Need help with your APIs? I offer API discovery, governance & evangelism services. Explore services →
API Evangelist API Evangelist
Discovery
Learnings
Guidance
Toolbox
Alignment
API Evangelist LLC
Apache James website screenshot

Apache James

Apache James (Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server) is a portable and enterprise-ready mail server built entirely in Java. It implements SMTP, IMAP, POP3, and JMAP protocols and provides a modular architecture with a comprehensive administration REST API and Cassandra-backed distributed deployment.

agent ready

Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles Apache James the way a machine reads it — 63 machine-readable artifacts across 9 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Apache James scores 59.0/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 48/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 59.0/100 · developing
Contract Quality 16.5 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 6.5 / 20
Commercial Clarity 10.0 / 20
Operational Transparency 6.8 / 13
Governance 10.4 / 12
Discoverability 8.8 / 10
Agent readiness — 48/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile Apache James

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Apache James. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 9

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Apache James JMAP API

The JMAP (JSON Meta Application Protocol) implementation in James provides a modern, efficient email protocol for synchronizing messages, mailboxes, contacts, and calendars for ...

Apache James Domains API

Email domain management

Apache James HealthCheck API

System health monitoring

Apache James Mailboxes API

Mailbox management

Apache James MailQueues API

Mail queue management

Apache James MailRepositories API

Mail repository management

Apache James Quotas API

Storage and message quota management

Apache James Tasks API

Asynchronous task management

Apache James Users API

User account management

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Pricing Plans 1

Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Apache James Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Features 8

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

SMTP Server

Full SMTP server implementation with TLS, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC support.

IMAP Server

IMAP4 server with full RFC compliance for email client access.

JMAP Support

Modern JMAP protocol implementation for efficient email synchronization.

WebAdmin REST API

HTTP REST API for complete server administration without downtime.

Distributed Architecture

Cassandra-backed distributed deployment for high availability.

Modular Design

Pluggable architecture supporting custom protocols, storage, and authentication.

Mail Queuing

Persistent mail queuing with configurable retry strategies.

Quota Management

Per-user, per-domain, and global mailbox and message quota enforcement.

Scroll within the panel for all 8 ·

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Apache James Webadmin Rest Api Context

9 classes · 19 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

Apache James API Rules

5 rules · 3 warnings

SPECTRAL

Apache James API Rules

23 rules · 9 errors · 9 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 9

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

ComponentCheck

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

DomainRequest

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

HealthCheckResult

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

MailRepository

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Mailbox

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Quota

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Task

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

UserRequest

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

User

1 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

JSON Structure 9

JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Webadmin Rest Api Domain Request Structure

1 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Webadmin Rest Api Mailbox Structure

2 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Webadmin Rest Api Quota Structure

2 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Webadmin Rest Api Task Structure

6 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Webadmin Rest Api User Request Structure

2 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Webadmin Rest Api User Structure

1 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Examples 9

Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Apache James Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Apache James Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Apache James Vulnerability Disclosure

security.txt · contact published

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Apache James Agentic Access

16 operations · 6 acting

16 operations · 6 acting

AGENTIC

Use Cases 4

What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.

What developers build with this provider.

Enterprise Mail Server

Deploy a full-featured enterprise mail server with SMTP, IMAP, and JMAP.

Mail Server Migration

Migrate from other mail servers with full protocol compatibility.

Automated Email Processing

Build automated email pipelines using James mailet and matcher APIs.

High-Availability Mail

Deploy distributed James clusters with Cassandra and RabbitMQ for HA.

Integrations 5

Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.

Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.

Apache Cassandra

Distributed mail storage backend for high availability deployments.

Apache Kafka

Event bus integration for distributed James deployments.

RabbitMQ

AMQP message queue for inter-node communication.

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Full-text mail search indexing via Elasticsearch integration.

OpenLDAP

LDAP authentication and directory integration for user management.

Resources

Every other property we hold for Apache James — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 3

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Company 1

The organization behind the API

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/apache-james · machine-readable index on apis.io