[HN Gopher] Migadu - No-nonsense multi-domain email at a flat price
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       Migadu - No-nonsense multi-domain email at a flat price
        
       Author : tsujp
       Score  : 258 points
       Date   : 2021-07-02 06:59 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.migadu.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.migadu.com)
        
       | threatofrain wrote:
       | Relevant post about Purelymail.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27707857
        
       | gingerjoos wrote:
       | I got my email hosting via MXRoute when they gave out a lifetime
       | plan for $50 on Black Friday ( https://mxroute.com/pricing/ ,
       | currently available at $150). It's a very no-frills service, they
       | provide a webUI via Roundcube, Crossbox, Rainloop etc. I am
       | pretty much reliant on Thunderbird on the desktop and K9 on
       | Android. I've never had issues and I'm switching over from gmail
       | slowly.
        
         | damsta wrote:
         | Lifetime these days means 3-4 years.
        
           | genghizkhan wrote:
           | I'll go out on a limb to defend jarland (the admin of
           | mxroute) and say I genuinely don't think it only means 3 - 4
           | years here. And even if it does, $50 (or even $150) for a 3 -
           | 4 year service is pretty darn awesome.
        
             | djvdorp wrote:
             | Oh wow, I remember jarland from LowEndTalk.com, can
             | definitely vouch for him. Quite an interesting interview
             | with him about MXroute there:
             | https://lowendbox.com/blog/interview-qa-with-mxroute-
             | owner-j...
        
       | Aeolun wrote:
       | I don't ever want to have a limit on emails in/out per day. Or at
       | least not an advertised limit for emails in.
       | 
       | What happens if I go over the limit, people that send me email
       | get a message that their email bounced because my plan doesn't
       | allow more?
        
         | michalhosna wrote:
         | > If you try blasting mails in or out, your limit will be
         | quickly gone and you will not be able to receive and/or send
         | more. This will also trigged a bunch of alerts on our end. In
         | most normal situations, you will be warned if you are reaching
         | your limits so you have time to analyze the traffic and
         | possibly upgrade your plan. This allows you to pay only what
         | you really use.
         | 
         | > If no upgrade is made, incoming messages will be deferred
         | until the following day, and sending messages will be refused
         | If you try blasting mails in or out, your limit will be quickly
         | gone and you will not be able to receive and/or send more. This
         | will also trigged a bunch of alerts on our end.
         | 
         | > In most normal situations, you will be warned if you are
         | reaching your limits so you have time to analyze the traffic
         | and possibly upgrade your plan. This allows you to pay only
         | what you really use.
         | 
         | > If no upgrade is made, incoming messages will be deferred
         | until the following day, and sending messages will be refused
         | 
         | https://www.migadu.com/procon/#daily-limits-apply
        
       | robomartin wrote:
       | Options: Zimbra [0] and GoDaddy VPS [1]?
       | 
       | My current setup is very simple. We have a GoDaddy Gen 4 server
       | (don't knock it, rock solid, no issues at all) were we host email
       | for multiple domains as we please. It's super simple. No email
       | hosting nightmares. Just point the MX record to that server and
       | host the site anywhere else or on the same server. One fixed
       | annual cost (~$600/yr) and you can do whatever you want. This is
       | hard to beat.
       | 
       | I've been thinking of migrating to a Zimbra setup to self-host
       | email on something like a Linode server. I absolutely detest per-
       | mailbox/per-user plans. Frankly, it has been very hard to beat
       | our current GoDaddy setup.
       | 
       | If you are dealing with multiple domains, each with multiple
       | mailboxes, costs can add-up very quickly. It then becomes a cash
       | bleed. Every service (not just email) wants $5 to $20 per month
       | from you. It is _very_ easy to end-up spending thousands of
       | dollars per month through these  "bleed" costs.
       | 
       | Anyhow, other than time to make the transition, what has stopped
       | me from taking this path is that Zimbra seems "fat" in the sense
       | that it requires a "fat" server to run.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.zimbra.com/ [1]
       | https://pk.godaddy.com/hosting/vps-hosting
        
       | Normal_gaussian wrote:
       | Ive had a bad enough experience with migadu that I am compelled
       | to actively warn people not to use them
       | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054091).
       | 
       | Migadu has taught me bargain basement email is too expensive in
       | the long run.
        
       | mouldysammich wrote:
       | I've been using migadu for a year-ish, its a nice website. For
       | only 20$ a year I don't think I've ever noticed down time and
       | almost never received spam.
       | 
       | I'm looking forward to them deploying 'Alps' their new UI I've
       | been using it on my self-hosted mail and its pretty sweet.
        
       | tsujp wrote:
       | I use Migadu myself and have nothing but compliments for them.
       | They do offer a calendar but it's only as a bare-bones complement
       | to their main focus of email, so if you do not care about having
       | invite responses and the like and just want: X is happening at Y
       | functionality it's perfects for that too.
       | 
       | I feel like they really care about how they offer their service
       | and given how laser focused it is that translates into me being
       | extremely satisfied with their offering.
        
       | baobabKoodaa wrote:
       | I tried Migadu in 2019. I did a lot of testing to make sure it
       | can actually deliver emails to other providers like Gmail and
       | Outlook. The test emails were fine. But then the very first real
       | email that I actually needed to be delivered, it immediately went
       | into the spam folder in Gmail.
       | 
       | It's a bad idea to use a small email provider to send emails.
        
         | arghwhat wrote:
         | Have never had that issue in my few years of using it, and I
         | regularly send to Gmail and Office365 addresses.
         | 
         | It is a bad idea to support monopolization.
        
           | baobabKoodaa wrote:
           | Why did you downvote me? Good for you if you never had an
           | issue, but I did have an issue, and people should know that
           | this is the risk they take by using small email providers.
        
