I'm the maintainer. Hermes SEG started as an AGPLv3 secure email gateway and has grown into a self-hosted email platform: a full Dovecot 2.4 mail server with mailbox hosting, Nextcloud built in for Files/Mail/calendars/contacts, Authelia SSO (TOTP/WebAuthn/Duo), an end-user portal, and a web admin console, wrapped in SpamAssassin and ClamAV filtering, S/MIME + PGP + TLS + encrypted-PDF encryption, at-rest mail-crypt, and DMARC/DKIM/SPF/ARC. Run it as your whole mail stack, or in front of an existing MTA (Postfix, Exchange, Google Workspace) as a security gateway. Docker Compose, on Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL/Rocky/Alma or whatever runs latest Docker and Docker compose.
Why: self-hosting mail usually means assembling Postfix, Dovecot, a spam filter, a groupware/webmail app and SSO yourself, then maintaining the whole thing and keeping it secure. This is that stack integrated that includes security you would otherwise pay Proofpoint/Mimecast/Barracuda per mailbox for.
As far as the business model is concerned, the Community Edition is free under AGPLv3 and is the complete product, not a demo. There's a paid Pro tier with operational add-ons that businesses and MSPs would care about like time-of-click link protection, a firewall/IPS UI, org-wide signatures/disclaimers, LDAP auth. Self-hosters don't need it, unless you want it ;)
On AI, since it always comes up. The project predates the current AI tooling by years. I used Claude on the Docker release for code review, optimization and planning, and it's credited as a contributor in the repo.
Happy to get into architecture if you wish. Feeback and questions are welcome. Thanks!
I'm the maintainer. Hermes SEG started as an AGPLv3 secure email gateway and has grown into a self-hosted email platform: a full Dovecot 2.4 mail server with mailbox hosting, Nextcloud built in for Files/Mail/calendars/contacts, Authelia SSO (TOTP/WebAuthn/Duo), an end-user portal, and a web admin console, wrapped in SpamAssassin and ClamAV filtering, S/MIME + PGP + TLS + encrypted-PDF encryption, at-rest mail-crypt, and DMARC/DKIM/SPF/ARC. Run it as your whole mail stack, or in front of an existing MTA (Postfix, Exchange, Google Workspace) as a security gateway. Docker Compose, on Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL/Rocky/Alma or whatever runs latest Docker and Docker compose.
Why: self-hosting mail usually means assembling Postfix, Dovecot, a spam filter, a groupware/webmail app and SSO yourself, then maintaining the whole thing and keeping it secure. This is that stack integrated that includes security you would otherwise pay Proofpoint/Mimecast/Barracuda per mailbox for.
As far as the business model is concerned, the Community Edition is free under AGPLv3 and is the complete product, not a demo. There's a paid Pro tier with operational add-ons that businesses and MSPs would care about like time-of-click link protection, a firewall/IPS UI, org-wide signatures/disclaimers, LDAP auth. Self-hosters don't need it, unless you want it ;)
On AI, since it always comes up. The project predates the current AI tooling by years. I used Claude on the Docker release for code review, optimization and planning, and it's credited as a contributor in the repo.
Happy to get into architecture if you wish. Feeback and questions are welcome. Thanks!