Resend vs Postmark: Modern DX vs Proven Deliverability

Overview

Resend and Postmark represent two different approaches to transactional email. Resend prioritizes developer experience with React Email and modern API design. Postmark prioritizes deliverability with 15+ years of track record.

Key Differences

Developer Experience

Resend was built by developers for developers. Zeno Rocha (Dracula Theme, former GitHub, Liferay) created Resend with a focus on making email as pleasant as Stripe made payments. React Email lets you build templates in JSX with TypeScript support and IDE previews.

Postmark has a good API and solid documentation, but the developer experience is more traditional. Templates use their own syntax, not JSX.

Deliverability Track Record

Postmark has 15+ years focused on deliverability. They publish delivery stats publicly and consistently achieve sub-10-second delivery times. Stream separation isolates transactional from broadcast messages.

Resend is newer but has invested heavily in infrastructure. Early reports are positive, and deliverability is very good, but the track record is shorter.

Templating

Resend with React Email lets you write email templates in JSX. Components, TypeScript, and IDE tooling all work. This is a significant advantage for React developers.

Postmark provides prebuilt templates and a web-based editor. Functional but separate from your codebase.

Code Comparison

Resend with React Email

import { Resend } from 'resend';
import { PasswordResetEmail } from '@/emails/password-reset';

const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY);

await resend.emails.send({
  from: 'noreply@example.com',
  to: 'user@example.com',
  subject: 'Reset your password',
  react: PasswordResetEmail({ resetLink: 'https://...' })
});

Postmark

const postmark = require('postmark');
const client = new postmark.ServerClient(process.env.POSTMARK_API_TOKEN);

await client.sendEmailWithTemplate({
  From: 'noreply@example.com',
  To: 'user@example.com',
  TemplateAlias: 'password-reset',
  TemplateModel: { resetLink: 'https://...' }
});

When to Choose Resend

• React Email and JSX templates are valuable
• The free tier fits your development needs
• Modern API design is a priority
• You are building something new and want modern tooling

When to Choose Postmark

• Deliverability track record matters most
• You need stream separation for transactional
• You send high volume and want proven infrastructure
• Mission-critical emails like auth codes and payments

Alternative: Sequenzy

If you need marketing automation alongside transactional email, consider Sequenzy. It provides unified transactional + marketing with native billing integrations for Stripe, Polar, Creem, and Dodo.

The Bottom Line

Choose Resend for the best developer experience and React Email support. Choose Postmark for the longest deliverability track record and stream separation.