Comparison

Zirbe vs Reply Mail

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Zirbe

This email client reimagines your inbox as a familiar chat interface, organizing threads by subject and messages as bubbles. It offers full email functionality, including attachments, drafts, and organization, while prioritizing privacy and offline access. The app connects directly to your IMAP/SMTP servers without any Zirbe servers.

Highlights
  • Chat-style email interface
  • Organized threads by subject
  • Offline access and instant inbox
  • Attachment support (photos, files, voice)
  • Full email client functionality
  • Privacy-focused, no Zirbe servers
  • Open-source code
Features
Read full description

Zirbe is an email app that looks and feels like a texting app while keeping real email underneath. A conversation in Zirbe is a mail thread, not a person: the subject is the title, the people on it are the members, and every message is a bubble in time order. The same person writing you about five different things becomes five conversations, which is how email actually works. Starting a new conversation means naming it, and that name is the subject. Underneath the chat is a full email client. Read and reply with bubbles, attach photos, files, or a recorded voice message, and open what you receive in a full preview to save or share it. Reach every folder, not just the inbox: archive, move, and organize, save and resume drafts, and send blind copies that stay blind. React to a message with a tapback that rides your own mail as a real reply, so another Zirbe user sees the badge and every other mail app sees a readable line. Search within a conversation, pin the threads that matter to the top, and block a sender to sweep their mail to Junk and keep it there. New mail arrives with a local notification and a badge, and a reply that fails to send waits as a tap-to-retry bubble instead of vanishing. Sender photos come from your own contacts, and typing a recipient suggests people from your address book. A meeting invitation shows up as a meeting: a card with the time, the title, who's organizing, and where, with a Join button when there's a Teams, Meet, Zoom, or Webex link, and Add to Calendar puts it in your calendar with Apple's own event editor. The invitation, its updates, a cancellation, and everyone's replies land in one conversation. Zirbe is private by construction, not by promise. It connects only to your own IMAP and SMTP servers over an encrypted connection. There is no Zirbe server, no account to create with us, no analytics, no telemetry, and no third-party SDK. Your mail is cached on your device so the inbox opens instantly and works offline; your password lives in the device Keychain and is never synced off the device. Remote images in HTML mail are blocked until you choose to load them, so opening a message never phones home. Because the whole app is open source, every one of these claims is something you can check for yourself. Zirbe works with any email provider that supports standard IMAP and SMTP with an app-specific password. Sign in with your address and an app password, and if your provider is a common one the server settings fill in for you. Zirbe is free and MIT-licensed. It is an independent app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. iMessage and Messages are trademarks of Apple Inc.

About

Reply Mail

Manage email from your own domain with an AI assistant to help draft and triage messages. Connect your domain for sending and receiving, or use send-only mode with your existing provider. Features a smart inbox with rules, templates, and snooze options.

Highlights
  • Custom domain email
  • AI email assistant
  • Send-only mode
  • Shared team workspaces
  • Smart inbox features
  • Undo Send
Features
Read full description

reply.cv is email on your own domain — with an AI assistant that helps you triage and reply. Connect a domain you own and get real mailboxes you can send and receive from. Prefer to keep your current provider? Run reply.cv in send-only mode and keep Google (or anyone) for incoming mail. Everything lives in a fast, focused inbox built for getting through email. FEATURES • Your own domain — send and receive from you@yourcompany.com • Send-only mode — keep your current provider for incoming mail, send from reply.cv • AI assist — draft, improve, shorten, and change the tone of a reply • Shared team workspaces — invite teammates, assign roles, share inboxes • Smart inbox — rules and filters, snooze, templates, and block sender • Undo Send, swipe actions, and push notifications • Forwarders — route any address to the inbox you want Your mail stays yours. We don't sell your data or use your email to serve ads, and you can delete your account any time from Settings. Privacy Policy: https://reply.cv/privacy Terms of Use: https://reply.cv/terms

Screenshots

Zirbe4 screens
Reply Mail4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Reply Mail at every 8 days against Zirbe's every 6 weeks. Reply Mail also leads on iOS requirement (16.4 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Zirbe against 5.0 for Reply Mail. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Zirbe ships an update every 6 weeks, Reply Mail every 8 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Zirbe versus Reply Mail: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterZirbeReply Mail
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 8 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS26.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size17 MB46 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperExcelano LLCBad Idea, LLC

Customer experience

Zirbe

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Reply Mail

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Zirbe

No in-app purchases

None

Reply Mail

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Zirbe free?
Zirbe is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Reply Mail free?
Reply Mail is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Zirbe or Reply Mail?
Zirbe and Reply Mail are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Zirbe or Reply Mail have ads?
Neither Zirbe nor Reply Mail shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Zirbe or Reply Mail?
Zirbe ships an update every 6 weeks, and Reply Mail every 8 days. Most recently, Zirbe was updated on October 31, 2026 and Reply Mail on October 31, 2026.

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