What Are Your Favorite Alternatives to Gmail or Outlook? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- labs64-netlicensing · 2023-11-12 08:46 I'm contemplating taking control of my email by moving away from mainstream providers like Gmail or Outlook. What self-hosted email services have you tried, and which ones do you find most reliable and user-friendly? Are there any challenges or advantages you've encountered in making the switch? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nibbl0r · 2023-11-12 09:25 Dovecot, Postfix, Roundcube ---------------------------------------------------------------------- josemcornynetoperek · 2023-11-12 09:43 And rspamd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LeeHide · 2023-11-12 10:00 Fastmail, all the way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 10:14 Exchange ---------------------------------------------------------------------- huffiy · 2023-11-12 10:29 Mail in a box or poste.io ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rnlagos · 2023-11-12 10:38 Modoboa + Thunderbird ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kuzared · 2023-11-12 10:39 Wouldn’t the cost be prohibitive for selfhosting? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mnopw · 2023-11-12 10:44 This is a joke, isn't it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 10:50 No, why? Exchange is very good groupware for email, contacts and calendar. I'm using and providing exchange since almost 20 years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 10:52 No 🏴‍☠️, we talk selfhosted, not business. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- firebird789 · 2023-11-12 10:52 Alternatively if you use SOGo for groupware/webmail it serves Exchange ActiveSync. No windows server needed! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- firebird789 · 2023-11-12 11:04 Mailcow is pretty straightforward to setup and has good documentation. No matter what you choose though be prepared to put a decent amount of work into it. I also recommend using an SMTP relay like SendGrid or Mailgun. That way you don't have to worry about deliverability as much. If you're not planning on sending a lot of email (<100 emails a day for SendGrid) you can use their free tiers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 11:17 Not 100% though because CalDAV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- akerro · 2023-11-12 11:19 how do i selfhost it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brakels · 2023-11-12 11:33 Ha, I was about to say the same thing, but OP is asking about self- hosted. I personally would rather pay Fastmail to deal with running a reputable and secure email server, and make sure it doesn’t get abused by spammers or blocked by the big players in the space. Email is an old, fragile, and fraught technology. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok_Construction4430 · 2023-11-12 11:46 I wouldnt selfhost my e-mail. You will quickly be blacklisted since your server wont have a good reputation and will have issues sending out emails to peers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kurucu83 · 2023-11-12 11:50 Second vote for MAIB. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FateOfNations · 2023-11-12 11:51 Might not be the answer you are looking for: I would strongly advise against self-hosting your main email, especially if you are thinking about doing it on an IP address from a residential ISP or VPS/cloud provider. Unfortunately those kind of addresses have bad reputations for spam, and you will run in to significant deliverability issues at minimum. Some providers flat out block port 25, which makes sending and receiving unauthenticated email impossible (which is required to operate an “email provider”). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kurucu83 · 2023-11-12 11:52 I self hosted my email for years. This happened twice, and it was easily resolved on both occasions without any issues. As long as you set up your DNS correctly, and don’t send any spam (it’s for family use, right?), you’ll be absolutely fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Affectionate-Fig-805 · 2023-11-12 12:00 SOGo, for activesync support. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- estevez__ · 2023-11-12 12:03 You can't ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alex2003super · 2023-11-12 12:17 I assume you don't interact with outlook.com mailboxes a lot ---------------------------------------------------------------------- joschi83 · 2023-11-12 12:19 https://mailbox.org/ and https://tuta.com/ are pretty neat providers. After hosting my own email in the 1990s-2010s, I've been cured of that and rather give some dedicated vendor a few bucks a year to take care of all the headaches for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cusco · 2023-11-12 12:21 Why? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- copyrip · 2023-11-12 12:26 Thunderbird ! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- maximilian_-__-_ · 2023-11-12 12:41 Proton Mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bermudi86 · 2023-11-12 13:02 I love these pessimistic, ignorant takes because at the end of the day I get more money running (setting and basically forgetting) email servers for paranoid people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- YioUio · 2023-11-12 13:05 email is a critical service, better to use third party and not self host, at least the main email. Proton, FastMail, Tuta, and recently skiff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FalseRegister · 2023-11-12 13:07 I found a lot of good info in r/degoogle Ended up with MailFence ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Adures_ · 2023-11-12 13:20 To "take control of your email" I recommend buying your own domain, but not self-hosting. Having your own domain will allow