             | bdukic wrote:
             | >Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It
             | never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | jordansmith wrote:
         | Did you have SPF and DKIM records created properly?
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | We need more small email providers, not fewer. The fewer large
         | providers there are the less power they have.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | brnt wrote:
       | I use postale.io after I switched away from Migadu (got in while
       | they had a free tier). Excellent and reliable service over the
       | past year.
        
         | kwanbix wrote:
         | I like their pricing better than Migadu's, however, I don't
         | want 50 mailboxes with 3GB each, I want 5 mailboxes with 30GB
         | each. That would be perfect.
        
           | brnt wrote:
           | I have approached them with similar questions and they made
           | the change without any hassle.
        
         | luke2m wrote:
         | Yep, they've been great. Too bad they stopped their free tier.
        
           | brnt wrote:
           | I'd readily pay that dollar though (I guess I should!).
           | Uptime and delivery has been as good as the best for me.
        
       | ishanjain28 wrote:
       | What luck!
       | 
       | I have been trying to move away from Zoho. I tried protonmail for
       | the last month but it's not for me. E2E is great but the loss in
       | functionality is a bit much.
       | 
       | I switched to fastmail today but I have ran into some issues
       | there as well[1] and so far I have seen a lot of recent reddit
       | posts criticizing the extremely slow response time(2+ days) in
       | support tickets. So, now I am not sure if fastmail is a good
       | option.
       | 
       | Migadu has been recommended to me in the past, maybe I should try
       | that out
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://reddit.com/r/fastmail/comments/m4rj0g/_/h3tq036/?con...
        
         | mdasen wrote:
         | Mind if I ask why you're moving away from Zoho? I've been
         | debating moving my email to Zoho since they offer a cheap
         | $12/year plan.
         | 
         | I might just move everything to iCloud+ when they start
         | supporting custom domains this fall since $1/mo for 50GB seems
         | pretty reasonable.
        
           | ishanjain28 wrote:
           | 1. Huge email deliverability issues. Quite a few emails just
           | get lost somehow. Just today, someone forwarded a book and
           | hours later I still haven't received it.
           | 
           | 2. Terrible, Inconsistent UI.
           | 
           | 3. Push notifications are broken and Their apps are broken. I
           | dont get notifications in clients configured with IMAP and
           | their apps also dont send notifications. I have to manually
           | refresh in both cases.
           | 
           | 4. Relatively minor issue but I am against Zoho's founder's
           | political alignment, and that is putting this issue mildly.
        
           | kureikain wrote:
           | Just another data point.
           | 
           | I had great delivery with zoho for year even use their free
           | plan. They used to offer SMTP/IMAP on their free tier few
           | years ago and continue to granfathering those my account.
           | 
           | If you like consistent UI then no one can beat gmail. Even
           | fastmail/protonmail/outlook cannot beat gmail in UI/UX to me.
           | 
           | Stay away from iCloud is my advice. Their proofpoint spam
           | filtering is the worst to deal with. Lots of people are going
           | to have trouble reach iCloud inbox.
           | 
           | Anything but not iCloud. That isn't their primary business
           | and consider level of Apple support and randomly ban/block
           | people out of iCloud(you will find some here), I would advice
           | against using them.
           | 
           | Give zoho I tried. They are very reliable, their spam
           | filtering isn't as good as gmail so sometime legitimate
           | emails go to Spam but that's a problem with any mail
           | provider. Time to time you have to train spam system.
           | Especially if you got a lot of email from people with a new
           | domains email you first time. New domains that are created
           | within 7 days and send out email are more likely to be
           | flagged.
        
       | xfer wrote:
       | I use uberspace for solely email, they provide a shell and bit
       | more. It has been working well for me: i can have full 10gb space
       | for email(now you can even buy more space), aliases/mailboxes as
       | i need. https://manual.uberspace.de/mail-access/
        
       | malinens wrote:
       | inbox.eu is alternative which is much longer in business (since
       | about 2000) with flat price per mailbox 9.99 EUR per year (now it
       | is only 3 EUR with discount- no promo code needed).
        
         | newscracker wrote:
         | I'd never heard of this before. Would you know if the offer
         | will hold good in the future (on signup now) or if it's only
         | for something like the first year (and will be switched to the
         | normal one later)?
         | 
         | It's also not clear what the jurisdictions of the company (I
         | presume Latvia) and its data centers are.
         | 
         | This looks like a good option for semi-important communications
         | if the need is just for a few mailboxes.
        
           | malinens wrote:
           | All servers are located in Latvia. We don't use cloud and all
           | servers are managed by us. Discount is available for quite a
           | long time. Maybe even year but can be disabled in near future
           | but I do not know specifics
        
         | wohfab wrote:
         | Migadu has unlimited domains and unlimited mailboxes per domain
         | even on the smalles plan for 19 bucks. I don't see how 9.99 EUR
         | PER mailbox is an alternative to that.
        
           | malinens wrote:
           | this sounds little bit absurd. in no way somebody with
           | million mailboxes could migrate to migadu and pay just 19
           | bucks
        
       | Neil44 wrote:
       | I've used Migadu for about 3/4 years now to provide email for
       | hosting clients. They're good. They had a little wobble at the
       | start of the pandemic but otherwise no issues. You get full
       | dmark, dkim etc and autodiscover. Massive mailboxes. Would
       | recommend.
        
       | CaptainMarvel wrote:
       | I started using Migadu recently because it offers - as far as I
       | know - unlimited mailboxes and aliases on a single domain, and
       | unlimited domains for a cheap, fixed price.
       | 
       | There isn't anyone else that does this that I know of, and so the
       | value provided in this one area is incredible.
       | 
       | There are other limits, like sending 20 emails per day on the
       | cheapest plan, but I don't think I've ever sent that many emails
       | before.
        
