Mail User Agent Comparisons?

tjgoodwin asks: "I'm the SysAdmin in an astronomy department. Our currently supported mail user agent is pine ^[?] , but I'm looking at alternatives. I'm particularly interested in strong support for qmail's maildirs. I need to support at least one text-based UA: mutt ^[?] does what I need with maildirs, but is it really suitable for a user base, many of whom are new to Unix? I'm also considering graphical UAs, preferably gnome-based. I've failed to find any useful comparison information (the UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ is seriously out of date). Any pointers?"

Comments

Separate implementation from interface

[Bruce Perens]

Maildirs should be served up via IMAP. Then, you need a mail user agent that talks IMAP. That separates the implementation of your mail file from the interface.

Most web browsers provide a direct means of reading IMAP mail. Certainly Netscape Navigator does, and the Open Source version "Mozilla" does. By allowing them to read mail through the browser, your users have one less program to learn.

Bruce