you to migrate from one email provider to the other, as you stop being locked in to them with their domain. If you do not want to use Google or Microsoft, I recommend [mailbox.org](https://mailbox.org) (used this one for a long time, but had to change, because I wanted to send emails from my aliases). Tutanota is also good choice. Protonmail is also there as one of the more popular alternatives to Microsoft and Google, but I find them too expensive. Why am I not recommending self-hosting email on self-hosting reddit? Unlike other services, which you can host at your home (which simplifies a lot of stuff and allow you to avoid subscription), you pretty much need VPS for selfhosting email. If your needs are simple, both [mailbox.org](https://mailbox.org) and tutanota will cover your email needs for 3 euro per month. You don't have to think about security, spam, email delivery, building trust with other email providers. It's their responsibility, not yours. Good luck doing it cheaper on VPS. ​ I personally use M365 business basic, it's very reliable but exchange online might not be user friendly. However price to value ratio is just unbeatable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Faith-in-Strangers · 2023-11-12 13:27 Proton ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SillyLilBear · 2023-11-12 13:30 Skiff.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JohnnyGiraffe · 2023-11-12 13:30 I try to avoid serial killers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Arphenyte · 2023-11-12 13:34 MXroute ---------------------------------------------------------------------- solarsparq · 2023-11-12 13:37 I bought into Fastmail about 10 years ago (for 7 years) & recently moved to Proton about 5 years ago. Both are excellent privacy-first providers. Gmail is my junk e-mail at this point. Good recommendation. Australia-based business. Fastmail & Proton are my votes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NiftyLogic · 2023-11-12 13:38 Agree with Proton Mail, awesome service. Was thinking about self-hosting my email server, but Proton is just €40/year for me. Even if I value my time at only €20/hour, that means I have just two hours per year to fix issues with my email to break even. Sure, this is /r/selfhosted, but issues with email are usually not some config changes on my side, which can be easily resolved by rolling back my latest changes from git. Most of the issues arise from some asshat at email provider X deciding that I'm no longer trusted and blacklisting me. Resolving that issue is more like office politics than tinkering with my setup. Pretty happy if I can live my non-work life without any additional office politics. Thanks, but no thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flunky_liversniffer · 2023-11-12 13:38 3rd for MIAB. I use Linode. I believe most ISP's restrict access to mail ports so running at home is probably not possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scalyblue · 2023-11-12 13:42 Trust me you do not want to point an MX record at your houses IP. It’s a terrible idea, do t do it, I don’t have the energy to qualify that statement but just trust me, don’t. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rbooris · 2023-11-12 13:46 What about a VPS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bzImage · 2023-11-12 13:47 5 usd a year vpc.. and host your own domain and mailserver ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Keanne1021 · 2023-11-12 13:53 Proxing the OWA? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EnricoSuavePallazzo · 2023-11-12 13:57 [Purelymail.com](https://Purelymail.com) \-- based on a similar thread here 6 months ago. They are very affordable, and I have 5 different domains hosted with them. They only bill based on traffic and storage. I liked being able to have multiple domains without any additional charges. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ayoungblood84 · 2023-11-12 14:04 They have a process to get whitelisted. I've been self hosting for 2 years w/o issue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-12 14:13 There is the middle ground of retrieving your mail from a mail Provider and serving it from a self hosted IMAP. That way you don't handle in- outgoing smtp but handle it locally. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- smileymattj · 2023-11-12 14:16 Rackspace gets blacklisted exactly twice a year, like clockwork. So how’s it any worse? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- phein4242 · 2023-11-12 14:17 I personally run an openbsd box with opensmtp+dovecot+rspam, and rainloop on top. Almost zero maintenance and delivery straight into the inbox on all major providers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- palijn · 2023-11-12 14:19 Zoho Mail is a quite powerful solution for a few bucks a year. Not self-hosted, but for largely the same reasons others did, I gave up with email several years ago and am happy to offload the headaches to someone else. (Before someone jumps in with a hint at my lack of expertise making it harder than normal, I had successfully managed email infrastructures since the mid-90's and can even remember the SENDMAIL macro juggle-jungle... with actually no particular fondness 😉) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 14:27 ActiveSync and OWA. Exchange behind MTA for SMTP of course and no IMAP or POP3, only ActiveSync. