phpList review: free newsletters on shared hosting

Installing phpList from cPanel

If your host offers Softaculous or Fantastico in cPanel or Plesk, phpList installs from that menu. Otherwise you upload the archive by hand, or use the official Docker image. A manual install ships in test mode and sends nothing until you change TEST from 1 to 0 in config/config.php. One-click installers set it for you. Requirements are PHP 8.1 or later, MySQL or MariaDB, Apache and around twenty common PHP extensions such as imap, mbstring and curl.

Set two cron jobs: one every five minutes to process the queue, one nightly to process bounces. Without cron, sending only runs while the queue page stays open in your browser.

Matching phpList's send speed to your host's limit

phpList sends through PHP's mail() function or an external SMTP server. If your host caps emails per hour, phpList can send in batches: 300 messages per 3,600-second period fits a 300-an-hour cap, and the manual suggests staying 20 to 40 messages below your limit. An experimental setting also throttles per recipient domain.

Past a few thousand subscribers, switch from mail() to an SMTP relay.

Lists, segments and bounces

• Double opt-in lists, attributes created on CSV import and exclude lists to avoid double sends.
• A Segment plugin with conditions on attributes, including "after interval" and "on anniversary".
• Bounces read from a POP3 mailbox or an mbox file, with subscribers set to unconfirmed after five consecutive bounces by default.

What's new in phpList 3.7.0

Version 3.7.0 adds a REST API, SAML single sign-on for admins and IMAP bounce processing that works without PHP's imap extension, which PHP 8.4 no longer bundles. phpList Ltd, a UK company in Bedfordshire, maintains the project and runs the hosted service.

phpList strengths and limitations