stores every message in its local SQLite database without forwarding it anywhere. No email reaches a real inbox.

Embed the deploy button

Maintaining a project that uses Mailpit? This button lets your readers deploy it on a VPS in one click, without reading Docker documentation.

Markdown

[![Deploy Mailpit on ServOrbit](https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg)](https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=mailpit&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=mailpit)

HTML

<a href="https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=mailpit&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=mailpit"><img src="https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg" alt="Deploy Mailpit on ServOrbit" height="40"></a>

The button points to a VPS order with the template preselected. The image is served from servorbit.com — nothing to host on your side.