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Alpine vs Claws Mail: catalog facts
Alpine	Claws Mail
Free Free to download and use.	Free Free and open source under the GPL 3.0 or later.
Windows, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux
Lightweight keyboard-driven terminal interface Complete documentation built into the program	Opens and searches enormous mail folders without stalling Plugins for PGP, spam filtering, RSS and calendars ship with it
Text-only interface with no rich HTML rendering Releases are infrequent	Composes plain text by default; HTML mail sending is deliberately limited The interface is functional and looks like it was designed in 2004
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: GPL-3.0-or-later
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.