You're starting a new project and you need email templates. Not marketing blasts — transactional emails. Welcome sequences, password resets, invoice receipts. The kind that have to work in every client, render at 3 AM when your background job fires, and not look like garbage on a 2014 Outlook install running on a corporate Windows machine.
Three frameworks dominate this space in 2026: React Email, MJML, and Maizzle. Each makes fundamentally different trade-offs about abstraction level, developer experience, and output quality. I've shipped production templates with all three. This post is the comparison I wish I'd had before making those decisions.
The short version: there's no universally "best" framework. But by the end of this post, you'll know exactly which one fits your team, your stack, and the emails you actually need to send.
The contenders
Before we dig into trade-offs, here's a quick snapshot of what each framework actually is and where it comes from.
React Email
Built by the Resend team, React Email lets you write email templates as JSX components with full TypeScript support. It ships with a local preview server, a set of pre-built components (Button, Section, Column), and renders to cross-client HTML. If you're in the React/Next.js ecosystem, it feels like home.
MJML
The original framework for responsive email. Created by Mailjet in 2015, MJML uses an XML-based markup language that compiles to battle-tested, responsive HTML. It's language-agnostic — you can use it from Node.js, Python, PHP, Java, or just the CLI. Nine years of production use means its output has been tested in practically every email client that exists.
Maizzle
Maizzle takes an HTML-first approach: you write actual HTML markup and style it with Tailwind CSS utility classes. A build system transforms those utilities into inlined styles, purges unused CSS, and handles all the email-specific quirks. It's the "you own the output" framework — maximum control, minimum magic.
14.2k
React Email GitHub stars
Fastest-growing email framework. First release: 2022.
16.8k
MJML GitHub stars
The established player. First release: 2015.
5.4k
Maizzle GitHub stars
Niche but loyal following. First release: 2019.
380k
React Email weekly downloads
npm: @react-email/components
520k
MJML weekly downloads
npm: mjml
18k
Maizzle weekly downloads
npm: @maizzle/framework
Developer experience
DX is where these three frameworks diverge the most. They represent three different philosophies about how developers should build emails: components, markup language, or utility CSS.
Setup & getting started
Let's look at the same simple welcome email in each framework. A heading, a paragraph, and a button — the "hello world" of email templates.
import {
Html,
Head,
Body,
Container,
Heading,
Text,
Button,
} from "@react-email/components";
interface WelcomeEmailProps {
name: string;
loginUrl: string;
}
export default function WelcomeEmail({ name, loginUrl }: WelcomeEmailProps) {
return (
<Html>
<Head />
<Body style={{ backgroundColor: "#f6f9fc", fontFamily: "sans-serif" }}>
<Container style={{ maxWidth: "560px", margin: "0 auto", padding: "20px" }}>
<Heading style={{ fontSize: "24px", color: "#1a1a1a" }}>
Welcome, {name}
</Heading>
<Text style={{ fontSize: "16px", color: "#4a4a4a", lineHeight: "1.5" }}>
Your account is ready. Click below to get started.
</Text>
<Button
href={loginUrl}
style={{
backgroundColor: "#000",
color: "#fff",
padding: "12px 24px",
borderRadius: "6px",
fontSize: "14px",
}}
>
Go to dashboard
</Button>
</Container>
</Body>
</Html>
);
}<mjml>
<mj-head>
<mj-attributes>
<mj-all font-family="sans-serif" />
</mj-attributes>
</mj-head>
<mj-body background-color="#f6f9fc">
<mj-section padding="20px">
<mj-column>
<mj-text font-size="24px" color="#1a1a1a" font-weight="bold">
Welcome, {{name}}
</mj-text>
<mj-text font-size="16px" color="#4a4a4a" line-height="1.5">
Your account is ready. Click below to get started.
</mj-text>
<mj-button
background-color="#000"
color="#fff"
font-size="14px"
border-radius="6px"
padding="12px 24px"
href="{{loginUrl}}"
>
Go to dashboard
</mj-button>
</mj-column>
</mj-section>
</mj-body>
</mjml>---
title: "Welcome Email"
---
<extends src="src/layouts/main.html">
<block name="template">
<table class="w-full">
<tr>
<td class="bg-[#f6f9fc] p-5 font-sans">
<div class="max-w-[560px] mx-auto">
<h1 class="text-2xl font-bold text-[#1a1a1a] m-0">
Welcome, {{ page.name }}
</h1>
<p class="text-base text-[#4a4a4a] leading-relaxed mt-4">
Your account is ready. Click below to get started.
