Advantages of SMTP over sendmail()?

[Ben3]

Could someone enlighten me as to what the difference between the both is and which one is better to use and why they think that? thankyou.

[robleyd]

That is like asking which is better, HTTP or Internet Explorer.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a standard for the transmission of email, and sendmail is an application (one of many) that sends mail using the SMTP standards. Just like HTTP is a protocol for web pages, and Internet Explorer is an application (one of many) that uses the HTTP standards to request web pages.

Perhaps what you are really wanting to know is the difference between using mail() and fsockopen() for sending mail from 110mb?

[Alejandro]

The answer to which one is better it depends. As robleyd stated, SMTP is the protocol and sendmail is an application that implements SMTP.

This mostly depends on the programs and/or scripts that you are using.  There are scripts that would use SMTP directly while others would use the UNIX sendmail command to send e-mail.  The best would implement both.

So, if you are trying to decide which one to use, then see what the script recommends (or what is its default value) and go for that one.

If you are writing your own script, the decision of using sendmail or use SMTP directly is a matter of personal choice.  A lot of times there are libraries that will hide the complexities of SMTP so both are equally easy to use.

My personal preference when writing my own scripts is to use SMTP directly (or use a library to do it for me) as these tend to be more portable than using sendmail.  (i.e the same code will work on Linux/UNIX and on Windows).

[meep-online]

I think he means whats the best one to use to send mails from a php application :\

If so, sendmail is simpler, but requires it to be activated.

[aldo]

fsockopen() though can be used by other applications for other reasons I would go activate fsockopen still even if you bought sendmail

[Alejandro]

I would disagre with meep-online when it is mentioned that sendmail is simpler.

Either would have the same level of simplicity.  If your script only supports sendmail, that is the way to go.  If your script does not use sendmail (i.e. fsockopen), then it will use SMTP protocol directly.

On the other hand, if it can do either, it is just a configuration setting so both are equally simple to use.

If it was me, I would use fsockopen, and get a PHP class to handle the work of talking the SMTP protocol.  Which would make it as simple as using sendmail.  (OK, yes, I give up, so sendmail you have it already, while the former you would need to find the PHP class first...)

[meep-online]

Yeah but you have to open a smtp email account if u want to do it via smtp, hence the less simplicity.