# phpList Reviews **Vendor:** phpList **Category:** [Email Marketing Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/email-marketing) **Average Rating:** 3.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 18 ## About phpList phpList delivers Open Source email marketing, including analytics, list segmentation, content personalisaton and bounce processing. Extensive technical features and a secure and stable codebase are the result of over 17 years of continuous development. Used in 95 countries, available in 20+ languages, and used to send 25 billion email campaigns last year. Deploy it with your own SMTP server, or get a free hosted account at http://phplist.com. ## phpList Reviews ### 1. Reliable, GDPR-Compliant Email Solution **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Drew T. | Head of Customer Experience & Service Operations, Consumer Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 25, 2026 **What do you like best about phpList?** I really appreciate how phpList is lightweight, reliable, and naturally GDPR-aligned, which is crucial for our consumer service operations in Germany. It's straightforward to manage double opt-ins, unsubscribes, and consent logs without complex setup, saving us significant compliance work and audit preparation. It also runs stably with minimal server overhead and doesn’t force us into expensive subscriptions, which is great for a team like ours that's focused on customer service rather than technical marketing. It's easy to learn, self-manageable, and perfectly suits our needs for regular customer updates and support follow-ups without unnecessary features. Additionally, the initial setup was relatively straightforward, especially since we run it on our own in-house server. Installation didn’t take long, and the basic configuration like setting up sender domains, double opt-in, and GDPR-compliant unsubscribe pages was simple enough for our team to handle without deep technical support. **What do you dislike about phpList?** The user interface can feel dated and less intuitive compared to newer tools, so new team members often take longer to learn basic workflows around list segmentation and campaign scheduling. Automation is also fairly basic — we can’t easily set up dynamic, behavior-based customer journeys, such as automatic follow-ups after support tickets or personalized reminder sequences without custom workarounds. Reporting is functional but minimal: we only get basic open and click metrics, with no easy way to combine email engagement data with our support ticket data or CSAT scores. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** phpList provides a low-cost, GDPR-compliant solution for managing subscriber consent and email compliance records. It eliminates manual email sending, stabilizes delivery, reduces spam risk, and minimizes IT maintenance, enabling our team to handle email campaigns independently and efficiently. ### 2. Easy Campaign Creation and Integration, but a Steep Learning Curve **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlos M. | SRE, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 11, 2026 **What do you like best about phpList?** It makes it easy to create communications and campaigns. It’s also relatively easy to integrate into custom applications. **What do you dislike about phpList?** The learning curve can be challenging for new users. It requires an understanding of side-car technology concepts, such as web server management, mail server configuration, and similar areas. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was a good alternative to a controlled mailing list service. ### 3. Easy and works **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marcin K. | Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 27, 2024 **What do you like best about phpList?** Easy to setup, works, free and open source **What do you dislike about phpList?** Nothing major comes to my mind. Nothing to dislike **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** Email marketing outreach/malings ### 4. Phplist the functional open source email marketing software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 24, 2022 **What do you like best about phpList?** It is a very configurable and easily manageable set of email marketing tools that is written in php. It provided templates for multiple email campaigns as well as functionality for autorewponses. I recommend this software for any business needing email marketing and customer list management. This is a great opensource solution that is best of all free! **What do you dislike about phpList?** It lacks some functionalities of commercial software. It takes some self learning and knowledge of using opensource software is a must. It takes a little time to get the bounces configured properly. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** This is a great email marketing software for any company on a budget! **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am sending email marketing campaigns and customer email letters through phplist. It allows us to sent email for a cost effective price. Free! It allows us to market more effectively. ### 5. The best affordable email marketing software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fardeen S. | Information Technology Desktop Support, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2021 **What do you like best about phpList?** We can create funnels using subscribing pages as landing pages with forms. **What do you dislike about phpList?** Must develop easy to use landing page. By now we need some HTML experience to overcome this. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** I find phpList the best Open Source alternative to MailChimp & easy to set up campaigns and google analytics tracking ### 6. Powerful email marketing tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2021 **What do you like best about phpList?** It's free, open-source software and powerful **What do you dislike about phpList?** Nothing, it does everything I need to do **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** I send all my email campaigns with it, it's very nice ### 7. Best in the lot for broadcasting securely **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ashmeet S. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2020 **What do you like best about phpList?** 1. Very intuitive- The functions and features are self-explanatory and easy to understand, even for a new user. 2. Flexible Features- The features are much more advanced than the competitors. I have used multiple such platforms and found the functions in phpList to be superior. 3. Much more secure than the competitors in terms of preserving data. 4. Superior UI interface. **What do you dislike about phpList?