PHPlist Reviews and Testimonials

We've been using Phplist for years. The menus could be prettier, but it has lots of features and statistics which are vital for our business. Frequent updates and no security issues are also good benefits.

I would have rated this program higher, but after doing some intense editing and setting up a newsletter, reading the forums made it drop. The moderators are rude! They even go as far as quoting other moderators in stead of asking what the problem is! Maybe the member doesn't understand. I would recommend this to a friend, but would tell them not to NOT read the forums. It is a bit complicating to set up, but if you read the documentation, sometimes twice you don't need the forums.

Installation is the least of your worries. My complaint with this thing is that the user interface is very confusing. There are multiple ways to get into multiple areas, so at certain points you get lost. We only send a newsletter 2-3 times a year, so whenever we need to send a newsletter, I find myself having to relearn everything. But over the course of using it a couple of years, I'm getting closer to figuring it out. Also, this may be a problem only on my end, but the user import AND export was quirky. When I try to import, I follow the schema to the T, but it just loops back to the menu with no explanation of what it did, didn't do, or didn't like. On the export, and this may be something I'm not familiar with, it saves the export as a CSV. Yet when I try to load that into Excel, it says it's a CSYK file and it's invalid. I have to change the filename to .txt, then kind of force it into Excel. Every other CSV file I've EVER used opened right up into Excel. I should also mention that the WYSIWYG edit at least when using it for HTML is actually quite powerful. But leaves unbelievably messy HTML. I sometimes either hand code my own newsletter or use the built-in editor and then edit the source outside of PHPList and paste it back in. But I should say that once you figure out all it's little nuances, and get things the way you want, it DOES work really well. And it sure beats the heck out of paying someone like Constant Contact. With 3000 e-mails, it would cost me $600+ a year to mail out out my 3 or 4 newsletters.

I was really excited to find such a nice script for multiple mailing lists... until I found out about the blacklist feature. If someone is signed up for multiple lists, and unsubscribes from one, they are unsubscribed from all of them. This isn't very handy if you are handling dozens of clients. If you only have one mailing list, go for it. If you have several that share the same receive base, steer clear! I must say that they have made promises to remove or make 'blacklisting' optional.

One of the best pieces of open source software I've ever used... They continually release upgrades and updates so the chances are if it doesn't have a feature you want today it will have it tomorrow... Well done

by the power that PHPlist seems to have. Usually when you have a powerful script that will do everything for you, it is usually a bear to install and get running. Well... this is not true with PHPlist, I had a very uneventful time installing, and within and hour I was sending out mail! The public pages are template driven so blending into your site is a snap, everything is done through a web admin, and the features that PHPlist offers is just amazing for ANY free program. Two thumbs up!