         | Fnoord wrote:
         | Even Gmail has unlimited aliases, via catch-all (everything
         | after +). With Gmail, specifically, you can use dots (.) in an
         | e-mail address for aliases as well. I'm not using Gmail, but I
         | would not use an e-mail service without catch-all. The dot
         | behavior, however, is weird. Nobody does it that way, 'cept
         | Google.
        
           | newscracker wrote:
           | The + isn't completely helpful if the intent of using aliases
           | is related to spam. All spammers know how these work and can
           | figure out the main address by discarding the + and whatever
           | comes after it. The dot has been somewhat of a problem to use
           | where it seemed as if Gmail allowed other people to create
           | the same address with dots (I don't recall the details since
           | this was a long, long time ago).
        
             | Fnoord wrote:
             | You can opt to only ever use + and then put a lot of weight
             | on spam score on anything _not_ using the + (or using
             | whitelisting without the +). It can also help when trying
             | to figure out who leaked your data. Literally, data
             | breaches have been found /exposed by a few heroes who used
             | this feature.
        
           | squiggleblaz wrote:
           | > The dot behavior, however, is weird. Nobody does it that
           | way, 'cept Google.
           | 
           | I think it makes good sense for a free email provider. You
           | don't want to distinguish bobsmith@... from Bob.Smith@.... It
           | will just cause misdelivered emails.
        
         | newscracker wrote:
         | There's mxroute in the U.S. that provides a similar service,
         | but has pricing primarily based on space usage.
        
       | Cu3PO42 wrote:
       | I have used Migadu in the past and I had absolutely no
       | complaints. Everything worked as advertised and I had no delivery
       | issues.
       | 
       | I chose them for their pricing model: they charge not per mailbox
       | or domain, but rather per total number of emails in/out and
       | storage. While this probably makes them less money, it always
       | seemed like an honest and fair approach to billing.
        
         | zorked wrote:
         | Me too, it works. I wish it had whatever IMAP feature it is
         | that makes server-side search possible in K9, that's a bit of
         | an annoyance.
        
       | dogo22 wrote:
       | I wonder why nobody has mentioned tutanota as an alternative in
       | this thread. It's not too expensive and quite safe as far as I'm
       | aware. If anyone knows a downside to it please share it with us.
        
         | decrypt wrote:
         | I was a paying Tutanota customer for two full years, but ended
         | up cancelling recently. Reasons being lack of IMAP (ProtonMail
         | does), slow development, [missing features](https://old.reddit.
         | com/r/tutanota/search?q=missing&restrict_...) yet their focus
         | is on building quantum cryptography defense, and most
         | importantly, their recent change in domain limit. It used to be
         | unlimited on the 12 EUR plan, but without any announcement to
         | the end-user, they limited that to 1. They [fixed that later](h
         | ttps://old.reddit.com/r/tutanota/comments/lwr2ag/important_...)
         | but I no longer trust their business practices.
        
         | bennyp101 wrote:
         | Not really the same, you have to use their clients to access
         | your email (and doesn't seem to have a bridge like Protonmail)
         | so you are effectively locked in
        
         | Markoff wrote:
         | Tutanota ain't very safe
         | 
         | https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/08/german-secure-email-provid...
        
           | gruez wrote:
           | Is there reason to believe other mail providers aren't
           | subject to the same kind of court order?
        
         | wohfab wrote:
         | What does "user" mean with tutanota? If I want multiple custom
         | domains, I need to go with the business account, which has a 1
         | GB storage limit and a 5 aliases limit. And then it is only for
         | a single user. Does that mean, I cannot have independent login
         | data for the multiple domains/mailboxes I create? Because then
         | it is not close to a viable alternative to migadu.
        
           | decrypt wrote:
           | You can have an independent login account but that comes at
           | an additional cost of 12 EUR. That's on the top of the
           | Business plan's cost of 12 EUR + 12 EUR.
        
             | wohfab wrote:
             | Okay, then that defeats the purpose of why _I_ chose
             | Migadu, where there is no limit on the login accounts.
        
       | asteroidbelt wrote:
       | Simple mail hostings on the rise nowadays.
       | 
       | What next? UUCP providers? Flat price BBS?
        
       | Wronnay wrote:
       | Here is a comparison which lists some cheaper alternatives to
       | Migadu: https://blog.m5e.de/post/comparison-of-email-hosting-
       | possibi...
        
         | newscracker wrote:
         | Your conclusion is spot on! I've been looking for providers
         | that are lower on the cost for more than one mailbox with
         | custom domains and being outside surveillance jurisdictions.
         | 
         | One point about your post: Migadu has (or at least had) all the
         | data stored in data centers in France. It also doesn't encrypt
         | data at rest. So I'm not sure how the privacy angle exactly
         | works.
        
         | fastball wrote:
         | Why the fixation on religion of founders?
        
           | Wronnay wrote:
           | I am an Atheist. I don't want that my money goes to people
           | who want that their religious worldview takes over.
           | 
           | Using a service from a Hindu nationalism supporter goes
           | against my personal world view.
           | 
           | I included the religous connections because some other people
           | might also have similar thoughts.
        
             | yunohn wrote:
             | Where did you read that Zoho is furthering Hindu
             | nationalism? I'd be curious to read a source.
        
             | anoncake wrote:
             | > I am an Atheist. I don't want that my money goes to
             | people who want that their religious worldview takes over.
             | 
             | That is not the same thing as being religious.
        
