Chaskiq

A Rails engine to send newsletters.

The Chasquis (also Chaskiq (Quechua word)) were agile and highly trained runners that delivered messages royal delicacies such as fish and other objects throughout the Inca Empire, principally in the service of the Sapa Inca.

Motivation.

I really don't like the idea of paying ~50USD/mo to send a simple newsletter, I find that commercial alternatives are really awesome, but those solutions have nothing that the OS community can't achieve.

How it works.

Chaskiq works with Amazon SES to send mails and Amazon SNS service to get the bounces & complaints. The SNS integration is optional but recommended in order to get those features.

Features:

  • Email template editor out of the box.
  • Mustache tags enables use of variables in templates.
  • Reusable templates.
  • Reusable email lists.
  • Tracks opens and clicks.
  • Tracks bounces and complaints (via AWS SNS).
  • Displays reports on:
    • % of deliveries.
    • clicks, opens, bounces, complaints.
    • Detail list of who opens, clicks, bounces & complains.

How to install:

Use chaskiq as a gem in a rails project.

  • gem 'chaskiq' in your Gemfile and execute bundle install
  • rails generate chaskiq:install will add an initializer, route & migrations

  • rake db:migrate

  • config/initializers/active_job.rb ActiveJob::Base.queue_adapter = :sidekiq

Secure system:

You can use any authentication system, just configure the Chaskiq authentication method for controllers.

Assuming you are using Devise, to protect the admin paths you will use the Devise authenticate_*! method for controllers as is.

In config/initializers/chaskiq.rb:

Chaskiq::Config.setup do |config|
  config.authentication_method = :authenticate_user!
end

Read about Heroku, VPS installs, Amazon integration and more on the wiki https://github.com/michelson/chaskiq/wiki

TODO:

  • [ ] API support.
  • [ ] more insightful reporting
  • [ ] scheduled deliveries via (sidetiq or whenever).
  • [ ] send to many lists in one campaign and send to list segments (like mailchimp).

Miguel Michelson Martinez. released under MIT.