Resend vs Mailgun
Modern React-oriented API versus mature SMTP, routing, and high-volume tooling.
What matters for developers picking email infrastructure
The question here is which one a backend engineer would rather operate. That means SDK depth in the language already in use, whether a retry can safely be replayed, how much the event log tells you when a customer says the email never arrived, and whether the pricing curve stays sane as volume grows.
| Priority | Resend | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| DX score | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| SDKs | node, python, go, ruby, php, rust, java, elixir, cli | node, python, go, ruby, php, java |
| Idempotency keys | Yes | No |
| Operating since | 2023 | 2010 |
| Event stream | Yes | Yes |
| Best published rate per 1,000 | $0.35 | $0.70 |
| Webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Deliverability | Acceptable, but the deliverability track record is shorter than Postmark or SendGrid. Independent inbox-placement studies vary. Dedicated IPs are available on higher tiers. | Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested. |
| Free tier | 3,000/mo permanent, capped at 100/day, one domain | 100/day permanent free plan |
For a developer-owned stack running password resets, receipts, and magic links shipped from application code, Resend takes developer experience, SDK breadth, idempotency keys, and best published rate per 1,000, while Mailgun takes operating track record. On free tier, Resend offers 3,000/mo permanent, capped at 100/day, one domain against 100/day permanent free plan from Mailgun. That ordering reflects this audience. Weigh the same table differently and the answer changes.
Side by side
| Feature | Resend | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| DX score | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| SDKs | node, python, go, ruby, php, rust, java, elixir, cli | node, python, go, ruby, php, java |
| Webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Deliverability | Acceptable, but the deliverability track record is shorter than Postmark or SendGrid. Independent inbox-placement studies vary. Dedicated IPs are available on higher tiers. | Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested. |
| Free tier | 3,000/mo permanent, capped at 100/day, one domain | 100/day permanent free plan |
| Tagline | Email API tightly coupled to React Email. | Developer-leaning email infra, owned by Sinch. |
| Starts at | $20/mo for 50,000 emails | $15/mo for 10,000 emails (Basic) |
| Pricing model | tiered | tiered |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| Templates | react-email | rich |
| React Email | Yes | No |
| Inbound | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-tenant | No | Yes |
| Idempotency | Yes | No |
| Dedicated IP | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Early-stage React or Next.js product teams sending under 50k/mo. | Technical teams that want SMTP relay plus advanced routing. |
Resend
- ›Idiomatic SDKs across major languages
- ›React Email integration is the smoothest of any provider
- ›Idempotency keys supported
- ›Clean dashboard and event log
- ›Volume pricing is significantly higher than AWS SES at large volumes
- ›Founded 2023, so deliverability track record and incident history are still building
- ›No drag-and-drop template editor; non-React stacks get a thinner experience
- ›Free tier is capped at 100 sends a day, so a 3,000/mo allowance cannot absorb a launch spike
- ›January 2024 breach exposed email metadata, contacts, and encrypted API tokens for all users; message bodies were not reached
- ›Status page logged roughly ten incidents in the three weeks to 2026-08-01, mostly outside the sending path: dashboard, webhooks, domain verification, and automations
- ›Single-region historically; multi-region setup is newer
- ›Smaller support footprint than Twilio SendGrid or Sinch Mailgun
Mailgun
- ›Strong SMTP relay support, useful when migrating off self-hosted Postfix
- ›Inbound routes with regex matching
- ›Validation and parsing tools available
- ›Sub-accounts for agency use cases
- ›Overage pricing and plan differences need close review at scale
- ›Documentation is comprehensive but occasionally out of date
- ›No idempotency keys
- ›Sinch ownership has moved focus toward enterprise