Capabilities of selected mailing list management packages compared with features requested by the University of California, Berkeley campus community.
Feature requests are based on 115 responses to a March 2004 survey. The number of survey respondents who identified particular features as 'important' to them are indicated in the "Survey Score" column. Additional features requested in respondents' narrative comments appear in italics The "Miscellaneous" section also includes technical attributes suggested by project team members.
| Subscription options | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Subscription via the Web for CalMail users | Very High | 94 | Yes | Yes-WithExternals (via third-party add-in like MajorCool or custom programming) | Yes | ||
| Subscription via the Web for non-CalMail users | Medium | 67 | |||||
| Immediate subscription via the Web via HTML forms on non-CalMail web pages | Yes? (via Web pages auto-created for each list) | Yes (via Web Services [SOAP] API; also possibly via Web pages auto-created for each list, and via SQL/LDAP?) | |||||
| Subscription via email | Very High | 86 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Option to turn off unsubscription via email, to prevent large numbers of bounces to postmaster | |||||||
| Can directly change (i.e. not unsubscribe and re-subscribe) subscribed address via email | |||||||
| Can change address for all subscribed lists at once via email | |||||||
| Subscription in digest mode | 50 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| User can choose MIME or no MIME for digests | 19 | Yes | Yes-WithExternals (digests are 'multipart/digest"; a "text/plain" patch is available) | ||||
| S/MIME messages preserved in digests | Yes | ||||||
| Subscription in index mode (only get titles and URLs for messages) | 21 | No | |||||
| Subscription in post only mode | 17 | Yes | No (only can configure entire lists this way) | Yes | |||
| Can choose between: users can subscribe their own address, users can subscribe other peoples' addresses, and only list owner can subscribe addresses | Medium | 64 | Yes (subscription of "other peoples'" addresses not investigated) | Yes (user and list owner can subscribe; others can "invite" users) | |||
| Temporarily stop delivery without quitting list | Very High | 82 | Yes | No? (see "post only" above, or may be possible with plug-in??) | Yes | ||
| Can stop or resume delivery for all subscribed lists at once via the web | Yes | ||||||
| Can specify date when mail delivery resumes | No (on "wish list" for future versions) | No | Yes | No | |||
| Can require confirmation of subscription requests | Very High | 88 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| User can manage their subscriptions via a "My subscriptions" -type web page | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Can change address for all subscribed lists at once via the web | Yes | ||||||
| Tie "appropriate use requirements" information into subscription process | |||||||
| Restrict list membership by domain (e.g. berkeley.edu) | |||||||
| Restrict list membership by UCB student or employment status or role | No (some rudimentary LDAP wrappers may exist; on "wish list" for future versions) | No (may be possible via scripting) | Yes (via LDAP and list_include) | ||||
| Text features | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Welcome to list and list signoff messages | Very High | 82 | Yes | Yes (for welcome msg - signoff?) | Yes | ||
| Can specify text for the headers, fronters, or footers | Very High | 83 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Can specify prefix to add to subject line, e.g. "Subject: [micronet] ..." | Very High | 92 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Allows font styles (bold, italic ...) in messages via support for HTML or other rich text formats | |||||||
| Moderation | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Option to moderate or not | Very High | 87 | Yes (includes 'emergency moderation' option for unmoderated lists) | Yes (approving msgs via email can be challenging) | Yes | ||
| Option for moderating first N posts by new users | Medium | 62 | Yes (can moderate posts by new members until turned off by list admin) | ||||
| Users can receive notification when postings are delivered to moderator | Yes | ||||||
| List managers can approve postings via the Web | Yes | ||||||
| Redirect subscription requests sent to list to owner for action [aka "administrivia filter"] | Medium | 63 | Yes | Yes (defaults use simplistic regular expressions) | Yes | ||
| Restrict postings to list members [and/]or to members of another list | Very High | 82 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Allow a user to post to a restricted list using an equivalent address from which they are not subscribed; e.g. from either user@berkeley.edu or user@uclink.berkeley.edu | |||||||
| Can bounce rejected messages from non-members back to the sender, rather than the list administrator | |||||||
| Can bounce rejected messages from non-members back to (only) .berkeley.edu senders and the list administrator | |||||||
| Limit size of postings to list | 43 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| Option to block postings containing attachments or strip attachments, enabled either by a user or a list manager | Yes | Yes | Yes (optional for users only?; attachments stored on list site, accessible via URL) | ||||
| Option to block or strip postings containing HTML | Yes | ||||||