</p>
<a
href="{{ page.loginUrl }}"
class="inline-block bg-black text-white text-sm py-3 px-6 rounded-md no-underline mt-4"
>
Go to dashboard
</a>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</block>
</extends>The React Email version is the most familiar to React developers — it's just a component with props. MJML is the most concise but uses its own tag vocabulary. Maizzle gives you raw HTML with Tailwind, which means you need to understand email HTML quirks yourself.
TypeScript support
React Email is TypeScript-native. Every component ships with full type definitions. Your email props are typed, autocomplete works in your editor, and you catch missing variables at compile time. This is a genuine productivity advantage when you have 30+ email templates with different data shapes.
MJML has community-maintained type definitions (@types/mjml) for the Node.js API, but the template language itself is untyped XML. You can run mjml --validate to catch structural errors, but there's no type checking for your template variables. If you pass userName instead of name, you find out at runtime.
Maizzle uses a JavaScript config file that supports TypeScript via maizzle.config.ts since v5. But template variables in the HTML use a Nunjucks-like syntax with no compile-time checking. You get type safety for your build config but not for your template data.
Preview & iteration speed
React Email ships a local dev server (npx react-email dev) that hot-reloads your templates in the browser. You edit your component, save, and see the result instantly. The preview server also lets you toggle between desktop and mobile views and send test emails directly from the UI.
MJML has its own live preview via mjml --watch and a VS Code extension that renders the preview pane side-by-side. The VS Code extension is genuinely excellent — no terminal needed, no separate server process. For quick iterations, it's arguably the fastest workflow of the three.
Maizzle uses Browsersync for local development. Run maizzle serve and it watches your templates, rebuilds on change, and auto-refreshes the browser. The build step is fast but not instant — there's a perceptible delay compared to React Email's hot reload.
- Native TypeScript with full type safety for template data
- Component composition and reuse patterns identical to React
- Integrated preview server with send-test-email functionality
- First-class Resend integration — pass components directly to send()
- Locked into React/JSX — can't use from Python, Go, or PHP backends
- Younger ecosystem — fewer community components than MJML
- Inline styles only — no CSS classes in the template authoring layer
- Preview server can be slow to start on large template sets
Email client compatibility
This is the section that actually matters. Nobody cares how elegant your template code is if it breaks in Gmail's clipped rendering or Outlook's Word-based engine. All three frameworks approach compatibility differently.
React Email handles compatibility through its component library. Each component (Button, Column, Section) generates HTML that works across clients. The abstraction does the heavy lifting — you don't write conditional comments for Outlook, the component does. The limitation is that you're trusting the library authors to have handled every edge case. For the most part, they have. But when something breaks in a specific client, you're debugging generated HTML you didn't write.
MJML produces the most conservative, battle-tested output of the three. Nine years of production use across millions of emails means the HTML it generates has been tested against essentially every email client configuration that exists. MJML's output uses table-based layouts, MSO conditional comments, and redundant fallbacks. It's verbose, but it works. If client compatibility is your top priority and you can't afford rendering bugs, MJML's track record is hard to beat.
Maizzle gives you maximum control and maximum responsibility. You write the HTML, you decide how to handle Outlook, you choose whether to use tables or div-based layouts. Maizzle transforms your Tailwind classes to inline styles and applies email-specific post-processing, but it doesn't protect you from writing markup that won't render in Yahoo Mail. For teams that understand email HTML deeply, this is liberating. For teams that don't, it's a footgun.
Outlook on Windows remains the common enemy of all email frameworks. It uses Microsoft Word's rendering engine, which means no flexbox, no grid, limited border-radius, and a host of other CSS properties that simply don't work. All three frameworks handle Outlook differently, but none of them make it pleasant.
Dark mode handling
Dark mode in email is still a mess in 2026, but it's a mess that affects your users daily. Apple Mail, Outlook (macOS), and Gmail (mobile) all handle dark mode differently.
React Email supports dark mode through its Head component where you can inject @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) styles. It works, but you're mixing CSS-in-JS inline styles with media query classes, which can feel awkward. The component library handles basic color scheme adaptation automatically for its built-in components.
MJML supports dark mode via mj-style blocks with media queries. Since MJML's output already uses CSS classes internally, adding dark mode overrides is straightforward. The mj-attributes system lets you define defaults that work with dark mode adaptations. It's not automatic, but it's well-documented.
Maizzle has the best dark mode story of the three, thanks to Tailwind's dark: variant. You write class="bg-white dark:bg-gray-900" and Maizzle generates the appropriate CSS with media queries. It's the same mental model as Tailwind on the web, and it produces clean, predictable output.
Performance & output
When you're rendering emails server-side (in an API route or background job), template rendering performance matters. And the size of the HTML output matters too — Gmail clips emails over 102 KB, and every kilobyte of bloat increases load time on mobile.
~28 KB
React Email output
Typical welcome email. Inline styles add weight.
