Yes, it has both options.<p>Zoho Discussions has 'Follow this Topic' option to receive emails on the discussions you are follow.<p>To post to Zoho Discussions directly from your email, it has Email2Forum option. More details on this are available here.<p><a href="http://help.discussions.zoho.com/forum-settings.html#Email2Forum" rel="nofollow">http://help.discussions.zoho.com/forum-settings.html#Email2F...</a><p><a href="https://forums.zoho.com/topic/explain-email2forum-feature%3F" rel="nofollow">https://forums.zoho.com/topic/explain-email2forum-feature%3F</a><p>Ofcourse, these features can be made available for free for open source projects.