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Ep. 401
In this episode, we take a deep dive into Maddy, an open-source mail server designed to replace the traditional “Frankenstein stack” of email infrastructure with a simpler, more composable alternative. Starting with the long-standing pain of self-hosting email, we explore why running a private mail server has historically required stitching together multiple brittle components and how Maddy reimagines that process by combining mail transfer, security, filtering, and delivery logic into a single modern daemon.
Along the way, we unpack the protocols and systems that make modern email work, from SMTP, IMAP, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to certificate automation, Docker deployment, S3-backed storage, LDAP integration, and observability with Prometheus metrics. The episode also looks at why Maddy’s Go-based architecture matters, how its composable design balances beginner-friendly defaults with advanced flexibility, and what it could mean for the future of decentralized communication if secure self-hosted email becomes genuinely accessible again. More than a software overview, this is a conversation about ownership, infrastructure, and the possibility of reclaiming your inbox from corporate platforms.