after looking into selfhosting email it seems to me that it’s probably better if I use an existing email hoster like Namecheap or Porkbun.
Now I saw that Porkbun doesn’t offer catchall emails so I can’t use it for my usecase.
Do you guys have any recommendations for a reasonably priced email hoster for a custom domain that offers all basic features like catchall? The purpose is for one domain I use for my personal stuff and one for a small side hustle/ small business.
I already posted that I recommend fastmail elsewhere in this thread, but you raised so many good points that it reminded me of some extra points :)
Fastmail offers granular, per-app passwords – I have a single password which has read-only access to IMAP in order to back up all the data on a timer. This feature is missing from many (many) other email providers - using the 80/20 rule, if they even offer it it’s a single password with full access (Mailfence, for example)
Since this community is about selfhosting I think it’s worth pointing out that this is AMAZING for selfhosting. I have all me selfhosted services sending e-mail via fastmail’s SMTP. With per-app passwords I don’t need to store my normal e-mail password and the apps can be limited to SMTP only (so no read access). And in case of compromise you can revoke permissions on a per-app granularity.
Fastmail offers full CardDAV (contacts) and CalDAV (calendar) access, which makes plugging it into any other app that supports this very easy - their DNS wizard helps you set up the service records. I use “DavX5” on my Android to sync all Contacts and Calendar outside of using the Fastmail app (which is a self contained app on Android, it’s not too bad)
Fastmail has become my contacts app now - it’s really great to have all your e-mail and contacts in the same place. The contacts don’t even need to have an e-mail address - I have a lot of contacts stored for whom I only have a phone number. I sync to android using the same DavX5 app and then immediately have these contacts in whatsapp and signal.
I can highly recommend purelymail.com. They allow multiple domains, users and catch all accounts. They are great value, with a flat rate $10 per year ‘simple’ price, or you can pay per resource which for most people works out cheaper.
Been with them for over a year and been really good. Had a slight issue setting up one domain and their support were friendly, emailed back and sorted it out straight away for me.
I recommend fastmail.com though they do have done shortcomings that you need to consider such as the fact that they’re based in Australia (five eyes country) and have servers in the USA. Their advantage is a slick interface, fantastic app based on JMAP, and just generally being super convenient. They allow catch all addresses, masked emails, custom domain etc. I find them super convenient.
Another upvote or seven for fastmail.com - I spent a little too much time spinning my personal domain hosting through Fastmail, Tutanota, Proton, mailbox.org… and then came back full circle to Fastmail.
Their shortcomings, if you’re concerned about privacy, are listed right above^^^ but I don’t think you can find a better email hosting provider for the pricing.
I’ve been very happy with mxroute for quite a few years now. They have a summer deal going on for $40 a year for unlimited domains and accounts, you’re only limited by storage (100GB) and outgoing emails per hour.
t would be helpful to know what you consider basic features you want the host to support, but catchall works.
I’ve been using Tutanota. They are kind of similar in principles to Protonmail, but until recently were dirt cheap at €12/yr (now €36/yr). The only “drawback” is that you can only access your mail through their app, this is a feature, not a bug, according to Tutao.
I have a couple domains that are very low volume for outgoing mail. I use Migadu. I’m happy with their cheapest tier ($19/year for both domains). They have catch-alls and many other nice features.
Edit: They have no hard limits on the number of addresses, users, or domains and such. They just want you to be reasonable. You choose a tier based on your average quantity of outgoing mails per day. Again, there are no hard limits; they won’t cut you off unless you abuse the system.
ProtonMail has been my go to, really fantastic service, you get simplelogin as well and can add custom domains up to 10 iirc. And the VPN is top tier too.
Pretty damn good. I switched from Gmail, which afaik is amongst the best.
I hosted email professionally and for myself both, from the old days writing send mail rules in vi to turnkey shit. Absolute not worth the substantial hassle. Doesn’t scale small. The auth and security stuff is a PITA, then you find one thing was wrong and other domains were silently dropping all your mail, never delivered. Ugh. Protonmail it is.
I used to self host email and got sick of my emails never getting through. Email is federated in theory, but pretty centralized in practice. Paying for Proton was definitely worth it.
After reading that post and the linked github issues, with the latest updates and comments from the last 24 hours. Here’s the TL;DR:
This is only relevant if you want to use an email client with Proton Bridge.
If you’re just using Proton for encryption and signing (you can use the same PGP outside of proton too) then there is no issue at all.
If you want an external tool (like a hardware yubikey) to decrypt your messages that someone else has sent to you using the public key that corresponds to the external tool there will be signature validation shenanigans. This is because Proton expects to be the only entity doing any encryption.This is an important issue for those that need to send encrypted emails (and signatures) with specific keys.
It is not an issue for anyone using Proton email for a secure email service even if they want to use an external email client on desktop (like Thunderbird) with Proton Bridge.
Microsoft365. It’s like $6/user/month and you get access to the whole MS suite (Word, Excel, etc.). Email is managed by Exchange Online. Crème de la crop as far as email goes.
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and just want something barebones then you can use a custom domain with your iCloud account. I think it’s called iCloud+.
It’s not self hosted but I use Tutanota. I have my own domain anything that comes to that domain shows up in my box. It might be better than the alternatives because it’s an encrypted mail service.
Proton and fastmail you can use custom domains. I only have experience using fastmail. They provide great instructions for the settings in cloudflare (mx records, etc). My domain is purchased through namecheap.