| List management | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Can administer list configuration via the Web | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Can administer list configuration via email | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Allow multiple users to manage the list | Very High | 90 | Yes | Yes (optionally allowing multiple roles and privilege levels) | |||
| Allow non-CalMail users to manage or co-manage the list | |||||||
| Different privileges can be assigned to each of a list's managers | Yes | ||||||
| Can import file of subscribers via web | High | 78 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Can import file of subscribers via email | 57 | ||||||
| Scripted creation and removal of lists for courses, other purposes | Yes (via Web Services) | ||||||
| Can directly import subscribers (dynamically and/or statically) via SQL | No (on "wish list" for future versions) | Yes | |||||
| Can directly import subscribers (dynamically and/or statically) via LDAP | No (some rudimentary? LDAP wrappers may exist; on "wish list" for future versions) | Yes | |||||
| Automatically generate maillists for various categories of students, employees, etc. | Yes (likely possible via LDAP) | ||||||
| List can dynamically reflect changes in its members' UCB status | No? (some rudimentary? LDAP wrappers may exist; on "wish list" for future versions) | No (may be possible via scripting, however) | Yes (may be possible via LDAP) | ||||
| Lists can be dynamically updated from course learning management systems | Yes (likely possible via LDAP, SQL) | ||||||
| Can choose replies to go to sender, list, or somewhere else [set "Reply-to" header] | Medium | 67 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Can restrict creation of new lists to CalMail users | |||||||
| Can "clone" configurations between lists | |||||||
| Can inherit configuration settings (not just defaults) from 'higher-level' lists | Yes? | ||||||
| Can import existing list configurations from Majordomo | Yes | ||||||
| Programmatic interface to view and edit list membership | Yes (via Web Services) | ||||||
| List owner(s) can manage a Web page describing the list | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Archives | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Gui [Web-based view] for reading archives (in survey under "Miscellaneous") | Medium | 62 | Yes (built-in 'pipermail' archiver, with hooks for MHonArc, etc.) | Yes (using MHonArc) | |||
| Archive option - public and private archives (in survey under "Miscellaneous") | High | 73 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Access to archives can be restricted to subscribers | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Access to archives can require CalNet authentication | |||||||
| Quotas on archives (in survey under "Miscellaneous") | 15 | ||||||
| Ability to obscure address in archives (to stop spammers) (in survey under "Miscellaneous") | Very High | 90 | Yes (via HTML character entities only?) | No? (in TODO list) | Yes (via multiple techniques, inc'l JavaScript) | ||
| Search/advanced search in Web archives | Yes-WithExternals (via patches to Mailman's internal archiver, or by using external search engines) | Yes (via Marc::Search) | |||||
| View archived messages by thread | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Can specify periods covered by archives (e.g. month or year) | Yes (using internal archiver, or via MHonArc via patch) | ||||||
| Can edit archives (to delete spam messages, etc.) | |||||||
| Bounce handling | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Automatic bounce processing and deletion of addresses after N bounces (in survey under "Miscellaneous") | Very High | 82 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Can bounce to other than list owner | |||||||
| Miscellaneous | Survey Priority | Survey Score | CommuniGate Pro 4.1 | GNU Mailman 2.1.4 | Majordomo 1.94.5 | Majordomo2 | Sympa 4.1.1 |
| Allow a subscriber to receive only one copy of a message that was cross-posted to multiple lists | ?? (check "umbrella lists" feature) | ?? (check "mungedomain" feature) | ?? (check "include_list" feature) | ||||
| Page describing public lists | 56 | Yes | Yes | ||||
| List of subscribers not public (to stop spammers) | Very High | 96 | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Users can individually prevent their addresses from being made public (in any and all lists) | Yes | ||||||
| Loop detection | Medium | 60 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Spam detection and filtering | Yes (via regex applied to message headers; Spambayes integration on "wish list" for future versions) | Yes (via 'scenarios' [rules]) | |||||
| Option to perform virus scanning in list manager, rather than at the MTA (e.g. sendmail or postfix) | No? (AMaViS integration in TODO list) | Yes (via hooks to Sophos, other external scanners) | |||||
| Gateway list to/from Usenet newsgroup | Yes | Yes-WithExternals (via 'news2mail', 'mail2news' scripts) | No? (in TODO list) | Yes | |||
| Integration with MTAs | |||||||
| Integration with sendmail | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Integration with postfix | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Integration with qmail | |||||||
| Clustering support | |||||||
| High availability features | |||||||
| Multiple authentication mechanisms supported for list management via Web and/or email | |||||||
| S/MIME | Yes | ||||||
| X.509 certificates | Yes | ||||||
| Single sign-on (e.g. CAS and Shibboleth) | Yes |