             | ishanjain28 wrote:
             | This is a small reason why I am trying to switch away from
             | Zoho right now. :/
        
             | lbriner wrote:
             | You have virtually 0% chance of ever knowing what the
             | recipients of your money spend it on. Anyone could be
             | giving it to extreme political groups, abuse groups,
             | extreme religions. On the other hand, a religious person
             | might not have any interest in supporting extremism.
             | 
             | The money also goes to silent partners, investors etc. so
             | where do you stop?
             | 
             | We should judge people on their integrity and business
             | model imho, religion is a straw man.
        
       | smashah wrote:
       | Umm am I missing something? Wouldn't you just use GSuite and set
       | up other domains as aliases?
        
         | andreareina wrote:
         | Some people want to limit their exposure to google. Also a
         | healthy market for email is a good thing.
        
         | Ecto5 wrote:
         | some people dontdont want google in their lives.
        
         | stapled_socks wrote:
         | > Umm am I missing something?
         | 
         | Probably.
         | 
         | > Wouldn't you just use GSuite and set up other domains as
         | aliases?
         | 
         | Not if you think this Migadu or some other service suits your
         | needs better or provides better value.
        
       | ttty2 wrote:
       | 29usd a month is not "Humbly Priced" imo. I receive thousands of
       | spam email.
        
       | nmlt wrote:
       | Many people here are mentioning alternatives. The ones I'm using
       | are mailbox.org (although they recently raised prices for new
       | customers) and uberspace.de (includes ssh access).
        
       | werds wrote:
       | this is the worst landing page i have ever seen for a SaaS
       | product
        
         | bennyp101 wrote:
         | Why? It says exactly what it does? It hosts email. That is it.
         | 
         | I think it's quite refreshing to not have parallax scrolling,
         | and the same tired looking icons and vector graphics.
         | 
         | Everything I need to know is pretty much there on the front
         | page.
        
           | werds wrote:
           | - there is far too much detailed copy above the fold - the
           | copy around the call to action is too vague - there is no
           | example of "what you have now without migadu" versus "with
           | migadu"
           | 
           | in summary it makes it very hard to quickly identify the
           | problem it solves and illustrate how migadu fixes it.
           | 
           | take a look at this article:
           | https://blog.roastmylandingpage.com/landing-page-roasts/
        
             | watermelon0 wrote:
             | IMO it's one of the better landing pages. It tells you
             | exactly what they offer (email hosting with unlimited
             | domains), and what features they support. Pricing is
             | straightforward (with no nonsense discounts for the first N
             | months) and one click away.
             | 
             | Linked article is just an opinion of some person, and I
             | have to say I quite disagree with it:
             | 
             | - If I'm looking for a email hosting, I definitely know
             | what the pain is, and I assume they will fix it by
             | providing hosting for my emails.
             | 
             | - Testimonials & awards are bullshit. They don't help me
             | determine if I want to use the service or not.
        
               | werds wrote:
               | Yes the linked article is the opinion of one person. One
               | person with a proven track record of maximising the
               | conversions from landing page visits.
        
             | bennyp101 wrote:
             | I disagree :)
             | 
             | "in summary it makes it very hard to quickly identify the
             | problem it solves and illustrate how migadu fixes it."
             | 
             | I want to host my email, they host email .... there isn't
             | much more to it :)
             | 
             | They don't really advertise, and it is word of mouth it
             | seems - if you have got there, then there is a pretty good
             | chance you know what you want, and can spend a few mins to
             | read through and see if it fits.
             | 
             | I really dislike this "distil everything down because
             | people can't spend a few minutes reading" trend, everyone
             | seem far more interested in marketing fluff and speak, and
             | not just taking the time to understand what they want
        
       | oron wrote:
       | I have a decent domain and good knowledge in backend / scaling
       | production servers up. Anyone can recommend a good white label /
       | open source package which I can use to build a Migadu clone ?
        
       | sbaildon wrote:
       | I use migadu for all my side-project-esque domains because of
       | their pricing, and their service has been wonderful.
       | 
       | Unfortunately I'm still using another provider for my primary
       | domain because I can't get real time push notifications on Apple
       | Mail with Migadu--they're limited to 15 minute fetches for best
       | case scenario
        
       | fortran77 wrote:
       | For $70/year Microsoft lets me point up to 99 domains at a cloud
       | exchange server. This has been working well for me.
        
         | herbst wrote:
         | Many of us care about their privacy tho. Microsoft does not
         | have a good track record in protecting valueable data.
        
           | atatatat wrote:
           | The emails in your inbox are primarily coming from Google/MS
           | servers.
        
             | herbst wrote:
             | Are most transactional or newsletter services hosted with
             | MS or Google? I honestly doubt that, if anything I guess
             | Amazon is the dominant force here. Also Google does not
             | exactly have a bad record with Gmail.
             | 
             | However no, most privacy relevant emails I get are either
             | directly sent from a Webservice, company own SMTPS or other
             | privacy aware email providers.
             | 
             | Sure some friends hit me up with their Gmails, but I
             | usually do not consider these mails privacy relevant.
        
         | frankietaylr wrote:
         | Can you elaborate this setup a bit more?
        
           | Neil44 wrote:
           | Assume they mean using a basic Office 365 plan. That's cost
           | per user though, not really a comparable pricing plan.
        
       | Markoff wrote:
       | 20 outgoing emails per day at micro service for 19USD a year? I
       | really hope that's very bad joke
       | 
       | Mini with 100 outgoing emails for only 90USD a year is comparably
       | bad
        
         | necovek wrote:
         | Perfect for a single/family user who's got multiple domains:
         | they are obviously targeting customers like me with it (20
         | emails per day is over 7000 emails a year: how many did _you_
         | send out the last year?).
         | 
         | The price is right, concerns over privacy and support are not.
        
