--- og_image: "/images/guides/self-host-mautic-2026.webp" title: "Self-Host Mautic: Open Source Marketing Automation 2026" description: "Self-host Mautic in 2026 — the open source HubSpot alternative for email campaigns, contact management, and marketing automation. Docker setup, SMTP config." date: "2026-03-13" author: "OSSAlt Team" tags: ["mautic", "marketing-automation", "self-hosting", "docker", "email-marketing", "hubspot-alternative"] --- # How to Self-Host Mautic: Open Source Marketing Automation in 2026 ## TL;DR HubSpot Marketing Professional costs €880/month and locks your contacts in a proprietary system. Mautic is the open source alternative — the world's largest open source marketing automation platform, with 9,300+ GitHub stars, Apache 2.0 license, and unlimited contacts for the price of a VPS. It does email campaigns, contact scoring, visual campaign builder, landing pages, multi-channel automation, and CRM integration — all self-hosted, data on your servers. The break-even vs HubSpot happens around 40,000 contacts. If you're technically capable, this guide has a production Mautic instance running in 30 minutes. ## Key Takeaways - **Open source marketing automation**: email, SMS, social, push notifications — all in one self-hosted platform - **9,300+ GitHub stars**: the most-starred open source marketing automation project, 1,000+ contributors - **Unlimited contacts**: Mautic doesn't meter contacts — you pay for infrastructure, not databases - **Visual campaign builder**: drag-and-drop automation workflows with conditional branching, delays, and multi-channel actions - **PHP/Symfony stack**: mature, battle-tested — version 7.x in active development as of 2026 - **GDPR-friendly by design**: host in EU, no third-party tracking, full data portability - **3-year cost vs HubSpot**: ~€58,000 vs €135,000 — a 57% reduction for mid-market teams --- ## Why Teams Choose Mautic Over HubSpot HubSpot is a well-engineered product. It's also a pricing trap that gets more expensive as you grow — the exact moment you need it most. HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional starts at €880/month. By the time you factor in implementation, onboarding, and scaling to 50,000+ contacts, real-world spend averages €15,000–€45,000/year. Enterprise tier starts at €3,530/month. And your contacts, email templates, workflows, and behavioral data all live in HubSpot's cloud — migration out is deliberately painful. Mautic inverts the model. The software is free. You pay for infrastructure (a $20-50/month VPS), email delivery (AWS SES at $0.10/1,000 emails), and your own time or an agency's time to maintain it. At 10,000 contacts: Mautic costs ~$300/month, HubSpot costs $890+/month. At 100,000 contacts: Mautic costs ~$300/month, HubSpot costs thousands. The trade-off is real: Mautic requires PHP/server administration skills, proactive maintenance, and email deliverability management. HubSpot works out of the box. But for technically capable teams or agencies managing multiple clients, the economics strongly favor self-hosting. | Feature | Mautic (Self-hosted) | HubSpot Professional | ActiveCampaign | |---------|---------------------|---------------------|----------------| | Monthly cost (10k contacts) | ~$100-300 (infra) | $890 | $149 | | Monthly cost (100k contacts) | ~$300 (infra) | $3,500+ | $499 | | Contact limit | Unlimited | Per-tier limit | Per-tier limit | | Data ownership | ✅ Your servers | ❌ HubSpot cloud | ❌ AC cloud | | Visual campaign builder | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | Email A/B testing | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | Contact scoring | ✅ | ✅ Professional+ | ✅ Plus+ | | Landing pages | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | SMS/push notifications | ✅ (plugins) | ✅ Enterprise | ✅ | | CRM integration | ✅ Salesforce, Sugar | ✅ Native | ✅ Native | | GDPR/EU hosting | ✅ Full control | ⚠️ US-based | ⚠️ US-based | | Open source | ✅ Apache 2.0 | ❌ | ❌ | --- ## System Requirements Mautic is a PHP application backed by MySQL/MariaDB. Resource needs scale with your contact list size and email volume. **Minimum for small lists (< 50,000 contacts):** - CPU: 2 vCPU - RAM: 2GB (4GB recommended) - Storage: 20GB SSD - PHP: 8.1+ - MySQL: 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.5+ **Recommended for mid-size lists (50K–500K contacts):** - CPU: 4 vCPU - RAM: 8GB - Storage: 50GB+ SSD (email attachments and contact data accumulate) - Dedicated cron worker