opensend.cc

opensend.cc is an open source email platform that you run on your own server, described by its creators as "the self-hosted Resend alternative." It provides a Resend-compatible REST API and SDKs, plain SMTP, React-based email templates, broadcasts, contacts and audiences, webhooks and logs, all running on infrastructure you control. The product is built for developers and teams who want to send transactional email and product updates through their own AWS SES account, so that their domain, their data and their sender reputation stay theirs. One Docker Compose command installs the whole platform, and the software itself is free; as the site puts it, "You pay Amazon to send. Nothing to us." The dashboard, the API and the database all live on your machine rather than on a vendor's servers. The background for opensend.cc comes from its author, Kamal Panara, who runs Panara Studios, an app agency that has shipped products for clients in more than ten countries since 2021. Every one of those apps needed transactional email, and the hosted APIs available charged per send while hiding the stack behind them. That experience led to building "the open source Resend alternative I wanted." The problem it targets is the one described on the site: with a rented email API, the domain, the data and the sender reputation all sit with the provider, and pricing scales with every message you send. opensend.cc flips that model by running the email platform on your own server and sending through your own AWS account, so the sending pipeline, the contact data and the deliverability reputation remain on your infrastructure rather than shared with other customers. The core developer experience is a Resend-compatible API. Existing Resend SDKs can be pointed at your opensend.cc URL by changing the base URL, which means requests go to your server instead of a hosted provider and your application code can largely stay the same. The API supports scoped keys, batch send and idempotent retries, so teams moving from a managed service can migrate with minimal changes. The site frames this as practical migration guidance: if you are already on Resend, you change two lines and keep your code. Sending a message is a single POST to an /emails endpoint with the sender and message details, returning a message identifier that can be used for tracking. Delivery runs through AWS SES as the default relay, with plain SMTP also available for frameworks and plugins that already rely on it. Beyond simply dispatching mail, opensend.cc provides guided deliverability setup: it shows you the DKIM, SPF and DMARC records for your domain so you can publish them and authenticate your sending. Because delivery goes through your own SES account, your SES reputation stays yours and is not shared with other customers, which matters for inbox placement over time. The dashboard and feature set extend the API into a fuller email platform. Templates can be built as React components, previewed in the dashboard and sent by name, which lets developers author emails in the same component style as their application. Webhooks deliver signed events for deliveries, bounces and complaints to your endpoints, with retries, so your systems can react to what actually happened to each message. Contacts can be stored and grouped into audiences, with consent data kept in your own Convex database rather than a vendor's. Broadcasts let you send product updates and newsletters to an audience using the same SES pipeline as transactional mail. Logs and analytics make every message, event and error searchable, and bounces and complaints feed suppression automatically. Finally, test mode provides keys that accept everything and deliver nothing, which lets you wire up CI and staging environments without emailing real users. Overall, opensend.cc works as a self-contained, self-hosted stack. The one-line installer pulls prebuilt images and starts Next.js, Convex and Better Auth using Docker Compose. Data is held in self-hosted Convex on your own machine, and accounts are handled by Better Auth. The underlying schema covers domains, API keys, emails and suppression. The described path from install to first email is three steps: deploy the platform, connect SES by adding your sending domain and publishing the DKIM, SPF and DMARC records it displays and attaching your AWS SES account, and then send by creating an API key and posting your first email through curl, a Resend SDK or plain SMTP — and seeing it appear in the logs. The benefits described are ownership and cost control. Your email, your server and your AWS bill are all yours: domains, data and accounts stay on your infrastructure, and there is no per-email pricing and no feature gates from the platform. Because the API is Resend-compatible, you keep your application code and change only a base URL. Self-hosting is free, so the only costs are your own server and what AWS SES charges for sending, and community support is available on GitHub. Concrete use cases follow from that design. Teams send transactional email such as the messages every app needs, run product updates and newsletters through broadcasts to an audience, and use test mode keys to exercise CI and staging flows without contacting real users. Developers already using Resend can migrate by repointing their SDK, and agencies shipping apps for clients can deploy the same open source email platform on their own or their clients' servers. Organizations that need domain data and sender reputation to remain under their control can keep consent records in their own Convex database rather than with an external vendor. The primary audience is developers and technical teams: individual builders, app agencies and anyone who wants a self-hosted email API and does not want to rent one. The stack is explicit — Next.js for the dashboard and API, self-hosted Convex for the database, Better Auth for accounts, AWS SES or any SMTP relay for delivery, and Docker Compose for deployment. The license is Apache-2.0. The Self-host plan is free forever and includes the full source code, Next.js with self-hosted Convex and Better Auth, AWS SES or any SMTP relay, the Resend-compatible REST API and SMTP, templates, audiences, broadcasts, webhooks and logs, and community support on GitHub. A Cloud option that runs the same API with managed servers is listed as coming soon, with a waitlist open. The project is also supported by sponsors, with Gold at $249/mo and Silver tiers mentioned, and sponsors help decide what ships next and keep the project free. In short, opensend.cc takes the email API that most teams rent and turns it into something they run themselves. With a Resend-compatible API, AWS SES and SMTP delivery, React templates, audiences, broadcasts, webhooks, logs and test mode, all deployed with one Docker Compose command, it gives developers a way to own their email sending, their data and their sender reputation while paying only their own infrastructure and AWS costs.