       | akych wrote:
       | Their $19 (Micro) Plan lists "200 in/day and 20 out/day". My
       | email usage, personally, seems to be in bursts. It stays below 1
       | or 2 outbound mails on most days, however on some days (rarely)
       | there'll be threaded conversations with >50 outbound mails. So, I
       | feel like it would be fantastic if the plan had monthly limits
       | instead of daily limit. Or some other sort of limit, say EC2
       | like, which would allow the user to consume the resources in
       | bursts.
        
         | wcerfgba wrote:
         | Yes, I was also quite excited until I saw the message limits,
         | it feels very archaic.
         | 
         | So far the best email service I've found is Tutanota, who
         | provide a custom domain for EUR12 / mo if you pay yearly [1],
         | which is the cheapest I've found so far. I also like how my
         | mail is encrypted at rest. The only downside is I have to use
         | their web client which has limited features.
         | 
         | [1] https://tutanota.com/pricing
        
         | jacobmischka wrote:
         | While $19 yearly is admittedly very cheap, 20 daily outbound
         | emails seems like an absurdly low limit. I can't imagine many
         | sole proprietorships (as they suggest as customers for that
         | tier) would be able to sustain that.
        
         | estaseuropano wrote:
         | They say it is a soft limit. You'll at most get a
         | warning/request to update but they promise not to block.
        
           | mfsch wrote:
           | As a Migadu customer, that's not my understanding. From their
           | website: "When reaching incoming messages limits, we will
           | warn you and allow for some tolerance of up to 25% over the
           | plan limit. If even the higher tolerance level gets reached,
           | we will start deferring messages until either the following
           | day or the plan is upgraded. [...] When reaching outgoing
           | messages limits, we will warn you and allow for some
           | tolerance of up to 25% over the plan limit. After the
           | tolerance we will start rejecting outgoing messages."
        
         | londons_explore wrote:
         | "90% of any unused allowance carries over to the next day" is a
         | neat way to allow 10x bursts while keeping allowances
         | understandable.
        
           | barrkel wrote:
           | That is a 1.9x burst, not 10x, right?
           | 
           | And that's at best, assuming you got no emails at all the
           | previous day.
        
       | flowerlad wrote:
       | The most important feature I look for is Search. Really, email
       | servers should primarily be search engines (and should use
       | something like Lucene for storage). With Gmail I can search the
       | last 15 years of email instantaneously. This is their killer
       | feature. Migadu does not even mention search.
        
         | jordansmith wrote:
         | You would be using thunderbird or whatever your client of
         | choice is so that's where you would be searching.
        
           | flowerlad wrote:
           | If I want to search the last 15 days of email then client-
           | side search might work. If I want to search the last 15 years
           | of email instantaneously then I need server-side storage and
           | search.
        
       | icy wrote:
       | Migadu is fantastic. No complaints. Their support is very
       | responsive -- they even gave me a 50% student discount!
        
       | newscracker wrote:
       | I'll repeat my comment from nearly seven months ago [1] since it
       | left a really bad taste about how users are dealt with. Nearly a
       | year ago when the initial waves of the pandemic were raging on,
       | Migadu removed its free tier. That's not a problem by itself
       | because businesses have to make money to sustain and grow. But
       | Migadu gave one month's notice (contrary to the claims in the
       | replies, that's what I saw) for users to switch. The replies to
       | the comment also said that the new lowest paid tier was
       | "affordable in every corner of the planet", which sounded quite
       | ignorant even for a non-pandemic time.
       | 
       | Another point, which may matter to some people, is that while
       | Migadu may be a Swiss company, the data centers where the mails
       | are hosted were in France (this was the case at least a year
       | ago). So the situation is somewhat comparable (not entirely
       | though) to Fastmail being an Australian company with data centers
       | in the U.S. being used.
       | 
       | For those who want multi-domain email services for a lower (flat)
       | price, look at mxroute. It's based out of the U.S. though, which
       | may not be an option for people who want certain services outside
       | Five Eyes jurisdictions.
       | 
       | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25382626
        
         | throwthere wrote:
         | Similar issue. Just chiming in to say it wasn't just you and
         | I've since left Migadu forever as well.
        
         | xPaw wrote:
         | Around the same time last year they also had a storage layer
         | failure, and my catch-all rules disappeared. And about a month
         | before that they changed POP3 address.
         | 
         | Both of these changes happened without any email announcement,
         | only visible on their site. So effectively because I didn't
         | login into Migadu dashboard, I was losing emails.
        
           | t-mw wrote:
           | I experienced the same thing, and it took me a couple of
           | weeks to realize I wasn't receiving emails. Luckily I was
           | only testing it out with emails for non-essential services. I
           | found it difficult to understand why they continued to not
           | make an announcement even after I, and presumably other
           | people, made them aware of the impact the change had.
        
           | estaseuropano wrote:
           | I had this issue too - all rules were deleted as they
           | switched form regex to something else. I have no idea whether
           | I missed anything and they really could have done an
           | anouncement.
           | 
           | Otherwise have been quite happy and except for a lack of
           | calendar it all works quite well.
        
           | Normal_gaussian wrote:
           | Yep. This was exactly my experience, resulted in failure to
           | recieve mail (and my email being deassociated from the
           | accounts of my bank and rental agency).
           | 
           | I had a back and fore with them on HN some months back and
           | they were trying to whitewash their handling of the storage
           | failure / rules deletion.
           | 
           | The savings are not worth the risk.
        