~38 KB
MJML output
Table-based layout with MSO conditionals. Most verbose.
~14 KB
Maizzle output
With CSS purging and minification. Smallest footprint.
MJML produces the largest output because its HTML is genuinely defensive: nested tables, conditional comments for Outlook, redundant inline styles. This isn't waste — it's the cost of maximum compatibility. But if you're sending complex emails with lots of sections, you can hit Gmail's clipping threshold faster.
Maizzle's output is the smallest because of aggressive CSS purging and HTML minification built into its build pipeline. Only the Tailwind utilities you actually use end up in the final HTML. For teams sending high volumes where email size affects deliverability metrics, this is a real advantage.
React Email sits in the middle. Its output is clean and readable but uses inline styles on every element (as email HTML requires), which adds bulk. There's no built-in minification step, though you can add one to your build pipeline with html-minifier-terser.
~3 ms
React Email render time
Per template, server-side with react-dom/server. Excludes cold start.
~8 ms
MJML compile time
Per template, Node.js API. Includes XML parsing and HTML generation.
~45 ms
Maizzle build time
Per template. Full Tailwind JIT + PostCSS pipeline.
React Email is fastest at render time because it's just React's server-side rendering — no XML parsing, no CSS compilation. MJML is fast enough for server-side use but noticeably slower due to its XML parsing step. Maizzle is designed as a build-time tool, not a runtime renderer — you pre-compile templates and use the output HTML. Running it per-request isn't the intended pattern.
If you're rendering emails inside a Next.js API route or Server Action, render time matters. React Email's sub-5ms render means you can generate templates on the fly without impacting response times. MJML works but adds measurable latency. Maizzle should be pre-compiled during your CI/CD pipeline, not rendered at request time.
Ecosystem & integrations
A framework doesn't exist in isolation. How it integrates with your stack, your ESP, and your deployment pipeline determines whether it's a good fit.
React Email is deeply integrated with the JavaScript ecosystem. It works natively with Resend (same team), has first-class Next.js support, and plays well with Vercel deployments. You can use it with any ESP that accepts HTML — just call render() to get the HTML string — but the Resend integration is where it shines. Pass your component directly to resend.emails.send() without a separate render step.
MJML is the most language-agnostic option. Official libraries exist for Node.js, and community ports cover Python (mjml-python), PHP (mjml-php), Ruby, and Java. If your backend isn't JavaScript, MJML is likely the only framework here you can use without adding a Node.js dependency. The CLI also makes it trivial to integrate into any CI/CD pipeline regardless of stack.
Maizzle is framework-agnostic by design. It produces static HTML files during a build step, so any backend, any ESP, any sending infrastructure can consume the output. It integrates well with CI/CD pipelines — run maizzle build production in your deploy script and use the generated HTML files however you want. No runtime dependency, no framework lock-in.
Component sharing & reuse
React Email wins here decisively. Your email components are React components — you can compose them, create shared layouts, build a design system with typed props, and publish them as an internal npm package. If your web app already uses React, you can share design tokens, color constants, and even some utility functions between your app and your emails.
MJML supports reusable components through mj-include for partials and custom components via the mjml-core API. It works, but the custom component API is more complex than writing a React component. You're defining rendering functions that generate HTML strings, not composing declarative markup.
Maizzle uses HTML partials and layouts with a template inheritance system. You define a base layout, extend it in your templates, and include shared components as partial files. It's effective but less powerful than React's composition model — no typed props, no conditional rendering logic without resorting to Nunjucks control flow.
- React Email: React/Next.js apps with Resend or Vercel
- MJML: Multi-language backends (Python, PHP, Ruby, Java)
- Maizzle: Teams that want framework-agnostic HTML output
- All three: Any ESP that accepts HTML (SendGrid, SES, Postmark)
- React Email: Can't use outside JavaScript/TypeScript
- MJML: Custom component API has a steep learning curve
- Maizzle: Requires Tailwind knowledge — not for every team
- None of them: Solves the Outlook rendering problem fully
When to pick each framework
This is the section that matters. Here's my opinionated take on when each framework is the right choice, based on shipping emails with all three in production.
Pick React Email if…
- Your app is built with Next.js or React and your team thinks in components and TypeScript
- You're using Resend (or plan to) for sending — the integration is seamless
- You want a local preview server for rapid iteration without leaving your editor workflow
- Type safety for template data is important — you have 10+ templates with different prop shapes
- You want to share design tokens and components between your web app and your email templates
- You need to render templates at runtime in API routes or Server Actions with minimal latency
React Email is the natural choice for React teams in 2026. The DX is excellent, the TypeScript support removes an entire class of bugs, and the Resend integration eliminates the rendering step entirely. Its biggest weakness is that it's JavaScript-only — if your backend is Python or Go, look elsewhere.
