WHAT IS IT?
Keila is an open source newsletter platform designed as a self-hosted alternative to Mailchimp, Sendinblue or Substack. It handles campaign creation, signup forms, contact lists and delivery through multiple providers (AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailgun, Postmark) or plain SMTP.
WHY IS IT INTERESTING?
- Full self-hosting: Official Docker image, full control over your deployment and data - no SaaS reselling your contacts or changing pricing overnight.
- Multi-provider delivery: Plug AWS SES for volume, Sendgrid/Mailgun/Postmark for deliverability, or your own SMTP to get started. No vendor lock-in.
- WYSIWYG + Markdown editor: Visual campaign authoring with customizable templates, or Markdown for fast writing. Liquid templating for advanced personalization.
- Built-in signup forms: Embeddable signup forms with double opt-in and GDPR-friendly consent management out of the box.
- Elixir/Phoenix stack: Native BEAM concurrency to handle large sends without choking the server. Battle-tested robustness from the Erlang ecosystem.
- AGPL-3.0 license: Open, modifiable and auditable source, with a strong copyleft that protects the ecosystem.
USE CASES
- Personal or technical blog newsletter looking to escape Substack or Mailchimp
- Internal communications for non-profits and NGOs that need to keep ownership of their contact lists
- Small businesses wanting a self-hosted email marketing tool to cut recurring SaaS costs
- Open source communities or clubs sending regular announcements to members
- Multi-tenant platform offering newsletter services to several users from a single instance