I built an SMTP server that doesn't work and it's awesome!

Ok, a little clickbaity but you're here, aren't you?

I have an app that I built for a customer and it has this function that sends out legal documents to his customers. Everytime I work on it, I'm terrified that something I do in development might send document emails to real users.

I have database scripts that obfuscate the email addresses, and code in the 'send' function that only works for certain domains, but still, those emails get delivered and it's always something I think about.

That's where SMTPMonster comes in. It's a real SMTP server, it's just not wired normally. Everything sent to it gets bundled up in a completely new email and sent right back to me. That way I can see what goes out and what it looks like in a real email client.

It's not intended for high-volume marketing emails, where you send 100,000 similar looking messages to your email list. It's meant for transactional emails where you send a message when something happens in your app, or when we reach a certain date.

I looked for similar services, but each and every one of them required more setup than I was interested in and required that I login to their portal to see if anything went out. It's a break from my workflow that I didn't want to deal with.

Thanks for reading, have a look at SMTPMonster.com and please let me know if this problem resonates with you!