Key Differences Between Amazon SES and Mailtrap

1. Mailtrap doesn’t require extensive coding skills and experience for setup and integration.
2. Mailtrap offers monthly recurring plans with an option to request annual billing/plan. Unlike Amazon SES, Mailtrap doesn’t feature a pay-as-you-go plan, but we have a 1000-emails free plan to test and evaluate our service.
3. Your emails are stored under Mailtrap Email Logs for up to 30 days, depending on your pricing plan. We also store email content and hard data between 3 and 7 days.
4. Mailtrap features a Bulk Stream, which allows you to send emails to many recipients at once (newsletters, product updates, marketing promotions, etc.). It also offers an email marketing product to schedule and send your campaigns.
5. Mailtrap offers Email Testing. This is an email sandbox for inspecting HTML/CSS, spam scores, etc., and debugging emails in staging, dev, and QA environments before sending them to recipients. 
6. Mailtrap features Actionable Analytics, allowing you to get in-depth email stats. SES offers only basic metrics and requires third-party apps for detailed stats. 
7. Amazon SES doesn’t allow you to add unsubscribe options to emails without coding.

Mailtrap and Amazon SES – Similarities

1. Support for sending with SMTP or REST API.  
2. You can use return-path records and DKIM to verify a domain. 
3. You can add a .csv file to import suppressed email addresses. 

Terminology comparison

General step-by-step migration flow

Getting started

To start sending emails with Mailtrap, you only need to create an account and verify your domain. Domain setup and verification are done from the Sending Domains menu. Read this article to learn more about that process.

Domain verification

• Once your domain is verified using the provided DNS records, it undergoes an automatic Compliance Check. This process usually takes from a couple of minutes to several hours. You can send emails only after the Compliance Check is fully passed and you see the verified status next to your domain.

• Set unsubscribe options with Mailtrap and import your suppression lists from Amazon SES (as CSV). Also, remember to import your email list and HTML templates into Mailtrap. 
• Optionally, create webhooks to receive information about bounces, spam complaints, opens, clicks, and other events.
• Enable open and click tracking to understand how customers interact with your emails.

Sending with Mailtrap SMTP

SMTP Endpoints

Amazon Servers

live.smtp.mailtrap.io bulk.smtp.mailtrap.io

email-smtp.us-east-2.amazonaws.com (+16 more) Show all email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp-fips.us-east-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.us-west-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com email-smtp-fips.us-west-2.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-northeast-3.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com email-smtp.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com email-smtp.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com email-smtp.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com

SMTP Ports

Port	Function
587	The recommended SMTP relay with TSL.
25	High traffic, blocked by some mailbox providers due to abuse.
2525	Alternative port, in case you encounter issues with other ports.

SMTP Configuration

Go to Sending Domains and click the verified domain you want to send emails from. Go to the Integration tab and click Integrate under Transactional or Bulk Stream, depending on the type of emails you’d like to send.

Copy and paste the credentials (for the stream you chose) into your app or project, and you’ll be ready to start sending emails. Read more about SMTP integration here. 

Note: Turning TLS on is mandatory as mentioned in the credentials.

Sending with Mailtrap API

Mailtrap API tokens

Mailtrap automatically creates a token when you add a domain. By default, the token has Domain Admin access permission. You can edit the token permissions in the API Tokens menu under Settings.

Learn more on how to manage API tokens in our guide.

API Mapping

API type	Mailtrap	SES Naming
The Basics	General	Welcome
Sending	Send email	SendEmail, SendRawEmail, SendTemplatedEmail
Email Testing	Email Testing API

API Libraries

At the moment, nine libraries are available at Mailtrap.

Programming Language	Mailtrap	Amazon SES
Node.js	Node.js SDK	Not supported
NodeMailer (Node.js)	NodeMailer SDK	Not supported
PHP	PHP SDK	PHP SDK
PHP (Laravel + Symphony)	PHP SDK	Not supported
Ruby	Ruby SDK	Ruby SDK
Ruby (ActionMailer)	ActionMailer SDK	Not supported
Python	Python SDK	Python SDK
Elixir	Elixir SDK	Not supported
Java	Java SDK	Java SDK

API Authentication

Mailtrap uses Bearer authentication. So, you need to pass the API token under Authorization header of your email.

API Authentication

We use Bearer authentication. Pass the API token into the code under the header Authorization.

Permissions/User management

If you are on the Business plan or higher, you can add users to your account and manage their permissions. To do it, click the User Management menu under Settings, then the three dots (more menu) on the right. You can also manage users and permissions with API.

Based on the permissions users get, they can view, access, and/or modify specific functionalities of an app. Note that a user needs Admin permissions to get authenticated and send emails via API.

Additionally, Mailtrap allows you to enable or disable app-based 2FA for all or some users within your account with an option to enforce 2FA for all users. Check our 2FA guide for more details. 

If you want to learn more about managing users’ permissions, click this link ◀️.

ActionMailer Balancer for smooth migration

For Ruby on Rails applications, Mailtrap offers an ActionMailer Balancer that makes the migration smooth. 

ActionMailer extension allows for the proportional distribution of the email-sending load between two different sending services and mitigates sending risks.

After you install the Balancer and make some minor configurations, ActionMailer’s sending method will get extended.

For more detailed info on the boilerplate and use in development, read the Mailtrap ActionMailer Balancer GitHub page.