Picoletter is a newsletter app for independent bloggers and writers. It uses SES to send emails. With their really generous free tier, you could run your newsletter on a $5 VM on DigitalOcean or Hetzner virtually for free.
More Screenshots
This is beta software, you can use it in production if you're feeling like going on a adventure, meanwhile here are the list of things that work and things that are pending
Features
- Run multiple newsletters from the same app
- Subscription, confirmation & unsubscription flow
- Schedule newsletter for sending
- Custom sending domains with DNS verification
- Handle bounces and complaints to ensure good reputation
- Embeddable forms for subscription
- Public archive
- Subscriber reminders
- Subscriber labeling and categorization
- Email analytics tracking (opens, clicks)
Pending features
- Subscriber import & export
Stack
- Ruby on Rails
- PostgreSQL
- SolidQueue (background jobs)
- AWS SES (email delivery)
- Tailwind CSS (styling)
- Hotwire/Turbo (dynamic interactions)
Getting Started
Prerequisites
- Ruby 3.1+
- PostgreSQL
- AWS SES account
Installation
- Clone the repository
- Install dependencies:
- Set up the database:
bundle exec rails db:setup - Start the server:
overmind start Procfile.dev
Testing
Run the test suite:
Run linting: