IlohaMail is an open-source, multilingual webmail solution that focuses on simplicity and ease of use.

by Jeff Goldman [August 25, 2004]

Ryo Chijiiwa first began working on IlohaMail in 2000, he says, for purely selfish reasons. "I was living in Japan at the time, and even though I wanted a webmail interface, none of the freely available solutions adequately supported Japanese," Chijiiwa says. "Also, the few packages then available were difficult to install, didn't run on a stock build of PHP, or simply had clumsy interfaces."

Chijiiwa says he briefly considered simply adding Japanese support to IMP, but decided instead to create his own solution. In doing so, he was able to ensure that all the frustrations he'd faced previously when looking for a good webmail interface were resolved. "IlohaMail strives to offer a multilingual webmail solution that is feature-rich but lightweight, easy to use, and easy to install," he says.

IlohaMail http://ilohamail.org/main.php?page=Contact

Chijiiwa took two years to develop the solution before publicly releasing it, so it had a relatively full set of features even in its earliest versions. "In fact, one ISP deployed IlohaMail just a few months after the initial release," he says. "In the two years since, IlohaMail has added translations for 26 additional languages, POP3 support, and various PIM-like features such as the scheduler, bookmarks manager, and the extended contacts list."

Keeping it simple
Still, Chijiiwa says his intention is to keep IlohaMail as straightforward as possible—the name comes from a Japanese phrase meaning 'the basics.' Most of the extra features added since the first release can be turned off if the user only wants a simple webmail interface. "I put in a lot of effort to keep the interface lightweight and free of bloat," he says.

As a result, the solution works well for users who want a basic, straightforward solution, but also for those who need more advanced PIM functionality. "People who are on simple shared webhosts like IlohaMail because it's so easy to install," Chijiiwa says. "Just upload the source, change a couple of permissions, and you're good to go."

Chijiiwa says most administrators also appreciate IlohaMail's simplicity from a technical perspective. "The whole IlohaMail source package is only about 350KB, and the custom-written IMAP and POP3 libraries are designed to use very little memory," he says. "Unlike many other solutions, the interface also works fine without JavaScript or cookies."

The solution is highly scalable, though—Chijiiwa says it's been deployed by many ISPs, using a MySQL back end, for tens of thousands of users.

Choosing open source
Most commercial webmail offerings, Chijiiwa says, tend to fall into one of two categories: They're either thrown as an afterthought and aren't well designed, or they head too far in the other direction. "[They] might look nice and have an impressive sounding feature set, but they tend to be bloated, slow, and often use technologies that are only available on select browsers," he says.

In comparing IlohaMail to other open source solutions, though, Chijiiwa simply suggests that ISP owners who are considering open source should try out a range of options before choosing one. "Spend some time evaluating multiple interfaces, and don't just go with that one package you read about," he says. "IlohaMail is relatively less known, but from the feedback I've received, I'm confident that it compares quite favorably with some of the more famous packages."

In general, Chijiiwa says, open-source solutions are a good choice for ISPs. "Using open-source software actually gives you more options, and that's always a good thing," he says. "If there's a bug that needs to be fixed, or a feature that needs to be added, you can either do it in house or hire me to do it. You also don't have to worry about the product being discontinued, because if I get hit by a truck tomorrow and the community falls apart, you still have the source and rights to do pretty much whatever you want."

Customization and support
The latest version of IlohaMail offers basic spam prevention capabilities through a filtering engine. "It can be used to do keyword filtering on any header field or message content with support for multiple conditions, and it can also be integrated with some server-side solutions like SpamAssassin," Chijiiwa says.

IlohaMail itself is free. If an ISP needs additional features or customization, a wide range of consulting services and support contracts are available. Still, Chijiiwa says most ISPs do fine on their own. "Frankly, I prefer it that way, because I do my best to make IlohaMail stable, easy to configure, and easy to maintain," he says.

Additional features can be purchased either as proprietary solutions or as sponsorships. Custom, proprietary solutions are more expensive, and aren't rolled into the open source distribution. Sponsorships, on the other hand, become part of the IlohaMail distribution, which means they're cheaper for the ISP to request, and will continue to be maintained as the product develops.

Christian Balzer is Network/Systems Engineer at the Japanese ISP Fusion GOL. The company began using IlohaMail in July of 2002 after three months of testing. The fact that Fusion GOL could sponsor additional functionality, Balzer says, was a key selling point. "We basically [sponsored] the whole POP3 support in IlohaMail," he says.

Over the past two years, Balzer says, he's continued to be very happy with the decision, particularly with regard to IlohaMail's reliability. "We're currently sponsoring another new feature for IlohaMail, so it should be obvious that we're putting our money where our mouth is!" he says.

— End

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