         | pqb wrote:
         | > Another point, which may matter to some people, is that while
         | Migadu may be a Swiss company, the data centers where the mails
         | are hosted were in France (this was the case at least a year
         | ago). So the situation is somewhat comparable (not entirely
         | though) to Fastmail being an Australian company with data
         | centers in the U.S. being used.
         | 
         | > For those who want multi-domain email services for a lower
         | (flat) price, look at mxroute. It's based out of the U.S.
         | though, which may not be an option for people who want certain
         | services outside Five Eyes jurisdictions.
         | 
         | Weird speaking that, but I would be more of concerned of (an
         | accidental) breach of privacy by some Migadu employee than some
         | <country-name> burreau. Not saying about some typical script
         | kiddie or some hacker-magician getting in possession of logins
         | with passwords as leak. It is likely new on the market and I am
         | tempted to say it has near-zero reputation for anyone looking
         | for a private mail right now. Location do matter, but execution
         | more.
        
           | newscracker wrote:
           | > It is likely new on the market and I am tempted to say it
           | has near-zero reputation for anyone looking for a private
           | mail right now.
           | 
           | GP here. Not sure if you meant Migadu in this sentence, but
           | Migadu is not new in the email market. It has been around for
           | several years (don't want to visit the website to look it
           | up). I also don't believe that it has near-zero reputation.
        
             | aesyondu wrote:
             | About page says 2014.
        
             | pqb wrote:
             | Maybe "likely new" is a bad word to describe it. Comparing
             | to many email providers I know or used 7 years is a pity.
             | It have matured enough to consider it will stay for longer
             | and it won't disappear soon, what has happened to many
             | competitors on e-mail service market. I said "new", because
             | both Migadu (since 2014) and even ProtonMail (since 2013)
             | brought a lot of fresh air in last decade. I my observation
             | for some reasons Migadu gained more attention among people
             | looking to have an email with own domain name in last few
             | years than in previous. When I also shared a link to Migadu
             | to some friends, they also saying "oh, I hear about it for
             | the first time". That's why I am saying "it is likely new
             | on the market", it still have potential to gather new
             | customers by advertising (on the contrary to ProtonMail,
             | which seems media coverage helped a lot).
             | 
             | > I also don't believe that it has near-zero reputation.
             | 
             | Well, I guess I was too harsh but it is small company that
             | already had various problems while operating (thankfully
             | only downtime / lack of support) and it is hard to trust
             | that no leak or breach will happen (and this is what makes
             | me more concerned than some bureau). I also said "it has
             | near-zero reputation for anyone looking for a private" - I
             | don't generalize to whole service but only to private/safe
             | message exchange. This service is perfectly fine for people
             | in IT, startups or just personal emails but if I would be a
             | person, who exchanges confidential documents I will stay
             | away from Migadu. Why? They do not encrypt data on their
             | servers [0][1], which is clearly opposite to what
             | ProtonMail does [2].
             | 
             | [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/ltcjc
             | 5/what...
             | 
             | > 4. They don't encrypt anything other than SMTP, IMAP,
             | HTTPS. You can encrypt your emails manually but they don't
             | encrypt anything on their servers. They claim this is
             | impractical and doesn't truly help with privacy or
             | security.
             | 
             | > 5. They don't force you to give them your real name or
             | personal info, but there are no anonymous or cash payments.
             | They only process payments via PayPal or Stripe though they
             | claim to not keep any information about you that way.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.migadu.com/procon/
             | 
             | [2]: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/what-is-
             | encryp...
        
         | GrumpyNl wrote:
         | Im surprised that there is no response from Migadu here.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | vgalin wrote:
         | > while Migadu may be a Swiss company, the data centers where
         | the mails are hosted were in France
         | 
         | > So the situation is somewhat comparable (not entirely though)
         | to Fastmail being an Australian company with data centers in
         | the U.S. being used
         | 
         | I don't know if it is a good comparison, as European countries
         | (France included) are subject to GDPR, which does not really
         | have an equivalent in the U.S.
        
           | newscracker wrote:
           | GP here. My points were about surveillance arrangements and
           | information exchange between countries, like the Five Eyes,
           | Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, etc. Also, as far as I know, Migadu
           | does not encrypt data at rest. Anyone who gets access to the
           | servers gets access to all the data.
        
             | estaseuropano wrote:
             | They have a great FAQ explaining that and I agree with
             | their conclusion - all the encryption claims by other
             | providers are nonsense and don't offer real protection.
        
         | spinax wrote:
         | > For those who want multi-domain email services for a lower
         | (flat) price, look at mxroute
         | 
         | I was very interested and very seriously considering signing
         | up, until I read this: https://mxroute.com/docs/do-you-
         | support-2fa-on-email-account... While I respect Jarland's
         | opinion/stance, I do not agree.
        
           | hellcow wrote:
           | What do you disagree with specifically? The reasoning in that
           | link is absolutely correct. We can argue that POP, etc.
           | should have 2FA support added to the protocol, but that's not
           | the point the author was making.
        
             | ampdepolymerase wrote:
             | Compromising a user password does not grant access to the
             | web client (where all the important settings are at) if 2fa
             | is enabled. App specific password only allows data
             | exfiltration and most enterprise email servers/authz
             | systems can be configured to automatically block access
             | from VPNs/foreign ips. These days emails are tied into
             | calendar and Oauth and many other things, blocking access
             | to the inbox is just one layer in a very a big picture.
        
             | arp242 wrote:
             | Loads of folk use just webmail though, and SMTP/IMAP is
             | usually disabled until they generate an app password.
             | 
             | If you do enable SMTP/IMAP: sure, it's correct. But that
             | often doesn't apply, so I don't think it's a "trick" or
             | "sleight of hand".
        
             | jasonjayr wrote:
             | Modern IMAP servers support OAuth2/OIDC, (Thunderbird
             | supports this dialog) and IMAP/POP/SMTP has supported
             | kerberos since forever (Though that typically is only
             | within a pre-setup organization).
        