** 1. Cluttered- While the features and more advanced and very intuitive, the range of functions can be confusing for a new user. 2. The way to define the audience can be made more user friendly. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** The application is the best when it comes to designing newsletters and managing email marketing management. A lot of applications outside are not this flexible and user friendly. The UI is much better. ### 8. phpList, email management has never been easier **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Massimiliano G. | Art Director & Web Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 19, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** phpList is a historical software for direct email marketing based, as the name suggests, on PHP language. phpList offers its users maximum flexibility and reliability in managing promotional campaigns via email. Thanks to this tool it is possible to generate targeted messages for each type of customer, in order to improve the effectiveness of the marketing campaign. phpList allows you to divide the subscribers of email marketing services into specific lists (as for example Mailchimp) and allows you to create and use multiple models. phpList prevents a recipient from receiving the same message several times, even if his address is present in more than one list. In addition, it allows you to make a further submission exclusively for users who have registered after sending the newsletter. **What do you dislike about phpList?** First of all, the real phpList problem is the UI. phpList uses an old user interface typical of applications created by experienced PHP Developers but not by UX / UI Designers. No advanced infographics: data reports are not visible with bar or pie charts, or any other graphic element. There is no mobile App and currently the Web Application is not easy to manage via the browser on a smartphone. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** phpList, as you can guess from the name itself, was developed in the PHP programming language and is meant to be run on Linux or Windows servers with Apache and MySQL. phpList must therefore be used by those looking for an independent DEM system to be installed on their server with these features. Furthermore it must be taken into consideration that it is necessary to have a server optimized for mass mailing. The newsletter must be sent on a dedicated SMTP and the number of emails must be unlimited by number and preferably by size. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** phpList is free and Open Source. phpList, thanks to PHP language, easily integrates with numerous CMS (Content Management System) and eCommerce platforms like WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB and others. Service subscription data can be used by system administrators to filter recipients for targeted campaigns. A very useful feature is the ability to schedule marketing campaigns, planning the date and time of sending emails. ### 9. Maybe **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Animation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 09, 2020 **What do you like best about phpList?** Game part is the best and most important part. **What do you dislike about phpList?** It’s slow to load the information. It’s got to Load faster **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mone ### 10. A simple tool to manage email lists. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel C. | Senior Data Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 19, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** phpList allows the user to manage their email lists in a simple way, it has useful functions, which are not very difficult to learn. When managing mailing lists, it provides the ability to perform tasks such as:  * Send messages as text or email.  * Customize the emails.  * Allow customers to not receive more mails in case they do not want it. * Send attachments * If a mailing fails, pick it up from where it left off. **What do you dislike about phpList?** It lacks a good report of the statistics, making it difficult to analyze the data, in addition, the interface of phpList could be more user friendly, it is somewhat outdated but it is still functional. It also has a very poor mobile platform **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** If you want a tool that allows you to easily automate your email list management, you can try phpList, however, if you want to perform more complex tasks you could examine other tools. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allowed to optimize the diffusion of plans and services of the company, as well as the expansion of our clientele. ### 11. "a great phpList marketing tool" **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Miguel moises P. | Ingeniero de proyecto, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** PHPList provides editors as add-ons, CKEditor being the best of the batch. PhpList includes complex statistics, such as subscribers who chose not to receive messages in the future. It is also great because it has many payment facilities for premium plans, it can be canceled by messages or by subscribers. It is very comfortable to work with this platform and it is very easy to use quickly and intuitively. **What do you dislike about phpList?** I think the customer service could be more intuitive but in general it is in excellent mail software. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** To all those people who are considering this software, I personally and professionally recommend it, it is safe for all subscribers. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** Send complete emails with creatives and lines easily, it is one of its many advantages. ### 12. Free, very quick, easy to use and rock solid. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Javier S. | Web Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** It has many payment facilities for premium plans. It can be paid by messages or by subscribers. It is very comfortable to work with this platform and it is very easy to use. **What do you dislike about phpList?** I wish it had predesigned templates to avoid wasting time when creating emails. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** It is an excellent platform for sending mass emails. I do not recommend it for complex campaigns that need to track statistics. phpList is for something much simpler, promotions of products or companies. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** In my business we use it daily to promote our services. It is very easy to use that in just a couple of minutes you can make your first campaigns. It is the ideal product to get started in email marketing campaigns and its price makes it very affordable for most small businesses. ### 13. Great software for zero $ **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Babatope B. | Mr, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** This is a very simply, straightforward, open source email marketing software. It is not bloated with features that users might never use. Even though the interface is not so sleek, pages are easy to navigate, with a practical aesthetic, plus it is responsive on different devices. PHPList provides editors as plugins, with CKEditor being the best of the lot. PhpList includes detailed statistics like subscribers who opted out of future messages, following which campaign, and for what reason (if one was given). PHP list integrates seamlessly with a host of applications such as: - WordPress - Drupal - Joomla - phpBB - Third-party data submission - Subscriber-facing pages - Landing pages for new subscriber signup There is also a hosted solution (for fair price) for those who are not tech savvy or those who want to get up and running in minutes. **What do you dislike about phpList?** - The interface can use some modern design and technology - Additional templates ‘inside the box’ would be a huge plus, but note that one can use templates from any other application (including many published by Mailchimp on GitHub) - Addition of data visualizations like bar graphs or pie charts would be very nice as well - Mobile app for users on the go would be great **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** For simple, straightforward bulk email dissemination and collection of stats, PHPlist gets the job done. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been able to disseminate information to our clients and potential clients via bulk email and collect statistics that has helped to target our marketing campaign. It has helped to increase our client base. ### 14. Does the job good **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 28, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** How easy it is to setup. With the host I use I can just go to a autoinstaller and click install and I only need to setup a few things after that. Being free is also a nice bonus. **What do you dislike about phpList?** If you want to use Phplist without hosting it yourself for free you can only send 300 messages a month so we just after a quick test we installed it on our own webhost. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** Phplist made sending email to a lot of people much easier. Before we used the system that shipped with Directadmin but when we got a lot more emails too send it was taking more time to use. ### 15. Not really good **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Warehousing | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 15, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** To me the script does the job, but if you look a little deeper you can't find anything. **What do you dislike about phpList?** The Code is poorly written, poor programming logic which is definitely not by today's standards. A great feature is lots of options, but that does not excuse bad programming. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** I recommend they work on this ,to be able to make it use ful **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** It hasn't though but a good upgrade can do the tricks ### 16. Excellent **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** kunal m. | Full-stack Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 10, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** I am using it since long and happy with BN it. **What do you dislike about phpList?** I like everything. I don't see any reason to dislike. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** All emails ### 17. phpList a very nice E-Mail Marketing Tool **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** I am able to set up a Newsletter to stay in contact with my clients. **What do you dislike about phpList?** Its hard to set it up and you can easily make a failiure, which will make youre email marketing capaign bad and stop the converting. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** Try it and you will love it. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** The Problem that i cant wirte with all of my clients. Because of that i made the Newsletter. ### 18. phpList review **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alexandra P. | Media Buyer, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 14, 2019 **What do you like best about phpList?** The best thing about this to me is the creatives. They seem to have more in depth and detailed assets than other applications. **What do you dislike about phpList?** I think that the customer service could be more accesible. **Recommendations to others considering phpList:** Take time to get to know this application. It features some major differences between it and app's of its kind. **What problems is phpList solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sending emails complete with creatives and lines easily. ## phpList Discussions - [What is phpList used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-phplist-used-for) - [View phpList pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/phplist/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-15+18%3A41%3A03+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=8ea22fc5-338d-407f-bf8c-fed59dc8793d&secure%5Btoken%5D=fd0e699371d3be5c4938fd71aac60459f698a3e55e7eb1bb3046c7ea559c3629&format=llm_user) ## phpList Integrations - [GLPI](https://www.g2.com/products/glpi/reviews) ## phpList Features **Email Marketing** - Email and Mobile Preview - Manage Email Lists - High-Volume Sending - Building and Personalizing Emails - Sending Outbound Emails - Manage Email Deliverability - Automated Email Responses - Multi-user Account **Reporting & Analytics** - A/B Testing - Basic Reporting **Generative AI** - AI Text Generation - AI Text Summarization **Agentic AI - Email Marketing** - Autonomous Task Execution - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Cross-system Integration **Integration** - Data Import & Export Tools - Integration APIs - Breadth of Partner Applications - CRM Integration - E-Commerce Integration ## Top phpList Alternatives - [Intuit Mailchimp Email Marketing](https://www.g2.com/products/intuit-mailchimp-email-marketing/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (12,648 reviews) - [Sendy](https://www.g2.com/products/sendy-sendy/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (41 reviews) - [MailerLite](https://www.g2.com/products/mailerlite/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (1,091 reviews)