January 2015 Summaries

We're doubling down on Elasticsearch as Postmark has grown and hit limits with its architecture. The company's system, known as the platypus architecture, had some extra parts that weren't needed but still worked. Postmark initially used MongoDB for data storage and Elasticsearch for search functionality, but issues arose when trying to keep the two in sync. After a fresh look at their architecture, they decided to use solely Elasticsearch as their database for messages. This move reduced operational complexity, increased confidence and experience with Elasticsearch, and provided great support for their data model. The switch also improved performance for customers, with better response times for API calls and loading times on their activity page.

We've recently redesigned our server onboarding experience, making it easier for customers to integrate Postmark with their servers. The updated process now enables SMTP by default and provides Plain SMTP information for new users. We've also introduced three-step inbound setup instructions and ready-to-use code snippets for sending emails via SMTP. Additionally, we've added in-app chat support for our support team, allowing customers to get help when they need it. Our goal is to continue improving Postmark based on customer feedback, so feel free to share your thoughts on how we can make the service better.

Postmark-PHP is an official PHP Client for the Postmark API, offering complete coverage of the API, easy installation via Composer, comprehensive documentation with extensive examples, support for multiple PHP runtimes, and test coverage. It is open source, allowing users to browse the source code and contribute enhancements. The library aims to make using Postmark easier by providing a strong foundation for creating adapters for popular frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony2Swiftmailer, and ZendMail, which can be contributed to by the community.

Postmark has released several new features to make its service more user-friendly, including full support for emoji characters in messages and improved internationalization support. The company added a new field to the Inbound webhook payload to help distinguish between multiple recipients on the same message, allowing users to identify which address each webhook call is for. Additionally, Postmark has made several fixes for internationalization support, improving its handling of character sets such as KOI8-R and ISO-8859-1, with these improvements applying to both Inbound and Outbound SMTP services.