             | spinax wrote:
             | Use case: I have an unattended cron task polling my IMAP
             | account to archive the mail every 4 hours. I specifically
             | use an IMAP read-only unique ("per-app") password for that
             | script/connection; under no circumstance should that
             | password have access to write to IMAP, touch POP or SMTP.
             | Fastmail allows me to do this with ease, and I can create
             | as many as I'd like with different ACLs. The mxroute
             | reasoning simply does not consider all the use cases people
             | have and want per-app passwords for to increase their
             | personal security posture.
        
               | Raineer wrote:
               | The ease of creation of app passwords and protocol-level
               | controls really are fantastic in Fastmail. I hope it
               | never goes away.
        
         | robertlagrant wrote:
         | > It's based out of the U.S. though, which may not be an option
         | for people who want certain services outside Five Eyes
         | jurisdictions.
         | 
         | Are you saying it's based in the US? (Brit here.)
        
           | nanis wrote:
           | The question is not Brit-specific so to speak. Saying "based
           | off of" to mean "based on" and "based out of" to mean "based
           | in" etc started relatively recently in the U.S. In the NYC
           | area, people also say "waiting on line" instead of "in line"
           | which grates me to this day, but at least I could find that
           | usage special-case in a foot thick Webster dictionary back
           | when I first encountered.
           | 
           | I believe the "based off of" and "based out of" were
           | popularized among the hipster brogrammers of early 21st
           | century, but I might be wrong.
           | 
           | I am not a native speaker.
        
             | necovek wrote:
             | > which grates me to this day
             | 
             | You might be saddened to learn that languages are a living
             | thing :), and only "owned" by the people speaking it.
             | Dictionaries are always behind by definition, because they
             | encode the words that have caught on sufficiently: there
             | was never a new word created that was first put into a
             | dictionary and people picked it up from there.
             | 
             | Basically, don't get stressed too much with language
             | changes, because it does and always will. Or what are we to
             | make of "brogrammers" (even "hipster" is relatively new,
             | not to mention most of the computing jargon).
        
               | 8ytecoder wrote:
               | your absolutely correct. its the way its always been.
        
           | newscracker wrote:
           | Yes, mxroute is based in the U.S. (the company as well as its
           | data centers).
        
             | louis-lau wrote:
             | This isn't true. MXroute mostly uses Hetzner in Germany.
             | But there no guarantee to server location.
        
         | tptacek wrote:
         | I remain baffled at the folk wisdom of using providers outside
         | the United States in order to avoid the Five Eyes IC. You
         | accomplish the opposite thing by doing that. NSA is literally
         | chartered to hack into things outside of US jurisdiction; they
         | don't even need permission to do it. They might even need
         | permission _not_ to do it.
         | 
         | Obviously, hosting in the US isn't a cure-all. And there are
         | other good reasons to work with companies in Europe; for
         | instance, their data privacy rules can often be better than
         | ours, which can give you some commercial protections.
         | 
         | But these discussions about where people's email is hosted
         | always talk about jurisdictional issues, and the only
         | jurisdictional issue that matters here is this: if NSA is going
         | to swipe mail from Google Mail, there's a whole fuckload of
         | paperwork they have to do. If they want to get mail from your
         | random email provider in Switzerland, they can just push a
         | button.
        
           | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
           | Excellent point! Illegal domestic spying in the US has mostly
           | gone the way of the dodo bird because of certain
           | whisteblowers.
        
             | colordrops wrote:
             | You are being sarcastic I assume.
        
             | tptacek wrote:
             | I want to be clear that I have zero doubt that illegal
             | domestic spying happens in the US. I chose my words
             | carefully.
        
           | davidwritesbugs wrote:
           | If you are trying to avoid spook you're fucked anywhere you
           | are: US EU whatever. Yes, if the NSA want your US email they
           | probably won't press that button, but they'll ask GCHQ to
           | press a UK button insetad and get it that way. Also, if the
           | FBI wants your email they will just send a guy in a black MiB
           | suit & 9/10 times the email company will roll over. If they
           | meet resistance FBI just go to a tame US judge (they have
           | loads) who rubber stamps the writ. If your server is in .CH
           | they need lots of paperwork and a good arguable case. So yes
           | it is worth hosting outside US. Ask Microsoft about why they
           | do EU data hosting in Ireland.
        
             | mox1 wrote:
             | Your kinda proving parents point. To get email content
             | outside the USA, there are no rules. NSA can do more or
             | less what they want to obtain that data (hack,bribe,etc.)
             | 
             | within the US, it requires some type of judicial process.
             | You can argue about corrupt judges, power tripping FBI
             | agents, etc. etc. but the fact is, its harder to obtain
             | this data inside the USA.
             | 
             | Further, if you are just committing regular old crimes, the
             | FBI will need to run some type of parallel reconstruction
             | IF they obtained your data using less than pristine
             | methods.
             | 
             | What DoJ attorney would risk their career cause some dumb-
             | ass FBI agent went rogue and pistol whipped the sys-admin
             | for the data?!?!?!?!
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | I'm not even trying to say you're meaningfully protected
               | by US jurisdiction. I personally think you are, but I
               | won't try to win the argument, and I think reasonable
               | people can certainly disagree. I'm just saying that, if
               | nothing else, selecting a smaller provider with fewer
               | security resources just to get outside of the US is not a
               | win with respect to mass surveillance.
        
       | woutr_be wrote:
       | Also another happy Migadu user, on their micro plan. I mainly use
       | it for small projects, it's great because I pay a flat $19 fee
       | for unlimited domains. I'm happy to upgrade once a project
       | requires it.
       | 
       | For my personal domain email, I use Fastmail, but that comes in
       | at $50 yearly. Not something I can justify when just playing
       | around with an idea.
        
         | yarcob wrote:
         | According to their website, Fastmail allows up to 100 custom
         | domains on a single account, so it's not like you need to buy a
         | second account if you just want to receive/send email on a
         | domain.
        
