Ethereal is for one-off tests.
Sendpit is for your whole team.
Ethereal Email is a free disposable SMTP service by the Nodemailer team. Sendpit adds persistent mailboxes, team access and real inspection tools. The honest comparison, round by round.
Key Facts
- SendPit Basic: $5/mo for 3 mailboxes and up to 1,000 stored emails across all mailboxes
- Ethereal Email Free disposable service
- Pricing and features last verified: 2026-03-18
Where Sendpit wins
vs ethereal disposable accounts · verified 2026-03-18Ethereal accounts expire and emails are auto-deleted. Sendpit mailboxes and SMTP credentials are permanent, so CI pipelines never break silently.
The whole product: capture, inspection, team access. Not a trial, never expires, no card required.
Shared mailboxes with owner, billing and member roles. Ethereal is single-user; sharing means passing credentials around.
OTPs, magic links and reset URLs parsed from every email, assertable in CI via the REST API and webhooks.
Feature by feature
12 features · 2 groups| Feature | Ethereal Email | Sendpit |
|---|---|---|
| Where they differ | ||
| Price | free | free tier + paid plans |
| Email persistence | ~ auto-deleted | ✓ until you delete |
| Team access | — | ✓ |
| Multiple mailboxes | — | ✓ |
| Webhooks | — | ✓ Pro and above |
| REST API | — | ✓ Basic and above |
| Email search | — | ✓ |
| Header inspection | basic | full analysis |
| Attachments | basic view | download & preview |
| Setup & workflow | ||
| Signup | none, instant credentials | account + mailbox |
| Nodemailer integration | ✓ createTestAccount() | ✓ standard SMTP |
| CI reliability | ~ accounts expire | ✓ permanent credentials |
Ethereal Email makes sense if...
- · You're a solo developer running quick, one-off email tests.
- · You don't need email history-today's test is all that matters.
- · You're deeply integrated with Nodemailer and want the native createTestAccount() workflow.
Sendpit makes sense if...
- ✓ Your team needs shared access to the same test emails.
- ✓ You manage multiple projects and want isolated mailboxes for each.
- ✓ You need persistent email history for debugging and QA reviews.
- ✓ You want webhooks to integrate email testing into CI/CD pipelines.
Hardcoding Ethereal credentials into your pipeline configuration means the pipeline breaks silently when the account expires. Sendpit credentials are permanent, so your pipeline keeps working without periodic maintenance.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ethereal Email really free? Is Sendpit free too?
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Yes, Ethereal Email is completely free with no paid tiers. Sendpit also has a free tier that includes persistent mailboxes and team access. Sendpit's paid plans start at $5/month for teams that need more capacity. Both tools let you start testing emails without entering a credit card.
How long do Ethereal Email accounts last?
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Ethereal Email accounts are disposable and temporary. The service does not guarantee how long accounts or emails will be available-they can be deleted at any time. Sendpit mailboxes are permanent. Your credentials never expire and emails are stored until you choose to delete them.
Can I use Sendpit with Node.js and Nodemailer?
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Absolutely. Sendpit uses standard SMTP, so it works with Nodemailer, Laravel, Django, Rails, Spring, or any framework that can send email via SMTP. You do not need Nodemailer's createTestAccount() function-just configure your Sendpit SMTP credentials directly in your Nodemailer transport configuration.
Can my whole team share one Sendpit mailbox?
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Yes. Create an organization in Sendpit, invite team members with their own accounts, and grant them access to specific mailboxes. Each person logs in with their own credentials while sharing access to the same captured emails. You can also create separate mailboxes per project to keep things organized.
Does Sendpit support webhooks?
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Yes. Sendpit can send webhook notifications when emails arrive in a mailbox. This is useful for CI/CD pipelines-your test suite can send an email and a webhook triggers the next step in the pipeline. Ethereal Email does not offer webhooks or any form of programmatic notification.
Is Ethereal Email still maintained?
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Ethereal Email is a service provided by the Nodemailer team. It is functional and available, but it is a community service rather than a commercial product with an SLA. There are no guarantees about uptime or data retention. If your workflow depends on reliable email capture, a dedicated service with persistence guarantees may be a better fit.
Free forever, not a trial
1 mailbox · 3 seats · 200 stored emails · full inspection · no card · never expires also comparing: Mailtrap · MailHog · Mailpit · MailCatcher · Mailosaur