Keila
by Keila · Open source email newsletters, self-hosted or EU-hosted cloud
BenchRank score
Screenshots of Keila
Homepage
Overview
Keila is an open source newsletter tool for managing contact lists and sending campaigns. Emails can be built in a visual block editor, Markdown, MJML or plain text, with Liquid templating and JSON contact data for personalisation, plus forms, segments and an API. It runs as a managed EU-hosted service or self-hosted via the official Docker image, sending through Keila or your own SMTP, SES, Mailgun, Postmark or Sendgrid.
- Best for
- Teams wanting an open source newsletter tool they can self-host or run on EU-hosted cloud
- Pricing
- No free plan; Keila Cloud runs from £8/month for 2,000 emails to £256/month for 250,000 emails (excluding tax), while the open source release can be self-hosted with no price stated.
- Runs on
- WebSelf-hosted
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- 100% open source with no proprietary premium features
- Block, Markdown, MJML and plain text editors included
- Tracking can be switched off entirely
- Unlimited contacts and projects on every paid plan
Trade-offs
- No free plan; entry tier caps sending at 2,000 emails a month
- Zapier integration is in private beta, limiting no-code options
- Managed hosting is EU-only (Germany and France)
- Self-hosting is DIY via Docker; setup help costs extra
How Keila markets itself
A structured read of the promise, proof and page design on Keila’s captured homepage.
Homepage capture
“Easy & Reliable Email Newsletters Powered by Open Source”
- Angle: Open source / ownership
- Hero: Product video demo
Pricing
Published plans and prices from Keila’s own pricing page.
How this score is made up
Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.
MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
API quality
Public API surface: machine-readable spec, official SDKs, documented auth, errors, rate limits and versioning.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Pricing transparency
Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.
Measured, but not part of the score
Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.
Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
Maintenance
Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.
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Where this comes from
The Keila pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.
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Is this your product?
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