Hedwig

Hedwig is an open-source campaign manager for B2B email outreach. It sends sequences through mailboxes a team already owns instead of routing messages through a shared delivery service. A campaign can start with an imported list, continue through a series of follow-ups, and stop as soon as a recipient replies. The product is aimed at small businesses and operators who already use cold email and want a free, self-hostable alternative to subscription platforms. A hosted version is also available for people who don't want to run the application on their own server.

Campaigns can contain up to 12 steps and draw leads from CSV or Excel files, as well as research prepared through a connected coding agent. The sender chooses a delivery window, daily limits, mailbox assignments, and a timezone. Hedwig spreads messages across working hours and supports ramping up new mailboxes week by week. Every outgoing message leaves through the mailbox's own SMTP server or through Microsoft 365, so Hedwig does not provide a shared relay. Teams can connect multiple mailboxes, distribute sending between them, and use familiar sequence variables for details such as a contact's first name.

Reply handling is built into the same workflow. Hedwig checks connected inboxes every two minutes, removes a responding lead from the active sequence, and labels the response with categories such as interested, meeting, question, or not interested. Its reply agent can prepare a draft, but it does not send that draft automatically. A person remains responsible for reviewing and sending the answer. Campaign and mailbox statistics help users inspect performance, while lead tools cover enrollment, correction, requeueing, enrichment, and removal. That combination ties delivery, responses, and follow-up work together without hiding which mailbox actually handled a conversation.

An MCP server lets Claude Code or Codex control and analyze the workspace from a terminal. Once connected, an agent can create and edit campaigns, preview or test a send, work with leads, inspect sourced research tables, read inbox threads, label replies, create drafts, and report on campaign statistics. It can also work with mailbox limits, timezones, ramp-up settings, DNS checks, workspace members, and reply agents. Starting a campaign and sending a reply are separate permissions. Mailbox passwords do not pass through the agent, which is an important boundary for teams that want assistance with research and drafting while keeping sensitive credentials out of the model context.

Hedwig fits operators who want more control over infrastructure and cost than a conventional outreach subscription provides. It can support follow-up after an event, a measured campaign to a researched list, or outreach spread across several company mailboxes. It is not a source of leads by itself, and users remain responsible for the list, the message, legal compliance, consent requirements, mailbox reputation, and responsible sending volume. Its deliberate pacing can reduce the temptation to blast a list all at once, but it doesn't guarantee deliverability. Teams still need valid DNS settings, suitable mailboxes, careful copy, and a reason to contact each recipient.

The interface and agent controls cover the full campaign loop rather than only message generation. Users can create, clone, pause, preview, and test campaigns, then compare statistics across steps and mailboxes. Research tables keep a source attached to each gathered fact, which helps a reviewer check agent-prepared lead material before it becomes outreach copy. Workspace invitations and member controls support handing inbox work to another person, while reply drafts wait for review. This is useful for a small team that wants automation around repetitive work but doesn't want a model to operate with unlimited sending authority.

The code is published under the MIT license, and self-hosting uses Docker. A local operator sets the application origin, master key, and first user, starts the Docker Compose stack, then connects mailboxes and creates campaigns in the interface. Any mailbox with IMAP and SMTP can work, and passwords or tokens are encrypted before storage. Microsoft 365 uses Microsoft's own sign-in flow. The maker describes both the hosted service and the complete source as free, so the listing treats Hedwig as open source rather than a paid SaaS. It is a young project with a small repository and limited community history, which makes testing and operational review especially important before relying on it for production outreach.