The future of efa

[isene]

When efa rides into the sunset, what alternatives exist? Other products, other maintainer(s), forking, ...?

I am the OPs manager for a company relying on efa for our customer services. We need a solid future for our products with something like efa in place and also with expertise we could rely on.

What would be our options? Anyone here I could have a grounded discussion with?

[ITW_Markus]

Out only valid pay solution would be switchung to hornetsecurity.
Or alternative keeping efa secure alive for ourself (no fork -> just os/packages/funtions/configs).

[barbours]

I have been using primarily opensource software for a long long time and plan to continue. I the EFA community has some great people, engineers, and a great base that should be continued. It will be difficult and or some pretty difficult roads ahead with out Shawn, but I am certainly up for the challenge.

I have asked Shawn in a private message about some of the details about who is managing things and how best to keep this going. I certainly have some ideas and would support putting together a community meeting to discuss it with those interested. So, lets talk...

[darky83]

Proxmox Mail Gateway is one alternative that could serve as a suitable replacement.

You may have seen the recent announcement — if there are members of the community who are interested in continuing the EFA Project, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Just one word of advice: don’t make the mistake of relying on a single person. I originally built this project as a successor to the now-defunct ESVA Project, and after years of working on it, I was fortunate that Shawn stepped in to take over the main development. At that point, it had become too much to maintain alongside a full-time job and family.

With Shawn stepping away, I had every intention of picking things back up again, but the reality is — I simply haven’t had the time.

There were big goals on the roadmap — containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), multi-server support, high availability — but they remained on the to-do list.

One of the challenges of this project is that I always wanted it to remain free and open for everyone and to 'just work'. Yes, we had a donation page, but after all these years, it hasn’t even come close to covering the hosting costs.

I have made this a top post so discussions can start here, and again if there are people really interested please reach out.

[woundride]

Hello,

I've worked with EFA in a previous job. EFA have been a really great solution, better than some commercial solutions and that's a real pleasure to worked with it.
Still thanks for your work, your help and your kindness during all this years shawniverson and darky83 !
Even if I've a news job today and don't use EFA since 5 years ago, the end of this project is a sad news for me :/
I understand and respect your decision, thank you again and again for all you've done my friends !

Kind regards,

Charles

[darky83]

Hi Charles,

Thank you so much for your kind words — they truly mean a lot.

We're grateful for your support, both back then and now, even after all this time. It's never easy to say goodbye to something we've poured so much into, but messages like yours make it clear that the effort was worth it.

Thanks again for being part of the journey — and we wish you all the best in your current role and beyond.

[Stinger]

Hi,
I’d just like to add my words of thanks. efa has been a rock for me since it's inception. You should be very proud of what you have achieved. I know from other projects I work on, balancing work, family and volunteering is no easy task. You both have my respect.
All the very best
Chris