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- su1ka · 2023-11-12 14:28 My setup is: Namesilo for domains Hetzner VPS with autobackup Mailcow selfhosted. (Few manual updates with backups per year). Just copy paste steps from Obsidian notes Cloudflare DNS just in case of ddos etc. I have 3 domains with maybe 6 emails and catch em all. I do not send/receive a lot. Maybe 5-10 emails per day. Most of them are notifications from systems. All good. I'm happy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ddpbsd · 2023-11-12 14:37 Postfix or opensmtpd and dovecot probably ---------------------------------------------------------------------- emperorralphatine · 2023-11-12 14:41 this is the way if you have a little patience and aren't afraid to learn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gowithflow192 · 2023-11-12 14:50 If you self host you are at the behest of your domain registrar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sinister_Crayon · 2023-11-12 15:21 Personally I DO self-host... and I have very few problems. I get blacklisted occasionally but it's not been a huge concern and is usually only the low-priority blacklists... I did have to go through jumping through hoops early on to get my IP accepted but I haven't had problems in years. For my mail server these days I use [Docker Mailserver](https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver). It's really complete as a server (no frontend though) for setting up a really good IMAP/SMTP server. I have a full docker swarm cluster running here that keeps it VERY reliable. For a frontend on my desktop I use Evolution or Thunderbird (I'm a Linux user). For a web frontend I have a few I have played with. My current "primary driver" is [Snappymail](https://snappymail.eu/) acting as a plugin to my [NextCloud](https://nextcloud.com/) instance. However I've had good experiences using [E-Groupware](https://www.egroupware.org/en) which is VERY feature complete as an Outlook alternative. Hope that helps! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Keanne1021 · 2023-11-12 15:24 Ah ok, activesync and owa which both uses HTTPS. The last time I played with nginx and owa, It's not playing very nicely. But this was years years ago. Can you point me in a documentation wherein an updated nginx config that works for both owa and activesync exist? Might come in handy, who knows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thehoffau · 2023-11-12 15:27 Zoho. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mikandesu · 2023-11-12 15:33 It's currently on yearly black friday offer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agilelion00 · 2023-11-12 15:43 Shouldn't be self hosting email. Need to stick to professionals ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thutex · 2023-11-12 15:45 i've been running my own mailserver for about 10 years. last time i've had to look at it was 2y ago (and that was because i was using quite strict blocklists, had 1 not 'optimally configured', and that one discontinued service, causing me to be forced to remove it from my list) honestly, once it is running as you need it to, and you have all the regulars set up for your domain (dmarc/dkim/spf) it's not all that much work. blacklisting is pretty much a non-issue if you are using a decent provider (i.e. one that does not have 100 spammers on its network) and you are not spamming out yourself. in 10 years i've had 1 or 2 blacklists - both from long before i was using dkim/dmarc/spf and also both due to the ip range (which was fairly straightforward to get my own ip out of the list) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thutex · 2023-11-12 15:50 blue is right that self-hosting mail on your residential connection is a bad idea. using a decent vps provider, no issue at all. there used to be (might still be but i dont remember the url) a service where you could check the ip reputation for entire netblocks, giving you a quick overview of what provider you'd better stay away from if you want to send mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thutex · 2023-11-12 15:52 self hosted mailserver here (on an old, dedicated vps)... just dovecot/postfix/mysql and the usual (amavis & spamassasin) - if i need to add/edit/delete users or domains, that's just a bash script. there's lots of other options already mentioned, but you could also consider aws for this: you set your domain up with them (or verify it), set SES to forward inbound mails to wherever you want, and set your mailclient to send out through ses. antispam & dkim/dmarc/spf included. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nassiel · 2023-11-12 15:53 Maddy self hosted + Blue mail as client for phone. But be ready to be DMARC compliant :) not difficult just annoying. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElevenNotes · 2023-11-12 16:00 Sure, if I remember this post I will post my config for Nginx. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ohv_ · 2023-11-12 16:16 Eh Exchange ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brilliant_Sound_5565 · 2023-11-12 16:28 I looked into this a few years ago, decided it wasn't worth the hassle, I did look into other providers, in the end I was lazy and in the end I stayed on Gmail, although I am thinking of shifting still, I won't be self hosting it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- viseradius · 2023-11-12 16:34 I prefer MxRoute. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chilanvilla · 2023-11-12 16:55 iCloud mail is working great for me and it's totally free. Apple does the hosting, you'll need to own your own domain, and you can use one email address with it (not sure if here is a way around that). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- itsupport_engineer · 2023-11-12 17:09 Zextras Carbonio \[ https://zextras.com/carbonio \] self hosted all the way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brilliant_Sound_5565 · 2023-11-12 17:21 I'll second that ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joyfulsinner · 2023-11-12 17:55 I’m sorry but a statement like this make me not trust you at all. Take an strangers word for something with no evidence…. This is how a mob of ignorant people do stupid things. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UNITY_NP · 2023-11-12 18:30 mail.com or gmx ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VentiSkinny · 2023-11-12 19:02 skiff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VentiSkinny · 2023-11-12 19:03 Skiff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nixblu · 2023-11-12 19:07 Unfortunately it’s slowly becoming deprecated (I think) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Girgoo · 2023-11-12 19:17 Posted.io is simpel and lightweight ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoustonBOFH · 2023-11-12 19:22 >Send your marketing emails from somewhere else and you'll never have issues I would not say "never." Microsoft regularly gets a wild hair up its assets, and blocks random people. When you are hosted, it is someone else's problem. When you self host, it is yours. Like all self hosting... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoustonBOFH · 2023-11-12 19:26 Not sure why this was downvoted. Just started playing with Modoboa and I am impressed. Instead of downvoting, they should have commented why. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- d4nowar · 2023-11-12 19:35 Don't self host email if you value your time at all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoustonBOFH · 2023-11-12 19:37 The problem with selfhosting email, is that unlike other self hosted things, it lives in a distributed system. It has to talk with other mail servers and they have to talk back. The second part is hard due to spam measures... For just the software side, you have a few options. Mail cow, iRedmail, and Mailinabox are very popular. Linuxbabe has instruction on how to build it from scratch using postfix. (Good to learn, but a LOT of work) But recently I stumbled on Modoboa. It does not need docker, so you can run it alone. It is not split foss with everything good behind a paywall. And it does not install unneeded apps like DNS for no reason. But keep in mind that I have only evaluated it so far and not yet put it in production. Now for the other needs... To receive mail, you will need a static IP. Theoretically, you can get by with a dynamic DNS, but it will not go well. Your IP will change, and it will still be cached and you will lose email. To send mail... (This is a lot more) You will need a clean static IP, with a fqdn and ptr record matching. It will need to be clean, and not in a blocked range of IPs. You will also need SPF and DKIM records, and may need dmarc. And you will need to warm up the mail server and maintain it's cleanliness. Or you can contract out your outbound to other companies like MXroute. If you farm out your outbound, it eliminates most of the complaints above. If you have the skill, you may be able to only route Microsoft and Google destined email, and direct deliver the rest yourself. (I am working on this) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PaulEngineer-89 · 2023-11-12 19:37 Disagree with 99% of the other posts. If you self-host your email it is archived on your system. So-called “private” email isn’t after 6 months in the US. And it is more stable and higher performance to run my own Roundcube webmail on my own server. And I can control the spam filtering. All reasons to host your own. However there is some “maintenance” involved with unscrupulous black list sites and overzealous email filter software. Google likes to declare basically everything not coming from their buddies as spam Microsoft wants you to kiss the ring. On a work account just this week I tried contacting a German company called Beckhoff and after just 3 “dead” email accounts from previous contacts they decided to ban my entire company (about 100 employees, been in business over 75 years). They also don’t answer their phones. Not sure if they’re still in business or just being German jerks. As a result of their poor performance we may switch to a competitor. I do not put up with that crap. Also I’m not sure how to phrase this politely but despite promises unless you are using PGP to end-to-end encrypt your email, and even then it’s not 100%, you can’t ever totally make it private. Also it is impossible to totally ensure identity of the sender although we’ve come a long way. Protonmail recently published how they delivered a criminal to the authorities using the small amount of public information they log. As a result I do agree that you should let someone else deal with the black listers, bans, etc. But I strongly disagree with keeping it on a remote server more than about 10 minutes. That means one of three options (for receiving: 1. If you have a static ipv4 IP use the email service on Cloudflare to act as a mail relay and forward email to your server. Thus Cloudflare’s reputation not yours is what matters. 2. If you don’t have a static address, you can rent a VPS. Low end box (lowendbox.com) has some great coupons all the time. You can get easily under $12/year. In this case tunnel from your actual server to the VPS. We really don’t “need” the VPS. 3. Pay for a forwarding server. I used Dynu in the past. Never had an issue. It was I think $10/year. Again this assumes you have an accessible server on a static or dynamic ip. And you are basically paying for what Cloudflare does for free. 4. Pay for webmail. Again Dynu is $20. Then just program your local webmail to call imap and download everything say every 5 minutes. But it limits you to ONE user or each user doing their own thing. On server dovecot and sendmail work well. Roundcube looks exactly like an improved gmail. For sending I use smtp2go. At my low usage entire family is free. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- factulas · 2023-11-12 20:57 Being this is self hosted, I have heard great things about redmail once you get it configured. Soon, to give it a shot. Made it past my 15GB on Google and would rather pay for a droplet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Artemis__ · 2023-11-12 21:26 What is becoming deprecated? