Learn how Thunderbird and Thunderbird for Android differ in their key features, development activity, technology stack and community adoption, so you can decide which of these email clients is best for you.
Last 30 days
Last commit
5 hours agoRepository age
1 yearLicense
MPL-2.0Repository
thunderbird-desktop
Last 30 days
Last commit
1 day agoRepository age
16 yearsLicense
Apache-2.0Repository
thunderbird-android
Both Thunderbird and Thunderbird for Android have their unique strengths and serve similar purposes effectively. Consider your specific needs regarding popularity, growth, activity, maturity, licensing and features when making your decision.
Thunderbird for Android significantly outpaces Thunderbird in community adoption with 14,226 stars compared to 246 stars on GitHub. This 57.8x difference suggests Thunderbird for Android has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Thunderbird for Android has 2,893 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.
Thunderbird is growing faster, adding 46 stars in the last 30 days (+23%) against adding 113 stars for Thunderbird for Android (+0.8%). Thunderbird is the smaller project of the two, so it is closing the gap rather than extending a lead.
Both projects show recent activity, with Thunderbird last updated 5 hours ago and Thunderbird for Android 1 day ago.
Thunderbird for Android has been in development longer, starting 16 years ago, compared to Thunderbird which began 1 year ago. This 14.9-year head start suggests Thunderbird for Android may have more mature features and established processes.
The projects use different licenses: Thunderbird is licensed under MPL-2.0 while Thunderbird for Android uses Apache-2.0. Consider the licensing requirements when choosing for your project.
Both tools serve similar use cases in Email Clients.