container for queue processing **Infrastructure for production:** - Hetzner CX22: 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, €4.35/month — small lists - Hetzner CX32: 4 vCPU, 8GB RAM, €8.70/month — mid-size lists - Separate transactional email service: AWS SES, Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark **Ports to open:** 80, 443 --- ## Self-Hosting with Docker Compose ### The Stack Mautic 5+ with Docker Compose runs four containers: 1. `mauticdb` — MySQL database 2. `mautic_web` — PHP-FPM + Mautic application 3. `mautic_worker` — background job processor (handles queued emails) 4. `mautic_cron` — scheduled task runner (contact scoring, campaign triggers) ### docker-compose.yml ```yaml version: "3.8" services: mauticdb: image: mysql:8.0 container_name: mauticdb volumes: - mysql_data:/var/lib/mysql environment: MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD} MYSQL_DATABASE: mautic MYSQL_USER: mautic MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD} restart: unless-stopped healthcheck: test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost", "-u", "mautic", "-p${MYSQL_PASSWORD}"] interval: 10s timeout: 5s retries: 5 mautic_web: image: mautic/mautic:5-apache container_name: mautic_web volumes: - mautic_data:/var/www/html environment: MAUTIC_DB_HOST: mauticdb MAUTIC_DB_PORT: 3306 MAUTIC_DB_DATABASE: mautic MAUTIC_DB_USER: mautic MAUTIC_DB_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD} MAUTIC_RUN_CRON_JOBS: "false" # Handled by dedicated cron container MAUTIC_TRUSTED_PROXIES: "0.0.0.0/0" # Adjust for your reverse proxy ports: - "80:80" depends_on: mauticdb: condition: service_healthy restart: unless-stopped mautic_worker: image: mautic/mautic:5-apache container_name: mautic_worker volumes: - mautic_data:/var/www/html environment: MAUTIC_DB_HOST: mauticdb MAUTIC_DB_PORT: 3306 MAUTIC_DB_DATABASE: mautic MAUTIC_DB_USER: mautic MAUTIC_DB_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD} MAUTIC_MESSENGER_CONSUMER_ENABLED: "true" command: php /var/www/html/bin/console messenger:consume email --time-limit=3600 depends_on: - mauticdb - mautic_web restart: unless-stopped mautic_cron: image: mautic/mautic:5-apache container_name: mautic_cron volumes: - mautic_data:/var/www/html environment: MAUTIC_DB_HOST: mauticdb MAUTIC_DB_PORT: 3306 MAUTIC_DB_DATABASE: mautic MAUTIC_DB_USER: mautic MAUTIC_DB_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD} command: > sh -c "while true; do php /var/www/html/bin/console mautic:segments:update php /var/www/html/bin/console mautic:campaigns:trigger php /var/www/html/bin/console mautic:emails:send php /var/www/html/bin/console mautic:social:monitoring sleep 300 done" depends_on: - mauticdb - mautic_web restart: unless-stopped volumes: mysql_data: mautic_data: ``` ### .env File ```bash # .env — copy and customize before first launch MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=change-this-root-password MYSQL_PASSWORD=change-this-mautic-password ``` Generate strong passwords: ```bash openssl rand -hex 24 # Run twice for both passwords ``` ### Launch ```bash mkdir -p ~/mautic && cd ~/mautic # Create docker-compose.yml and .env from above docker compose up -d # Watch startup docker compose logs -f mautic_web ``` First startup takes 2-4 minutes while Mautic initializes the database schema. Then open `http://your-server-ip` in your browser. --- ## First-Run Setup Wizard Mautic's web installer walks through four steps: ### Step 1: Environment Checks The installer validates PHP version, extensions, and directory permissions. All items should show green. Common issue: if `var/cache` or `var/logs` show as not writable, fix with: ```bash docker exec mautic_web chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/var ``` ### Step 2: Database Configuration ``` Database Driver: MySQL PDO Host: mauticdb ← the container name Port: 3306 Name: mautic Username: mautic Password: [your MYSQL_PASSWORD] Table Prefix: (leave empty or set 'mautic_') ``` Click **Next** — Mautic creates all tables (takes ~30 seconds). ### Step 3: Admin Account ``` First Name: Your Name Last Name: Your Last Name Email: admin@yourcompany.com ← this becomes your default sender address Password: [strong password] ``` **Important**: The email you enter here becomes your default `From` address. Use a real deliverable address — ideally one on your sending domain. ### Step 4: Email Configuration Configure your transactional email provider immediately — Mautic without SMTP can't send anything. **AWS SES (recommended — $0.10/1,000 emails):** ``` Mailer Transport: SMTP Host: email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com Port: 587 Encryption: TLS Username: [SES SMTP username from IAM] Password: [SES SMTP password] From Name: Your Company From Email: marketing@yourcompany.com ``` **SendGrid:** ``` Host: smtp.sendgrid.net Port: 587 Encryption: TLS Username: apikey Password: [your SendGrid API key] ``` **Mailgun:** ``` Host: smtp.mailgun.org Port: 587 Encryption: TLS Username: postmaster@mg.yourcompany.com Password: [Mailgun SMTP password] ``` Click **Finish** to complete setup. --- ## Core Features: What Mautic Can Do ### Contact Management Mautic's contact database is the foundation of everything. Contacts are enriched automatically: ``` Contacts → Import CSV → Map fields Name, Email, Company, Phone → Standard fields Any custom fields you've defined → Custom fields Or capture automatically via: → Mautic forms embedded on your website → API (push contacts from your app) → CRM sync (Salesforce, SugarCRM, Dynamics) ``` **Contact timeline** shows every touchpoint: emails opened, links clicked, pages visited, forms submitted, and campaign steps completed. This is the data HubSpot charges thousands to collect — it's all yours. ### Segments Segments are dynamic contact lists that update automatically based on rules: ``` Contacts → Segments → New Segment Name: "Enterprise Leads - Not Yet Contacted" Rules: Company Size → is → Enterprise (1000+) AND Lead Status → is not → Contacted AND Last Active → is greater than → 7 days ago AND Email → is valid → true ``` Segments rebuild automatically every time the cron job runs (every 5 minutes in our Docker setup). All campaigns target segments, not individual contacts. ### Email Builder Mautic's drag-and-drop email builder creates responsive HTML emails: ``` Channels → Emails → New Email Type: Template Email (for campaigns) or Segment Email (one-time broadcast) Builder: → Drag in text blocks, images, buttons, dividers → Personalization tokens: {contactfield=firstname} {contactfield=company} → Dynamic content: show different content blocks based on contact fields → A/B testing: split by subject line, content, or send time Subject: Your {contactfield=company} trial is about to expire Preview text: Don't lose access to [feature] — here's what you need to know ``` ### Campaign Builder (Visual Automation) This is Mautic's flagship feature — a visual, event-driven campaign builder that rivals HubSpot's workflow tool: ``` Campaigns → New Campaign → Canvas Start: → Contact joins segment: "Trial Users - Day 7" Step 1 (immediately): → Send email: "Day 7 trial check-in" Decision point: → Did they open the email? YES branch: → Wait: 2 days → Send email: "Upgrade now — 15% off" → Modify contact field: "Campaign = Trial Nurtured" NO branch: → Wait: 1 day → Send email: "Did this get lost in your inbox?" → Decision: Did they open the retry? YES → Continue to upgrade offer NO → Add tag: "Low Engagement" → Remove from segment End actions: → Notify sales owner → Push to CRM → Update lead score ``` The campaign canvas supports unlimited branches, delays (minutes, hours, days, specific dates), conditional logic based on any contact field or behavior, and multi-channel actions (email, SMS, push notifications, webhooks to external systems). ### Contact Scoring Assign points to behaviors to automatically identify hot leads: ``` Settings → Scoring → Points Email opened: +1 point Link clicked: +5 points Form submitted: +10 points Pricing page visit: +15 points Demo requested: +25 points Email bounced: -5 points Unsubscribed: -20 points ``` Combine scoring with campaign triggers: "When contact reaches 50 points, notify sales and start the sales outreach campaign." ### Landing Pages Build GDPR-compliant lead capture pages within Mautic: ``` Landing Pages → New Landing Page Builder: Same drag-and-drop as email builder Forms: Embed Mautic forms that auto-capture leads into contact database Tracking: Built-in page view and conversion tracking A/B testing: Split test two page variants ``` Publish to a subdomain: `landing.yourcompany.com/offer-name` --- ## Custom Domain and TLS ### DNS Setup ``` # DNS A record: marketing.yourcompany.com → your.server.ip.address ``` ### Caddy Reverse Proxy (Recommended) Add Caddy to your Docker Compose for automatic TLS: ```yaml # Add to docker-compose.yml caddy: image: caddy:2-alpine container_name: mautic_caddy ports: - "80:80" - "443:443" volumes: - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile - caddy_data:/data - caddy_config:/config depends_on: - mautic_web restart: unless-stopped # Update mautic_web: remove ports: - "80:80" (Caddy handles ingress) # Add to volumes: volumes: caddy_data: caddy_config: ``` ```caddy # Caddyfile marketing.yourcompany.com { reverse_proxy mautic_web:80 } ``` Caddy automatically fetches and renews Let's Encrypt certificates. No certbot needed. **Update Mautic's site URL:** ``` Settings → System Settings → Site URL → https://marketing.yourcompany.com ``` --- ## Email Deliverability: The Critical Step Most Guides Skip Self-hosted email is only as good as your deliverability. Without proper setup, your campaigns land in spam. ### DNS Records to Configure Set these in your domain registrar for your sending domain (e.g., `yourcompany.com`): **SPF record** — authorize your email provider to send on your behalf: ``` Type: TXT Name: @ Value: v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all # Replace with your provider's include string ``` **DKIM** — cryptographic signature on all outgoing email: ``` # AWS SES: Go to SES console → Verified identities → DKIM # Copy the three CNAME records and add them to your DNS # Example: # xxxxxxxxxxxx._domainkey.yourcompany.com → CNAME → xxxx.dkim.amazonses.com ``` **DMARC** — policy for email authentication failures: ``` Type: TXT Name: _dmarc Value: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourcompany.com; pct=100 ``` ### Configure Tracking Domain Mautic tracks email opens with pixel images and link clicks via redirect. Configure a tracking subdomain: ``` Settings → Email Settings → Tracking Domain → t.yourcompany.com DNS: t.yourcompany.com → CNAME → marketing.yourcompany.com ``` This keeps tracking URLs on your domain rather than `mautic.io` subdomains. ### Warm Up Your IP/Domain Never blast 50,000 emails on day one from a new sending domain. ESP (Email Service Provider) reputation takes weeks to build: ``` Week 1: Maximum 500 emails/day → your most engaged contacts Week 2: Maximum 2,000 emails/day Week 3: Maximum 10,000 emails/day Week 4+: Scale based on metrics ``` Monitor bounce rate, spam rate, and open rate from your ESP dashboard. Stop if bounce rate exceeds 2% — clean your list. --- ## CRM Integration ### Salesforce ``` Settings → Plugins → Salesforce Client ID: [Salesforce connected app client ID] Client Secret: [Salesforce connected app secret] Instance URL: https://yourcompany.my.salesforce.com Sync settings: → Push Mautic contacts to Salesforce leads/contacts → Pull Salesforce changes back to Mautic → Map fields: Mautic "Lead Score" → Salesforce "Lead Score" → Sync interval: every 15 minutes ``` ### Webhooks (any CRM or tool) ``` Settings → Webhooks → New Webhook Trigger: Contact score changes above 50 URL: https://your-crm.internal/api/hot-lead Method: POST Headers: Authorization: Bearer your-api-token Payload: { "contact_id": "{contact.id}", "email": "{contact.email}", "score": "{contact.points}", "company": "{contact.company}" } ``` Use webhooks to push events to your CRM, Slack, n8n workflows, or any system with an HTTP endpoint. --- ## Production Hardening ### Backups ```bash #!/bin/bash # backup-mautic.sh DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M) BACKUP_DIR="/backups/mautic" mkdir -p $BACKUP_DIR # Database backup docker exec mauticdb mysqldump \ -u mautic \ -p"${MYSQL_PASSWORD}" \ mautic | gzip > "$BACKUP_DIR/mautic_db_$DATE.sql.gz" # Mautic files (media, config, custom assets) tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/mautic_files_$DATE.tar.gz" \ ~/mautic/mautic_data/ # Upload to S3 rclone copy "$BACKUP_DIR/" s3remote:backups/mautic/ # Retain 30 days find $BACKUP_DIR -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 -delete echo "Backup complete" ``` ### Updates ```bash cd ~/mautic # Pull latest images docker compose pull # Restart (Mautic runs DB migrations automatically on startup) docker compose up -d # Verify migration completed docker compose logs mautic_web | grep -E "migration|Migrating|error" ``` Check [Mautic releases](https://github.com/mautic/mautic/releases) before major version upgrades. The 5.x → 6.x and 6.x → 7.x upgrades require following the official migration guide. ### Rate Limiting and Security ```yaml # docker-compose.yml — add to mautic_web environment environment: MAUTIC_TRACK_PRIVATE_IP_RANGES: "false" # Don't track internal IPs MAUTIC_CORS_VALID_HOSTS: "yourcompany.com, *.yourcompany.com" ``` ```caddy # Caddyfile — rate limit the API marketing.yourcompany.com { rate_limit { zone api { key {remote_host} events 100 window 1m } match path /api/* } reverse_proxy mautic_web:80 } ``` --- ## Scaling Mautic The default setup handles up to ~200,000 contacts and moderate email volumes. For larger lists: ### Queue-Based Email Sending Enable asynchronous email processing (recommended for any production setup): ``` Settings → System Settings → Queue Emails → Enable: Yes → Message Limit Per Batch: 100 → Pause Between Batches: 1 second ``` With the worker container running, emails queue and process asynchronously. The web container stays responsive even during large sends. ### Redis for Caching For higher traffic: ```yaml redis: image: redis:7-alpine container_name: mautic_redis restart: unless-stopped # In mautic_web environment: MAUTIC_REDIS_DSN: redis://redis:6379 ``` ### Horizontal Scaling For very large deployments (1M+ contacts, 100K+ daily emails): - Run 2-4 `mautic_web` containers behind a load balancer - Run 4-8 `mautic_worker` containers for parallel queue processing - Use RDS/Aurora MySQL instead of containerized MySQL - Use ElastiCache Redis for session and cache storage --- ## Mautic vs Listmonk vs Mailtrain: Which Tool? | | Mautic | Listmonk | Mailtrain | |---|--------|----------|-----------| | **Best for** | Full marketing automation | Newsletter broadcasts | List management | | **Language** | PHP/Symfony | Go | Node.js | | **GitHub stars** | 9,300+ | 16,000+ | 4,500+ | | **Campaign builder** | ✅ Visual, drag-and-drop | ❌ Sequential only | ❌ Basic | | **Contact scoring** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | | **Landing pages** | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | | **CRM integration** | ✅ Salesforce, Sugar, Dynamics | ❌ | ❌ | | **Complexity** | High (full marketing suite) | Low (focused tool) | Medium | | **Resource usage** | High (PHP + MySQL + workers) | Low (Go binary) | Medium | Choose Mautic if you need the full marketing automation stack — lead scoring, multi-step campaigns, CRM sync, and behavioral tracking. Choose Listmonk if you primarily send newsletters or transactional email broadcasts and want simplicity. --- ## 3-Year Cost Analysis: Mautic vs HubSpot | Cost Component | Mautic Self-Hosted | HubSpot Professional | |----------------|-------------------|---------------------| | Software license | $0 | $890/month base | | Hosting (4 vCPU/8GB) | ~$25/month | Included | | Email delivery (100k/month) | ~$10/month (SES) | Included | | Implementation (one-time) | $2,000–$5,000 | $3,000–$6,000 | | Ongoing maintenance | $200–$500/month (internal) | $0 | | **Year 1 total** | **~$12,000–$18,000** | **~$18,000–$30,000** | | **Year 2 total** | **~$4,000–$9,000** | **~$15,000–$20,000** | | **Year 3 total** | **~$4,000–$9,000** | **~$15,000–$20,000** | | **3-year total** | **~$20,000–$36,000** | **~$48,000–$70,000** | At scale (250K+ contacts, enterprise pricing), the HubSpot cost multiples: €3,530/month base + overage for contacts. Mautic scales linearly with infrastructure, not contact count. --- ## Methodology - GitHub stats from [github.com/mautic/mautic](https://github.com/mautic/mautic), March 2026 - HubSpot pricing from [hubspot.com/pricing](https://www.hubspot.com/pricing), March 2026 - ActiveCampaign pricing from [activecampaign.com/pricing](https://www.activecampaign.com/pricing), March 2026 - Docker setup based on official Mautic Docker Hub image and [Mautic documentation](https://docs.mautic.org) - Cost analysis based on [HubSpot vs Mautic comparison](https://crafting.email/hubspot-vs-mautic/) - Sources: [Mautic.org](https://mautic.org/), [Sequenzy Mautic vs HubSpot](https://www.sequenzy.com/versus/mautic-vs-hubspot), [OpenTechHub Mautic guide](https://www.opentechhub.io/mautic/) - Version: Mautic 7.x / Docker image `mautic/mautic:5-apache` (check Docker Hub for current tag) --- *Find more open source HubSpot alternatives on [OSSAlt](/alternatives/hubspot) — self-hosting guides, community ratings, and feature comparisons.* *Related: [How to Self-Host Listmonk: Mailchimp Alternative 2026](/guides/how-to-self-host-listmonk-mailchimp-alternative-email-newsletter-2026) · [Best Open Source Alternatives to HubSpot in 2026](/guides/best-open-source-alternatives-to-hubspot-in-2026) · [Best Open Source Email Marketing Tools in 2026](/guides/best-open-source-email-marketing-tools-in-2026)* *See open source alternatives to Mautic on [OSSAlt](https://www.ossalt.com/alternatives/mautic).*