Pantry Mail compared with WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, Post SMTP and Easy WP SMTP

A mail-delivery plugin does one job: it takes the email WordPress already tries to send, password resets, order receipts, contact-form notifications, comment alerts, and hands it to a real SMTP server instead of the hosting account's own mail function, so the message actually reaches an inbox.

That job is usually handled by one of a handful of very large plugins, each with hundreds of thousands or millions of active installs. They all connect to an SMTP server correctly. Most of them also try to be a small email-operations platform on top of that: a searchable log with attachments, failure alerts to Slack or Teams, backup connections that swap providers automatically, delivery charts, rate limiting, a mobile app. Much of that sits behind a paid tier, on a settings screen built for a bigger job than most sites have.

This article compares Pantry Mail with the four plugins WordPress users install most often for this job: WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, Post SMTP and Easy WP SMTP. The comparison is not one-sided. Some sites genuinely need what those plugins bundle, a failure alert sent to a chat channel, a fallback account, a log that goes back months, and for those sites, staying with the bigger plugin is the right call.

The plugins most people install

WP Mail SMTP has 4+ million active installations, the largest of the four, and is tested up to WordPress 7.0.4. It is maintained by the WPForms team, alongside other plugins from the same company. The free version connects WordPress to an SMTP server or a transactional provider's SMTP settings. Its own pricing page lists email reports, logging, tracking, backup connections, smart routing and failure alerts to Slack, Teams, Discord, SMS or webhook as reasons to move to WP Mail SMTP Pro, which starts at $39 a year for one site.

FluentSMTP has 600,000+ active installations and is tested up to WordPress 7.1. It is built by WPManageNinja, alongside Fluent Forms and FluentCRM. Unlike the other three, it has no paid tier: the plugin's own listing states there is no separate pro product, no add-on that unlocks anything, and no feature held back. Everything ships free, including a full log with headers and body, several named SMTP connections with routing rules by sender address, a fallback connection, delivery charts, WP-CLI commands and real-time failure notifications to Telegram, Slack, Discord or Pushover.

Post SMTP has 300,000+ active installations and is tested up to WordPress 7.0.4. It is built by WPExperts.io. The free version covers SMTP setup, a basic log and a test-send button. Post SMTP Pro, from $59.99 a year for one site, adds OAuth sign-in for Gmail and Microsoft 365, full log transcripts with bulk resend, open tracking, a mobile app, SPF, DKIM and DMARC checking, and instant failure notifications.

Easy WP SMTP has 500,000+ active installations and is tested up to WordPress 7.1. Like WP Mail SMTP, its listed author is Syed Balkhi. The free version covers SMTP setup for a short list of providers, including SendLayer, Mailgun, SendGrid and Brevo, plus a custom SMTP option. Logging, reporting, failure alerts, backup connections and conditional routing are paid features; even the cheapest paid tier, Basic at $49.50 a year for one site, is needed to turn logging on at all.

Where the big plugins cost you

Three of the four gate the part of the job most people reach for first behind a paid licence. A record of what was sent and whether it worked is a Pro feature on WP Mail SMTP, a paid-tier feature on every level of Easy WP SMTP, and a basic-only feature on the free tier of Post SMTP, with full transcripts and resend reserved for Post SMTP Pro. Failure alerts, a message when a send fails, rather than a site owner noticing weeks later that nobody ever received a password-reset email, sit behind the same paywall on all three. So does a backup connection that keeps mail moving when the primary provider is down.

The pricing pages for these three are built around that gap. WP Mail SMTP repeats the same list, reports, logging, tracking, backup connections, routing, alerts, at four price points from $39 to $389 a year. Easy WP SMTP lists nearly the same features across all four of its paid tiers, differing mainly by site count, and notes renewals return to full price once the introductory discount ends. Post SMTP's three tiers, from $59.99 to $99.99 a year, split OAuth setup, full transcripts, open tracking and instant alerts across Basic, Professional and Business. A site owner solving one problem, the contact form's email isn't arriving, is shown a multi-tier pricing table before finding out whether the fix needs a licence at all.

FluentSMTP avoids the paywall, but not the size. Every feature listed above ships free, which means the settings surface does too: named connections with per-sender routing rules, a reporting dashboard with charts, WP-CLI commands, and a choice of four chat platforms to wire up for alerts. A site that wants one form to work reliably still has to work out which of these screens it can safely leave alone.

None of the four is badly built for the job it aims at. The cost is scope: a site owner who wants outgoing mail to work is choosing between four products built for a bigger brief than that.

What Pantry Mail does instead

Pantry Mail's scope is the SMTP connection, and enough around it to trust that connection: host, port, encryption, username and password, applied through WordPress's own phpmailer_init hook. Nine provider presets, Gmail, Microsoft 365, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Resend, Amazon SES, Brevo, or Custom, fill in the host, port and encryption; choosing Custom leaves every field exactly as typed, and any preset still leaves the fields editable afterwards. A From name and From address can be set once, and either applied only when nothing else on the site has already set a real one, or forced on every message with a single tickbox. A test button sends one message and shows the server's own response as a notice on the same screen.

