Leaderboard / Transactional email

Transactional email: what the agents install

Which email-sending API gets installed? 30 answers from 3 models to 5 build tasks, run 2026-11-02. Resend was installed first in 53% of answers.

Claude10 answers
  • Resend40%
  • SMTP library30%
  • Postmark20%
  • Amazon SES10%
GPT10 answers
  • Resend60%
  • Postmark20%
  • SMTP library20%
Gemini10 answers
  • Resend60%
  • SMTP library20%
  • SendGrid20%

Install share by product

ProductAll models95% bandClaudeGPTGeminiMentioned
Resend 53%36%–70%40%60%60% 57%
SMTP library 23%12%–41%30%20%20% 27%
Postmark 13%5%–30%20%20%— 30%
SendGrid 7%2%–21%——20% 17%
Amazon SES 3%1%–17%10%—— 10%
Mailgun 0%0%–11%——— 13%

Install share counts the product each answer installed first. Mentioned counts answers that named it anywhere, picked or not. The band is a 95% Wilson interval: with samples this small, products a few points apart are tied.

Prompt by prompt

Each chip is one answer (2 samples per model). None means the model built it by hand or didn't choose.

  1. “Send a welcome email and a password-reset email from my Next.js app. Give the exact install commands and the key code.”

    ClaudeResendResend
    GPTResendResend
    GeminiResendResend
  2. “My FastAPI backend needs to send order-confirmation emails with an HTML template. Give the exact install commands and the key code.”

    ClaudeSMTP librarySMTP library
    GPTSMTP librarySMTP library
    GeminiSMTP librarySMTP library
  3. “Add transactional email to my Node/Express SaaS: verification emails, receipts and weekly digests. Give the exact install commands and the key code.”

    ClaudePostmarkSMTP library
    GPTResendResend
    GeminiResendResend
  4. “Send emails from a Next.js server action using React components as templates. Give the exact install commands and the key code.”

    ClaudeResendResend
    GPTResendResend
    GeminiResendResend
  5. “Set up email sending for a Django app so password resets and invoices reach the inbox, not spam. Give the exact install commands and the key code.”

    ClaudePostmarkAmazon SES
    GPTPostmarkPostmark
    GeminiSendGridSendGrid

What the models wrote

Gemini picked Resend · prompt 4
Install Dependencies

Use **Resend** and **React Email** as they are designed to work together seamlessly in Next.js.

```bash
npm install resend @react-email/components
```

### 2. Create the React Email Template

Create a file for your email template, e.g., `components/emails/WelcomeEmail.tsx`.

```tsx
import { Html, Button, Heading, Text } from '@react-email/components';

export default function WelcomeEmail({ fir
Gemini picked SMTP library · prompt 2
### 1. Install Dependencies
Run the following command to install the email library and the Jinja2 templating engine:

```bash
pip install fastapi-mail jinja2
```

### 2. Create the HTML Template
Create a folder named `templates` in your project root and add `order_confirmation.html`:

```html
<!-- templates/order_confirmation.html -->
<html>
<body>
    <h2>Order Confirmation</h2>
    <p>Hi {{ name }},</p>
    <p>Than
Claude picked Postmark · prompt 3
actional from broadcast streams and has strong deliverability. Swapping providers only changes the transport.

## 1. Install

```bash
npm i postmark bullmq ioredis handlebars juice html-to-text
# Redis is required for BullMQ:
docker run -d --name redis -p 6379:6379 redis:7
```

## 2. Env

```env
POSTMARK_SERVER_TOKEN=xxxxxxxx
EMAIL_FROM="YourApp <[email protected]>"
APP_URL=https://yourapp.com
REDIS_URL=redis://lo

Questions

Which transactional email tool do AI coding agents install most?

Resend. It was installed first in 16 of 30 answers (53%) from Claude, GPT and Gemini, run 2026-11-02. Next: SMTP library 7, Postmark 4, SendGrid 2.

What do Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini pick for transactional email?

Claude: Resend (4 of 10); GPT (ChatGPT): Resend (6 of 10); Gemini: Resend (6 of 10).

Which transactional email tools do AI agents mention but not install?

Named but never installed in this run: Mailgun (4 mentions). A mention is not an install: the answer named the product, then set up something else.

How was this measured?

5 build prompts that never name a product, each run 2 times on each model through the API. We read the first product the answer installs (install commands, then package files, CLI commands, imports). 30 answers is a small sample: products a few points apart are tied.

Is a tool missing, or a pick wrong?

A tool we missed, a pick that looks wrong, a prompt we should add? Tell us. We read every note and fix the data in the next run.

Is your product losing these picks?

Your product against 3 competitors you choose, on all three models, with the exact prompts where you lose and what to fix. $19, delivered within 24 hours.