My thunderbird/icedove is often broken nowadays by someone. So I'm reading the manuals of alpine or mutt. What's your opinion?

I like Mutt. The more I use it, the more I like it.

There's a great Mutt tutorial on the Gentoo website. It was the single biggest help to me in getting Mutt to work for me. http://docs.huihoo.com/gentoo/resour...e-to-mutt.html

I did a podcast about Mutt earlier this year; you might find it helpful.

For a GUI mail client, I'm currently using Seamonkey because of the integration between the mail client and the browser, but I really like Claws/Sylpheed.

I usually use Mutt, but also have Claws-Mail installed for the rare occasions when I need a GUI mail program.

Mutt FTW!

what about alpine?

It's not Mutt.

No. I am sorry.

But people who used Pine in their early Internet-years will tell you the same about their mailer as we do about mutt. The “philosophy” (whatever that is) appears to be different, the handling of the editors is very different in a way, that you have to accustom to each one. This takes time and rare are the people who took the trouble to thoroughly stress both programs in a way that allows comparable results.

You can base your decisions on what's written on the Internet, but in a forum like this, you only find people who use one or the other, I bet. What shall we do with that? Count users?

On the desktop I use Thunderbird on all PCs; Linux or Windows. Native Mail on iOS Phone and Pad. Have not had any problems [knock wood].

At the command line, mail/mailx, but seldom read mail that way; mostly used to send. Complex sending done with perl.

+1 for Thunderbird.
Mutt wins.