I’ve recently been trying to degoogle myself, and in doing so I’m going to need another email.
I tried ProtonMail, but apparently only business accounts can use SMTP, even though their features claim SMTP access.
I’m plenty fine paying for the service, but going from the $6/month to $12/month just to get notification emails from my server doesn’t seem worth it to me.
I’ve not looked into what all else comes with Proton’s Business features, but i’m not really running a business or trying to start one up.
What do you use? do you like it? How’s the cost/features?
If you buy any domain from OVH, you can enable a single 5gb email account and 10mb webspace for free on it. The latter is maybe useful for some fail-over, but the email is definitely very cool for sending out notifications and such.
I host an SMTP relay on a cheap IONOS VM. Had to ask support to open port 25 but that seems standard now. At home I have Mailcow running and configured to use my SMTP relay. Firewall on the IONOS VM prevents all connections except those from my home IP range.
Yeah the one thing I found with them (purelymail) is you really have to keep an eye on the billing usage, there will be a point where advanced pricing is better for you but if you dip below that you need to swap back to the basic pricing
I’m on advanced billing and based on my usage patterns, it shouldn’t cost me more than $6-7/year. My main concern is it’s a one man operation. The FAQ talks about it but I don’t think anything has been put in place if the worst comes to pass.
Double edged sword that one, he seems really invested in what he created so it’ll probably be OK. Then again, sometimes the bus driver doesn’t see the red light
Can you selfhost? Does you ISP allow you to host a mail server? (and there is a difference between what they say, and what they actually do.)
I use iRedMail as a complete solution which is a mailserver, complete with server management and webclients sogo and icube.
The problem you may run into is if your ISP actively submits its customer email subnets to sites like Spamhaus. But if you dont get IP changes very often this might not be a problem.
However you do also need to have a domain in your control and know how to do DKIM and SPF
I run a VPS through InterServer, pay about 20 USD per month but that’s for 4 cores and 8 GB RAM which of course is overkill for mail, but I use it for a lot more. Like Lemmy.
You can absolutely do it with 1 Core 2 GB and that’s more like 5 USD per month.
I use iRedMail which is open source and they have good documentation. But fair warning that it’s quite a bit of work self hosting mail and getting your mail to not end up in peoples spam folder. Still very much worth it though.
$10/year gets you what you need from Purelymail. https://purelymail.com I have used them for the last year or so and the service is fast and near real time with messages hitting my inbox (I use Thunderbird to download my mail).
I also just recently switched to https://purelymail.com after hosting my own for several years via Mailcow and a cheap VPS. The cheap VPS was more expensive than the $10/year for Purelymail and I was only using it for mail anyway. Nothing to maintain now and so far very happy with how easy it was to move everything over.
Also, they don’t charge extra for additional domains so if you have multiple it’s still $10. Only been with them a few weeks so can’t say much yet for long term, but great so far!
I go a couple different routes: I have a Mailcow instance on a VPS for my personal email. For my business I use Zoho, which has been wonderful. Their basic plan is $1 a month per user and it should have all the features you’re looking for.
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If you buy any domain from OVH, you can enable a single 5gb email account and 10mb webspace for free on it. The latter is maybe useful for some fail-over, but the email is definitely very cool for sending out notifications and such.
I host an SMTP relay on a cheap IONOS VM. Had to ask support to open port 25 but that seems standard now. At home I have Mailcow running and configured to use my SMTP relay. Firewall on the IONOS VM prevents all connections except those from my home IP range.
Fastmail.
But, it’s not the cheapest. $5 a month gets what you need though.
Really quick WebUI, great features, including hosting your own domains and smtp rewriting.
Very smart helpful support team.
Great for degoogling.
Self host postfix with quite a bit of spam fighting measures. Get way way less spam than I did on Gmail
I used to have a zoho email, they let you do custom domains for one email for free. And smtp.
At least they used to.
I stopped using it, cause the app just didn’t vibe with me. I now have Microsoft cause my business has grown to the point I get value from it.
But a free custom domain email was nice when starting out :)
I was using smtp2go, I’m now testing purelymail for my personal email needs. I don’t think the latter is suited for sending a large number of emails.
Yeah the one thing I found with them (purelymail) is you really have to keep an eye on the billing usage, there will be a point where advanced pricing is better for you but if you dip below that you need to swap back to the basic pricing
I’m on advanced billing and based on my usage patterns, it shouldn’t cost me more than $6-7/year. My main concern is it’s a one man operation. The FAQ talks about it but I don’t think anything has been put in place if the worst comes to pass.
Double edged sword that one, he seems really invested in what he created so it’ll probably be OK. Then again, sometimes the bus driver doesn’t see the red light
My domain registrar (Netim) comes with free email so I use that. They’re kind of expensive though.
Back when I had more time I set up mailinabox, before that I’d set up postfix and Cyrus.
Somewhere along the line the sasl and spam management became obnoxious, but I have to make a new solution soon and retire those cloud vms.
It works well for me, but managed usually makes more sense, consider Google apps for your purposes.
Can you selfhost? Does you ISP allow you to host a mail server? (and there is a difference between what they say, and what they actually do.)
I use iRedMail as a complete solution which is a mailserver, complete with server management and webclients sogo and icube.
The problem you may run into is if your ISP actively submits its customer email subnets to sites like Spamhaus. But if you dont get IP changes very often this might not be a problem. However you do also need to have a domain in your control and know how to do DKIM and SPF
I have a VM at OVH that’s a couple years old by now. I pay only a couple € for it each month. On that I run Mailcow and it works just fine.
I use Mail in a Box running on a digital Ocean instance for like 12 USD a month.
Second mail in a box. Works well and has done for over 6 years.
I run a VPS through InterServer, pay about 20 USD per month but that’s for 4 cores and 8 GB RAM which of course is overkill for mail, but I use it for a lot more. Like Lemmy.
You can absolutely do it with 1 Core 2 GB and that’s more like 5 USD per month.
I use iRedMail which is open source and they have good documentation. But fair warning that it’s quite a bit of work self hosting mail and getting your mail to not end up in peoples spam folder. Still very much worth it though.
I like sendgrid. They have a free smtp service that works great.
$10/year gets you what you need from Purelymail. https://purelymail.com I have used them for the last year or so and the service is fast and near real time with messages hitting my inbox (I use Thunderbird to download my mail).
I’ve been using them for a few years now. Always good and reliable. My wife and I both have accounts on a custom domain from them.
I also just recently switched to https://purelymail.com after hosting my own for several years via Mailcow and a cheap VPS. The cheap VPS was more expensive than the $10/year for Purelymail and I was only using it for mail anyway. Nothing to maintain now and so far very happy with how easy it was to move everything over.
Also, they don’t charge extra for additional domains so if you have multiple it’s still $10. Only been with them a few weeks so can’t say much yet for long term, but great so far!
I go a couple different routes: I have a Mailcow instance on a VPS for my personal email. For my business I use Zoho, which has been wonderful. Their basic plan is $1 a month per user and it should have all the features you’re looking for.