           | woutr_be wrote:
           | Yes, but you pay per "user". So if you want to separate your
           | accounts, you want multiple users.
        
             | yarcob wrote:
             | Right, but I don't really see why you would need separate
             | accounts. In my experience a single account for multiple
             | projects is actually very convenient (with rules to
             | automatically sort incoming mail).
             | 
             | In my opinion, multiple accounts are really only necessary
             | if you have employees or collaborators and want to make
             | sure that not everyone can access your stuff.
             | 
             | But that's just my point of view, I understand that what
             | works for me may not be suitable for your projects.
        
       | npv789 wrote:
       | purelymail is a better deal
        
       | canada2us wrote:
       | For those who want to get their hands dirty, here is a full, step
       | by step tutorial to set up your own email server:
       | https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/setup-basic-postfix-ma...
       | 
       | migadu's mail number limit does not make sense to me: This risks
       | losing emails.
        
         | lbriner wrote:
         | That guide is all very well but it is very complicated to
         | follow and setup, and I have been using Linux for a reasonable
         | amount of time (10+ years).
         | 
         | I was surprised that there wasn't an open source script, a bit
         | like you would run with apt-get, that would simply ask you some
         | questions and do all the bits for you.
         | 
         | Postfix is obviously really powerful but for a noob to it, I
         | found it overwhelming without consulting lots of docs.
         | 
         | I did find https://www.iredmail.org/ but that has a feature
         | limit for the free version. The bits you actually really want
         | costs up to $500/year. Not much if it is for your main
         | business, but a lot when you only want it for a part of your
         | larger system.
        
       | marderfarker2 wrote:
       | I already have email with unlimited addresses/aliases/domain with
       | my hosting provider (a local-run no frills cPanel), I think most
       | of HN will have similar setups.
        
       | stingraycharles wrote:
       | Question: beyond a certain degree, why would you try to save
       | money on email that much? Email is pretty much the weakest link
       | for most people from a security perspective (ie password
       | recovery), so I would want my email provider to have enough
       | resources to properly secure the thing.
       | 
       | What are people using these providers for, and do you feel like
       | they secure your mailbox enough?
        
         | herbst wrote:
         | That's why I use protonmail and don't even know how much I pay.
         | IMO email is the single most relevant part of your internet
         | privacy and security. Nearly everything builds on it.
        
         | arghwhat wrote:
         | I use it for primary email, and based on communication with
         | them _and_ experience with Gmail and O365, certainly trust
         | migadu more than the usual suspects.
         | 
         | Remember that email communication, irrespective of provider, is
         | not secret unless GPG or similar is used. If a MFA enabled
         | account can be accessed with only a password reset email, it is
         | fundamentally insecure.
        
           | stingraycharles wrote:
           | While of course in theory you are correct, the fact remains
           | that you _are_ able to reset your password using email in
           | many online applications, and that addressing this is out of
           | control of the user. Using a secure email provider, however,
           | is within control and can certainly go a long way in
           | mitigating the risks here.
        
             | arghwhat wrote:
             | It does very, very little to mitigate risk when you are
             | using an insecure medium.
             | 
             | Regardless, their security is respectable and their fair
             | simpler infrastructure makes me much more confident that it
             | isn't full of holes.
        
         | donmcronald wrote:
         | I use MXroute for low volume, automated email from software and
         | devices. Having unlimited mailboxes (one per device) and super
         | low (configurable), per mailbox quotas is a better solution
         | than the expensive providers have.
         | 
         | Office 365 is _brutal_ for sending from devices. In fact it's
         | impossible with security defaults (more like overrides)
         | enforcing 2FA and one of their supported options is literally
         | (I'm not joking here) to use another mail server that's not
         | Office 365.
         | 
         | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-pra...
        
       | bennyp101 wrote:
       | Good timing, I'm in the process of looking to migrate my emails.
       | Currently on O365 for 3 of us, but as we now all get Office
       | products via work, I can't justify paying ~PS30 a month.
       | 
       | Looking at our usage, the biggest account is 3.7GB, and in the
       | last 180 days the most emails sent was 12 in one day, and the
       | most received was 158 - so micro looks like a fit.
       | 
       | The pricing looks pretty spot on for what we need, and the
       | features seem good, so I've set up a 14day trial with just my
       | email to see how it goes.
       | 
       | I guess the only thing is calendar and contact sync, (I tried to
       | get the calendar to work, but keeps saying it does not exist
       | /shrug)
       | 
       | Any recommendations for a calendar/contact provider?
        
         | decrypt wrote:
         | Speaking for calendar, I basically signed up for a new Google
         | account with that custom domain email address and use calendar
         | on it. Syncs neat to my Android.
        
         | tweetle_beetle wrote:
         | They have pushed a basic CalDAV (and CarDAV?) feature out on
         | Migadu for what it's worth. I think they're new enough that
         | they're considered beta and not in marketing materials.
         | 
         | https://www.migadu.com/guides/thunderbird/
        
           | saladuh wrote:
           | Yep, if you contact them about it they'll provide you with
           | more info. Both CardDAV and CalDAV will be available,
           | documented and all, to the public in September/October. When
           | I emailed them earlier today about it (pure coincidence) they
           | gave me the necessary info on CardDAV and also directed me to
           | a post[0] made by another beta tester explaining both DAV
           | services in more detail.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.billdietrich.me/SecureCommunication.html?expa
           | nda...
        
         | EwanToo wrote:
         | Fastmail does it all, you can have one user on the professional
         | price and others on the basic plan and share a custom domain
         | 
         | https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/
        
           | wrycoder wrote:
           | One downside, apparently you can't use their (great) app on
           | the basic plan and share the domain with the master user.
        
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