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MRobi83 · 2023-11-12 21:37 If you're just looking for an e-mail client to replace outlook, I use Wanderbird. It's a containerized version of thunderbird. Could also use a kasm workspace for thunderbird. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- t1nk3rz · 2023-11-12 22:02 Protonmail free, focused on security based in Switzerland,i used it for the last couple of years as a Gmail alternative ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Vogete · 2023-11-12 22:30 That's the best part. You don't! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- speedcuber111 · 2023-11-12 22:37 I'm getting tired of not having IMAP/SMTP access with Protonmail. How would you recommend Fastmail? Anything negative? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zekthedeadcow · 2023-11-12 23:21 I got a 10 year credit due to a server outage that I didn't even notice. Dude takes his service seriously. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MammothMarch · 2023-11-12 23:28 Proton mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deathmeter · 2023-11-12 23:30 I agree with not selfhosting mail. Though it's not because I think it should be left to a professional, but because it's the one thing you can't have break and it's also the one thing that's very easy to mess up. Especially with ip based reputation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElRayoPeronizador · 2023-11-12 23:30 A few years ago after moving all my email to fastmail they were the target of some attacks and I was without mail for a couple of weeks. So, back to gmail, but I will probably try again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PirateParley · 2023-11-12 23:33 Nothing at all. Have been using for 1 year and they have everything I wanted. Best thing is creating alias when you compose. Most of them require to have aliase (limited with most services) when you send email. For fastmail, you can do right where you are composing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deathmeter · 2023-11-12 23:34 My biggest complaint is there's no option to completly block an email from delivery instead of accepting it and sending it to spam. Something protonmail _very_ recently added. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PlanetaryUnion · 2023-11-13 00:12 I use Zoho for my domain email, no complaints. I used to use name cheap since that was my registrar but their new spam filter system was horrible so I switched. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kaksoluta · 2023-11-13 00:19 This has nothing to do with 'professionals' but that the so called professionals have this little cartel of delivering mail to each other. A decent r/selfhosted operator getting spf,smart, dkim right should not be blocked, treated as spam because it originates from a residential up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shadowimmage · 2023-11-13 00:28 To add to this, get a domain and let Proton handle your email to/from that domain. You'll always be able to move your email address to another provider if you decide you don't like Proton, or want something else. It also should get you around what others have mentioned about proton being blocked by some services. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacob_Evans · 2023-11-13 00:35 Was gonna say this too. I pay for Proton Unlimited and am very happy with my choice ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joyfulsinner · 2023-11-13 01:07 I setup my own email a couple weeks ago. I took me about a whole day to do and I learned a bunch from this project. If you like to learn and tinker I would suggest to setup your own email server. if you dont want to tinker and you want something super easy I would suggest to go with one of the easier methods I used [this tutorial](https://samhobbs.co.uk/2014/03/raspberry-pi- email-server) it explains everything in great detail and if you follow it step by step you will have a working email server. although the ssl certificate part didnt work for me and i used letsencrypt. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scara-manga · 2023-11-13 01:13 Will just mention this as it doesn't appear below: a VPS running Hestia control panel works pretty well and is easy to set up. Although it's a web AND mail control panel, you don't have to use the web bit. Sets up everything in ten mins with a bash script. Includes DKIM, clamAV, spamassassin, sieve, and a choice of webmails. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bermudi86 · 2023-11-13 02:01 I don't know. I see Microsoft blocking legitimate emails as Microsoft's clients' problem and I usually treat it like such. As a an email server admin, your job is to keep the inboxes clean, the server up so it can receive emails and keep up with your DMARC, SPF and DKIM so you send legitimate emails. Other servers misbehaving are other sysadmins problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Madh2orat · 2023-11-13 02:55 After realizing that outlook family plan will no longer allow custom domains I’m in the market for a new solution. I’m willing to pay some money, but It’s hard to beat what outlook was offering, especially since I only needed 5 accounts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reviewmynotes · 2023-11-13 03:01 If you know what you're doing, MailCheap is an option. I picked that a few years ago and MXroute was a very close second choice for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TiG_Wolf · 2023-11-13 03:28 [https://proton.me/](https://proton.me/) is the direction I have recently chosen to migrate away from Gmail. They natively support PGP (for the super paranoid) and also has extra perks like VPN and their own version of Drive. Is it truly any more secure than Google? Who really knows, but I am