Pick MJML if…
- Your backend is not JavaScript — Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, Go with a subprocess call
- Maximum email client compatibility is non-negotiable — you're sending to enterprise inboxes running ancient Outlook versions
- Your marketing team needs to edit templates — MJML's XML syntax is more approachable than JSX for non-developers
- You want the most battle-tested output available — nine years of production use across billions of emails
- You need a VS Code extension with side-by-side preview for the fastest possible iteration cycle
- Your organization has multiple codebases in different languages that all need to send emails with consistent templates
MJML is the safe choice. It's been around the longest, it's the most widely used, and its output is the most thoroughly tested. The trade-off is a less modern developer experience — no component composition, no type safety for template variables, and an XML syntax that feels dated compared to JSX or Tailwind.
Pick Maizzle if…
- Your team already knows Tailwind CSS and wants the same utility-first workflow for emails
- You need maximum control over the HTML output — you understand email HTML and want to write it yourself
- Email file size is critical — you're sending complex templates and need to stay under Gmail's 102 KB clip threshold
- Your workflow is build-time, not runtime — you pre-compile templates in CI/CD and use the static HTML output
- You want framework-agnostic output with no runtime dependencies — just HTML files that any system can consume
- Dark mode support is a priority and you want Tailwind's
dark:variant for email
Maizzle is the power user's choice. It gives you the most control and the smallest output, but demands the most email HTML knowledge. If your team doesn't understand why emails use tables for layout or what MSO conditional comments are, Maizzle will be a frustrating experience.
TL;DR recommendation: If you're building a Next.js or React app, start with React Email. It has the best DX for your stack and the lowest time-to-first-email. If your backend isn't JavaScript, go with MJML for its language support and proven track record. Only pick Maizzle if your team genuinely understands email HTML and wants full control over the output.
Head-to-head summary
Here's the comparison distilled down to the factors that typically drive the decision.
- Developer experience: React Email (TypeScript, components, preview server)
- Client compatibility: MJML (9 years of production battle-testing)
- Output size: Maizzle (Tailwind purging + HTML minification)
- Dark mode: Maizzle (Tailwind dark: variant, cleanest implementation)
- Language support: MJML (Node, Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, CLI)
- Runtime rendering: React Email (~3ms, React SSR — fastest by far)
- Component reuse: React Email (standard React composition patterns)
- React Email: JavaScript-only, can't use from non-JS backends
- MJML: Largest HTML output, dated XML syntax, no type safety for data
- Maizzle: Slowest build, requires deep email HTML knowledge
- React Email: Youngest framework, smallest community component library
- MJML: Custom component API is complex compared to React components
- Maizzle: Smallest community, lowest npm downloads by a wide margin
- All three: Outlook on Windows remains painful regardless of framework
Migration considerations
If you're already using one of these frameworks and considering a switch, here's what to expect.
MJML to React Email is the most common migration path I've seen. The structure maps reasonably well: <mj-section> becomes <Section>, <mj-column> becomes <Column>, <mj-button> becomes <Button>. The hardest part is converting template variables from MJML's string interpolation to typed React props. Plan on half a day per complex template.
Maizzle to React Email requires more work because you're translating raw HTML and Tailwind classes into React components with inline styles. There's no one-to-one mapping for most elements. Budget a full day per complex template.
React Email to MJML or Maizzle is the rarest migration (usually driven by leaving the JavaScript ecosystem entirely). You'll need to convert components back to markup, which means losing type safety and composition patterns.
If you're migrating from a non-framework approach (Handlebars, EJS, raw HTML), check out our guide on migrating from Handlebars to React Email. The patterns apply to migrating from any string-template system.
Final verdict
After using all three frameworks in production, my honest take: the "best" framework depends entirely on your team and your stack. But the decision isn't as hard as it seems if you ask the right questions.
- Is your app built with React/Next.js? React Email. The TypeScript integration alone is worth it.
- Is your backend not JavaScript? MJML. Nothing else comes close for multi-language support.
- Do you need maximum HTML control and your team knows email? Maizzle. It's the closest to writing email HTML directly, with Tailwind making it bearable.
The email framework landscape has matured significantly. All three produce production-quality output. All three have active communities and ongoing development. The days of hand-coding nested tables with inline styles are over — you just need to pick which abstraction level matches your team.
There's no universally "best" email framework — the right choice depends on your stack and your team. But for React/Next.js teams in 2026, React Email is the natural pick: native TypeScript, component composition, sub-millisecond rendering, and first-class Resend integration. If you're not in the React ecosystem, MJML's nine-year track record and multi-language support make it the safe default. Pick Maizzle only when your team genuinely wants full control over the HTML output and has the email expertise to use it well.