Cyrus vs Dovecot

[Tornoci Laszlo]

Mathieu Kretchner wrote:
> Alain Spineux a écrit :
>> 2008/8/11 Mathieu Kretchner <mathieu.kretchner at sophia.inria.fr>:
>>> First of all : forgive me for my poor English
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I've to compare cyrus with dovecot for my work. Because these are the 
>>> only
>>> solutions that could fit our needs.
>>> Unfortunately I really don't know cyrus and I would like to have some 
>>> of its
>>> assets.
>>
>> what do you need ?
> A secure / reliable / fast / easy to configure Imap server !
> 
>> how many mailbox ?
> 5000
> 
>> how many users ?
> 6000
> 
>> what is in use now ?
> Cyrus
> 
> 
>> what kind of access ? IMAP, POP3, webmail ?
> All of them!
> 
>> how many server ?
> 2
> 
>> Do you already have a database with your user ? in wich format ?
> YES : LDAP / NIS
> 
> The real question is because we have only 2 options :
> 
> Why should I choose Cyrus instead of dovecot ?

Hi,

I happen to use both Dovecot and Cyrus. Dovecot is an excellent choice, 
if you want to migrate from an old imap box with mbox or maildir based 
mailstore. Dovecot knows these formats, so the migration is very easy. 
Dovecot is very easy to set up, reliable, has nice features.

However, if you currently use Cyrus, it seems quite foolish to switch to 
Dovecot. This means all sorts of headaches without gaining anything. You 
would have to migrate all your Cyrus mailstore to another (probably 
maildir) format. I would do this only, if I had a really compelling 
reason. As others have already pointed out, Cyrus has more features, and 
I haven't heard of major differences between Dovecot and Cyrus in terms 
of speed or reliability either. Cyrus scales better, too.

                                     Yours: Laszlo