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I already posted that I recommend fastmail elsewhere in this thread, but you raised so many good points that it reminded me of some extra points :)
Since this community is about selfhosting I think it’s worth pointing out that this is AMAZING for selfhosting. I have all me selfhosted services sending e-mail via fastmail’s SMTP. With per-app passwords I don’t need to store my normal e-mail password and the apps can be limited to SMTP only (so no read access). And in case of compromise you can revoke permissions on a per-app granularity.
Fastmail has become my contacts app now - it’s really great to have all your e-mail and contacts in the same place. The contacts don’t even need to have an e-mail address - I have a lot of contacts stored for whom I only have a phone number. I sync to android using the same DavX5 app and then immediately have these contacts in whatsapp and signal.
I can highly recommend purelymail.com. They allow multiple domains, users and catch all accounts. They are great value, with a flat rate $10 per year ‘simple’ price, or you can pay per resource which for most people works out cheaper.
Been with them for over a year and been really good. Had a slight issue setting up one domain and their support were friendly, emailed back and sorted it out straight away for me.
I use Porkbun with Gmail and ForwardEmail.net. They do a great job.
I recommend fastmail.com though they do have done shortcomings that you need to consider such as the fact that they’re based in Australia (five eyes country) and have servers in the USA. Their advantage is a slick interface, fantastic app based on JMAP, and just generally being super convenient. They allow catch all addresses, masked emails, custom domain etc. I find them super convenient.
Another upvote or seven for fastmail.com - I spent a little too much time spinning my personal domain hosting through Fastmail, Tutanota, Proton, mailbox.org… and then came back full circle to Fastmail.
Their shortcomings, if you’re concerned about privacy, are listed right above^^^ but I don’t think you can find a better email hosting provider for the pricing.
Email isn’t that secure anyway (don’t use email if your life or freedom depends on it), so I don’t see that as much as a downside.
I’ve been very happy with mxroute for quite a few years now. They have a summer deal going on for $40 a year for unlimited domains and accounts, you’re only limited by storage (100GB) and outgoing emails per hour.
t would be helpful to know what you consider basic features you want the host to support, but catchall works.
How good is mxroute at blocking spam correctly?
I self-host my main email account, but use MXRoute as an outbound relay. Works great.
I do have some email accounts that use MXRoute. The Crossbox webmail system they use is very good.
Same here, very happy about mxroute, they even have a plan where you pay once for lifetime account.
I’ve been using Tutanota. They are kind of similar in principles to Protonmail, but until recently were dirt cheap at €12/yr (now €36/yr). The only “drawback” is that you can only access your mail through their app, this is a feature, not a bug, according to Tutao.
Protonmail for actual hosting and Cloudflare for free catch-all forwarding.
I have a couple domains that are very low volume for outgoing mail. I use Migadu. I’m happy with their cheapest tier ($19/year for both domains). They have catch-alls and many other nice features.
Edit: They have no hard limits on the number of addresses, users, or domains and such. They just want you to be reasonable. You choose a tier based on your average quantity of outgoing mails per day. Again, there are no hard limits; they won’t cut you off unless you abuse the system.
Seconding Migadu! I’ve had them for about 3 years now and never had a problem.
ProtonMail has been my go to, really fantastic service, you get simplelogin as well and can add custom domains up to 10 iirc. And the VPN is top tier too.
How good is spam detection on ProtonMail? Especially compared to some of the big players like GMail?
Pretty damn good. I switched from Gmail, which afaik is amongst the best.
I hosted email professionally and for myself both, from the old days writing send mail rules in vi to turnkey shit. Absolute not worth the substantial hassle. Doesn’t scale small. The auth and security stuff is a PITA, then you find one thing was wrong and other domains were silently dropping all your mail, never delivered. Ugh. Protonmail it is.
I used to self host email and got sick of my emails never getting through. Email is federated in theory, but pretty centralized in practice. Paying for Proton was definitely worth it.
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Someone shared this post about ProtonMail the other day and thought I should share here as well.
http://jfloren.net/b/2023/7/7/0
An interesting read - thanks for sharing.
After reading that post and the linked github issues, with the latest updates and comments from the last 24 hours. Here’s the TL;DR:
Please correct me if I missed something.
CC: @howlingecko@sh.itjust.works
Not self-hosted, however Proton supports custom domains and catch-all. Their monthly plans are very reasonable IMO.
I found mxroute, it works very well for me. I can’t say much about specific features since I just wanted a simple email host.
Microsoft365. It’s like $6/user/month and you get access to the whole MS suite (Word, Excel, etc.). Email is managed by Exchange Online. Crème de la crop as far as email goes.
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and just want something barebones then you can use a custom domain with your iCloud account. I think it’s called iCloud+.
Microsoft is a privacy nightmare though.
I am already paying for iCloud+ so I use their service with my domain. It gets the job done.
It’s not self hosted but I use Tutanota. I have my own domain anything that comes to that domain shows up in my box. It might be better than the alternatives because it’s an encrypted mail service.
Proton and fastmail you can use custom domains. I only have experience using fastmail. They provide great instructions for the settings in cloudflare (mx records, etc). My domain is purchased through namecheap.
I can receive mail on *@mydomain.com and I can send email from any thing I want ad-hoc (anything@mydomain.com or anything@anything.mydomain.com)
I thought about selfhosting as well, but the internet concensus was it can be a hassle with your email getting rejected.
Mailbox.org is decent as well