Should I self-host Kit?

What you lose

• Kit's creator-network recommendations engine
• Landing pages and commerce come from elsewhere in your stack

What you're paying Kit for

• email campaigns
• subscriber segmentation
• automation sequences
• landing forms

Ranked alternatives

1. Keila

Signup forms, contacts and campaigns out of one Elixir release and one PostgreSQL, with the sending handed to an SMTP relay you pick.

pentacent/keila · ★ 2,182 · last commit 10d ago · AGPL-3.0

2. listmonk

Your mailing list, your campaigns and your click stats out of one Go binary, with the sending handed to an SMTP relay you pick.

knadh/listmonk · ★ 22,699 · last commit 0d ago · AGPL-3.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).

The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)

# listmonk — newsletter + mailing lists (replaces Mailchimp's list half; you still need an
# SMTP relay like SES/Postmark for deliverability — that cost is in the verdict math notes)
services:
  listmonk:
    image: listmonk/listmonk:latest
    container_name: listmonk
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      listmonk-db:
        condition: service_healthy
    command: [sh, -c, "./listmonk --install --idempotent --yes && ./listmonk"]
    environment:
      LISTMONK_app__address: 0.0.0.0:9000
      LISTMONK_db__host: listmonk-db
      LISTMONK_db__port: "5432"
      LISTMONK_db__user: listmonk
      LISTMONK_db__password: listmonk
      LISTMONK_db__database: listmonk
      LISTMONK_db__ssl_mode: disable
    ports:
      - "9000:9000"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "wget -qO- http://localhost:9000/health >/dev/null || exit 1"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 24
      start_period: 20s

  listmonk-db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: listmonk
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: listmonk
      POSTGRES_DB: listmonk
    volumes:
      - listmonk-pg:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U listmonk"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 12

volumes:
  listmonk-pg:

Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/kit has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.

Verification

# Kit — verdict log

- **Date:** 2026-08-10
- **Verdict:** YES — worth it
- **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code)

## Setup evidence (shared)

- This verdict rides on the same replacement verified for `mailchimp-listmonk` — see `compose/mailchimp-listmonk.yml` and its log.

## The call

Kit (ConvertKit) at $39/mo for 1k subscribers is the classic listmonk win: campaigns, sequences and segmentation from a two-container setup verified on this scoreboard, plus an SES account measured in cents.

Verdict history

• 2026-08-10: unscored → YES — Initial verdict: Kit (ConvertKit) at $39/mo for 1k subscribers is the classic listmonk win: campaigns, sequences and segmentati.