A log of the most recent 20 messages sits under the settings: time, recipient, subject, result, and, on failure, the raw error text from the mail library. It logs every message wp_mail() tries to send, not only those sent through SMTP, which helps a site still on plain PHP mail() decide whether to switch SMTP on.

Two decisions are worth explaining. PHPMailer's default timeout for an unreachable host is five minutes; Pantry Mail sets it to 20 seconds, so the test button, and any page on the site that happens to trigger an email, does not stall waiting on a bad host. And the password is stored as plain text in the settings option by default, with the settings screen saying so outright, rather than a home-grown scrambling scheme that would not stop anyone with database access. A site that wants the password out of the database entirely can define PANTRY_MAIL_PASSWORD in wp-config.php instead, and the settings screen then shows a notice confirming the constant is in charge.

Measured on the release zip: 20KB, 1,304 lines of PHP, including the settings-screen code shared across every Pantry plugin. Two options in the database, the settings, and the bounded 20-entry log, with no custom tables, no post meta, no cron events and no transients. Admin assets load only on the plugin's own settings screen: the shared Pantry admin CSS and JS, plus one small script that fills the preset fields when a provider is chosen. Nothing loads on the front end, because there is no front-end feature. The only external request the plugin makes is the SMTP connection to the host in the settings, and only when SMTP is switched on; there is no other request, and no dashboard notice beyond the one-off activation message every Pantry plugin allows itself.

What it does not do, and who should stay with the big plugin

Pantry Mail's does_not list is short and it is permanent, not a gap waiting on a future release. There is no OAuth flow: connecting to Gmail or Microsoft 365 means an app password or an SMTP relay, not a sign-in button. A site that needs to authenticate with a live Google or Microsoft 365 account, because app passwords are disabled on that account or a workspace policy requires it, should use Post SMTP or WP Mail SMTP, both of which support OAuth for those two providers.

There is no API-based sending. Pantry Mail only ever speaks SMTP, even to providers such as SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Resend, Amazon SES and Brevo that also offer an HTTP API. A site sending enough mail that the API's speed or provider-side analytics matter, or a host that blocks outbound SMTP ports, needs a plugin that can send over the API instead; WP Mail SMTP, Easy WP SMTP and FluentSMTP all offer that.

There is no sending queue and no automatic retry. One send is one attempt, logged once. A membership site or a store sending enough transactional mail that a provider outage or a rate limit could lose messages should look at a plugin with a queue and a backup connection; FluentSMTP includes both for free, and Pro on WP Mail SMTP or Easy WP SMTP adds a backup account and rate limiting.

There is no open or click tracking, and it is not on Pantry's own paid-add-on plan either, the free plugin will not add it later, and Pro will not add it at all. A site that wants to know whether a transactional or newsletter-style email was opened needs a different tool; Post SMTP Pro offers open tracking, and a dedicated email service will do it properly.

There is no full searchable log. Twenty messages is what fits sensibly in one bounded option without a database table, and that is a design limit, not an oversight. A site that needs to search or export a longer mail history today should use FluentSMTP, which keeps a fuller log for free, or pay for logging on WP Mail SMTP, Easy WP SMTP or Post SMTP. A full searchable log with resend is planned for Pantry's own paid add-on, but it does not exist yet, and nothing about today's free plugin depends on it.

Moving over

Coming from WP Mail SMTP, Easy WP SMTP or Post SMTP, the SMTP connection fields map directly: host, port, encryption, username and password mean the same thing in Pantry Mail, so the values from the old settings screen can simply be retyped. A "force from email" or "force from name" setting on any of the three maps to Pantry Mail's single Force on every message tickbox.

What does not carry over is the log. Each plugin keeps its own message history, in its own format and storage, and Pantry Mail does not import it; it starts logging from the moment it is activated. If the old plugin was sending through a provider's API rather than SMTP, WP Mail SMTP, Easy WP SMTP and FluentSMTP all support this for several providers, the API key will not work as an SMTP password. Providers that offer both usually issue separate SMTP credentials from their own dashboard; those need to be generated and entered before switching, not reused from the API setup.

The password itself is never carried across in either direction, by design: re-enter it on the new settings screen, or set PANTRY_MAIL_PASSWORD in wp-config.php instead of typing it into a field at all.

Only one plugin should hook phpmailer_init at a time. Deactivate the old SMTP plugin before switching Enable SMTP on in Pantry Mail, send a test email straight away to confirm the new connection works, and only then decide whether to remove the old plugin outright. Its own uninstall routine, not Pantry Mail's, is what clears out whatever options or tables it created.

The short version

Pantry Mail does one job: point wp_mail() at a real SMTP server and show you whether the message went. It does not keep months of history, message a chat channel, fail over to a second account or sign in with a provider's OAuth flow, and none of that is coming to the free plugin later. For a site that only needs outgoing mail to work, and to see straight away whether it did, that is the whole requirement. For a site that needs an operations layer built around its email, WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, Post SMTP and Easy WP SMTP already have one.

Measure	Pantry Mail
Zip size	20KB
Lines of PHP	1,304
Options	2 (settings, 20-entry log)
Custom tables	0
Front-end assets	none
External requests	SMTP connection to the configured host, only when enabled
Tracking	none
Locked features	none