History: Roundcube vs Cypht

Why did Tiki pick Cypht as a webmail solution instead of the more popular Roundcube?

Cypht is the pluggable webmail of the PHP ecosystem.

Roundcube vs Cypht

• Availability on Packagist
  • No: https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5938
  • Yes: https://github.com/cypht-org/cypht/issues/311
• JMAP support
  • No: https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5918
  • Started: https://github.com/cypht-org/cypht/issues/180
• Support for multiple accounts
  • No: https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/4972
  • Yes: https://cypht.org/documentation.html

The two projects have a similar activity level:
https://openhub.net/p/_compare?project_0=Cypht+Webmail&project_1=Roundcube+Webmail

About licensing: Cypht changed the license to be the same as Tiki, and thus easier to share code between Tiki and Cypht: https://github.com/cypht-org/cypht/issues/333
LGPL 2.1 (vs GPL) also makes Cypht more pluggable.

The collaboration between Cypht and Tiki has similarities with Roundcube and Kolab (but started a decade later!). In recent years, much of the innovation in Roundcube is driven by Kolab. Similarly, as of 2023, the Tiki project is the main driver of innovation in Cypht.