Apache James
| Company type | Open source software project |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, Email server software |
| Founded | January 2003 |
| Founder | Serge Knystautas |
| Headquarters | Worldwide |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Serge Knystautas (initial development lead) |
| Products | SMTP and POP3 mail transfer agent, Apache Mailet API, SPF, Sieve, MIME libraries |
| Owner | Apache Software Foundation |
| Website | james |
Apache James, also known as the Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server, is an open source SMTP and POP3 mail transfer agent developed entirely in Java. It is actively maintained by contributors affiliated with the Apache Software Foundation, with its initial development led by Serge Knystautas. Support for IMAP was introduced in 2010 with the release of version 3.0-M2, followed by the stable 3.0.0 version in 2017. Later, version 3.6.0 (2021) incorporated JMAP support. A significant deployment occurred in 2021 when Linagora, an open source company, upgraded the email infrastructure for Estonia’s government services using Apache James.
The project also oversees the Apache Mailet API, which allows developers to create customized mail processing logic such as updating databases, archiving emails, or filtering spam. Incoming messages are categorized by a matcher component that routes them to designated mailets for handling. Mailets, which share conceptual similarities with servlets, were introduced after Sun Microsystems declined to integrate mail processing into servlet technology. Apache James offers a comprehensive set of pre-built matchers and mailets designed for standard email tasks, which can be combined to create sophisticated mail processing pipelines.
Moreover, Apache James delivers standalone Java libraries for implementing the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), the Sieve filtering language, and MIME content parsing without relying on Sun’s JavaMail API.
Development
The origins of James trace back to the Jakarta Project, where it was initially named Jakarta-James. In January 2003, the ASF Board of Directors elevated it to a top-level project within the Apache Software Foundation, under the leadership of Serge Knystautas. Early versions were distributed within the Phoenix container and leveraged the Apache Avalon application framework.
After Apache Avalon was discontinued in 2005, James underwent a major overhaul to adopt the Spring application framework, culminating in the release of version 3.0.0 in 2017.
| Version | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2.3.0 | October 2006 | |
| 2.3.1 | April 2007 | |
| 2.3.2 | August 2009 | |
| 2.3.2.1 | September 8, 2015 | security fix |
| 3.0.0 | July 20, 2017 | Added IMAP support; preliminary JMAP implementation |
| 3.0.1 | October 20, 2017 | security fix |
| 3.1.0 | July 31, 2018 | |
| 3.2.0 | November 14, 2018 | |
| 3.3.0 | March 26, 2019 | |
| 3.4.0 | September 5, 2019 | |
| 3.5.0 | July 16, 2020 | Introduced Docker compatibility; configuration distribution with Cassandra, ElasticSearch, RabbitMQ, and S3 backends |
| 3.6.0 | March 16, 2021 | Requires Java JRE version 11; implemented JMAP RFC-8621 support |
| 3.7.0 | March 1, 2022 | Dropped maildir support; added OAuth, OpenID Connect, plus security and performance improvements |
| 3.8.0 | May 17, 2023 | Enhanced IMAP capabilities; launched JMAP Quotas and OpenSearch integration |
| 3.8.1 | January 9, 2024 | security fix |
| 3.8.2 | January 29, 2025 | security fixes |
See also
External links
- Utilizing James on IBM developerWorks