IMAP-Honey vs Mailoney: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
IMAP-Honey is a free honeypots & deception tool. Mailoney is a free honeypots & deception tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best honeypots & deception fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Security teams running mail servers in isolated lab environments or threat intelligence operations will get the most from IMAP-Honey, since it's free and requires zero dependencies beyond a basic Linux box to spin up fast credential traps. The 25 GitHub stars and syslog integration suggest it's been field-tested by researchers who need protocol-level deception without licensing friction. Not worth deploying if you need alerting sophistication, cross-protocol coverage beyond mail, or any kind of vendor support; this is a lightweight tactical tool, not a platform replacement.
Security teams building internal threat intelligence programs will get real value from Mailoney's modular SMTP honeypot design, which lets you customize deception tactics for your specific attack surface rather than running generic traps. The 280 GitHub stars and active module ecosystem mean you're working with battle-tested code that others in your position have already hardened. Skip this if you need a turnkey, managed honeypot service or expect vendor-backed incident response; Mailoney demands you own the deployment, tuning, and log analysis yourself.
