ActiveCampaign
Email marketing and CRM platform for customer experience automation
useSend
Self‑hosted email platform delivering reliable, low‑cost SES mail
useSend offers a self‑hosted, SES‑backed email service with a dashboard, API, SMTP, and contact management for transactional and marketing campaigns, all under an AGPL‑3.0 license.
Overview
Overview
useSend is a self‑hosted email platform that builds on Amazon SES to provide reliable, low‑cost sending for both transactional and marketing communications. The service includes a modern dashboard where users can monitor deliveries, opens, clicks, and bounces, and it offers full contact and subscription management.
Core capabilities
Through a RESTful API, scheduled API, and SMTP endpoint, developers can integrate email sending into any application without changing existing code. Domain management lets you add custom sending domains, while the built‑in editor (powered by jsx‑email and tiptap) simplifies creating responsive HTML messages.
Deployment
The project ships as a Docker image and can be run locally, on a VPS, or via services like Railway. Required components include a database, Redis queue, and AWS credentials for SES. Being AGPL‑3.0 licensed, you retain full control and can extend the platform as needed.
Highlights
Dashboard with delivery, open, click, and bounce metrics
REST and scheduled API for transactional and marketing emails
SMTP endpoint compatible with existing tools
Domain management and contact list handling
Pros
- Low cost leveraging Amazon SES
- Full control via self‑hosting
- Rich UI for email analytics
- Extensible tech stack (Next.js, Prisma, Redis)
Considerations
- Beta stage may lack stability
- Only email support currently
- Webhook and BYO AWS credentials not yet implemented
- Requires infrastructure for DB, Redis, and AWS credentials
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider useSend, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams needing a customizable email service without vendor lock‑in
- Developers who want to run email infrastructure on their own servers
- Startups looking for cost‑effective SES‑based mailing
- Organizations requiring detailed email engagement dashboards
Not ideal when
- Companies that need out‑of‑the‑box SMS or push notifications now
- Users without ability to manage Docker or cloud resources
- Businesses requiring guaranteed SLA from a hosted provider
- Teams that need immediate webhook support
How teams use it
Transactional order confirmations
Deliver reliable order emails with real‑time open tracking
Newsletter campaigns
Send bulk newsletters, manage subscriptions, and view click metrics
Scheduled product updates
Queue emails to be sent at specific times via the schedule API
Domain onboarding
Add custom sending domains and monitor deliverability through the dashboard
Tech snapshot
TypeScript91%
MDX3%
Python2%
PLpgSQL1%
JavaScript1%
CSS1%
Frequently asked questions
What email service does useSend rely on?
It uses Amazon SES as the underlying mail transport.
Is useSend free to use?
The software is released under AGPL‑3.0 and can be self‑hosted at no cost; you only pay for AWS SES usage and infrastructure.
Can I integrate useSend with existing applications?
Yes, it offers SMTP, REST, and tRPC endpoints for easy integration.
Is there support for webhooks?
Webhook support is planned but not yet available in the current beta.
How can I deploy useSend?
You can run it locally, via Docker, or on platforms like Railway using the provided self‑hosting guides.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 3,655
- Watchers
- 3,655
- Forks
- 300
LicenseAGPL-3.0
Repo age1 year old
Last commit3 days ago
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languageTypeScript
Last synced 2 hours ago