Sunday, July 18, 2010

Dummy SMTP servers for testing

As part of testing apps that send email, we needed some way of sending emails to a server and seeing what was sent and that it actually *was* sent.


However, we did not want to flood a real SMTP server with hundreds or thousands of emails.


The following 2 tools assist with that problem:
  • DevNull SMTP server
    Described as
    It is a dummy SMTP server that can be used for testing purposes. It helps you see all communication between a client and the server and is very useful if you are trying to find problems with your email server or a client that you wrote.

  • Dumpster SMTP server
    Described as
    The Dumbster is a very simple fake SMTP server designed for unit and system testing applications that send email messages. It responds to all standard SMTP commands but does not deliver messages to the user. The messages are stored within the Dumbster for later extraction and verification.
For more info, visit the above links.
Enjoy!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome! 

4 comments:

  1. I also like http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com

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    Replies
    1. Me too... perfect solution to our development and testing needs.

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  2. @rnwood: Thanks for the info.
    btw, don't be shy! You are the author, so take credit for it!

    We all appreciate the work that goes into developing software, especially when that software is then offered as open-source!

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  3. We use http://mailtrap.io web service in developement and staging environment.
    It is platform-independent and doesn't require you to run your own SMTP.

    It offers:

    * All emails in one place
    * Shared access for dev team to the inbox
    * Developer tools to analyze emails
    * Flexible configuration

    ReplyDelete