tired of Google scraping thru my emails to fish out directed advertising. It would be one thing if the accounts were unpaid and this was just another way to generate revenue for the service, but with the amount of storage utilized, it was paid for (on multiple accounts). Proton provided a nice feature to import all the Gmail information including contacts and calendar. There was one oddity with importing into the calendar, thinking it had something to do with the way Google ties contact info into calendar (birthdays and such). There are many choices, even rolling your own mail server if you have the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CaffeinatedTech · 2023-11-13 03:59 poste.io is really easy to setup, and manage. They do have some higher-end features locked behind the pro version though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok_Tax_2849 · 2023-11-13 04:14 Just need to check it first (port 25) and use providers with good reputation. Many years I got many VPS-based mailservers without any problems with IP block or similar problems. Just need to make initial setup of you server correctly. Reputation services are not banning big ranges of IP addresses because of one stupid-spam server in providers network. But if you can't deny free relay on your host, it's just your problem and no problem of your provider. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok_Tax_2849 · 2023-11-13 04:32 poste.io is very good for simple things Very simple to deploy, human-friendly managed and contained some features for general use. And it perfectly works in just one docker-container. Also I can recommend iredmail for more "general" set of components in one package. It has minimal GUI for administration, but you may change some settings by database requests. You may write some useful scripts or use adminer for it. I like to use VPS for self-hosted e-mail server. It's more simple than organizing very stable power for your server, organizing second internet channel for reserve and ask your ISP to make PTR record... I just making backup from VPS to my server in home by VPN between them. Other scheme is using proxy on VPS-server to server in home. In this scenario you will have to organize VPN channel to VPS from your home. And you will need to setup some necessary routing. Therefore you will not need static IP on 2 ISP channels in home and you can use very cheap VPS server for this task. This scheme will be good only if you possible to setup and support this system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thetayoo · 2023-11-13 04:55 I use MIAB. hosted on digital ocean. but for some reason, most emails i send nd receive end up going to spam and I was unable to figure out why. ANy ideas? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexfornuto · 2023-11-13 05:10 If you're not hosting yourself (don't), Zoho is my suggestion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GuySensei88 · 2023-11-13 05:30 I really like Zoho mail. It’s free to setup with your own domain email. I get 5 inboxes for free, which would be enough for a small business. They get 5GB of storage for free. They don’t allow mail clients to be used outside of their own mail clients which is good enough for me unless you pay a subscription. They have both a desktop and mobile app for their mail service. So far, I’ve used it for personal business and it’s not getting spammed to death. I would love to start a business by providing IT applications, mail setup services and hardware services for existing local businesses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Party_Sundae_9677 · 2023-11-13 06:46 Skiff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LeeHide · 2023-11-13 07:55 yeah, theres no selfhosted email that has any benefits over fastmail, in my opinion, if you regularly have to contact people you dont know or write to government offices etc. They will block most of your selfhosted stuff if they even just smell it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LeeHide · 2023-11-13 07:58 You pay them, they selfhost it, and your email will arrive when you are in a bad spot and need that one email to arrive NOW ;) just dont selfhost your email, its not that fun and there are pretty much no benefits. If you dont need email for anything important, just for receiving spam, then fair enough but i dont know anyone like that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- akerro · 2023-11-13 08:09 Ive been selfhosting email since 2010 and dont have any major issues ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2023-11-13 08:24 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LeeHide · 2023-11-13 08:24 If you start self hosting email now, with not very much experience, im pretty confident you will end up blocklisted very quickly. Of course its technically possible for someone who knows what theyre doing, and especially if you started early enough that your mail server predates google or something, youd probably have no issues. But thats not the people who come here to this thread looking for answers, so my suggestion to them is 'dont try' because its not that fun IMO and it can be very frustrating to debug if you get blocklisted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr_Fu_Man_Chu · 2023-11-13 08:37 Selfhosting is always best. I just cannot trust remote providers with my mails. Only caviat is you usually need a small server with static IP, most providers block emails delivered from ISPs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- terramot · 2023-11-13 09:16 I can't remember if it was Proton, but i remember reading about some laws being approved where (I think) Proton servers are that would make them comply for disclosure if necessary. Not that it matters much unless you're doing illegal stuff, i believe i found this while researching the differences between Tuta and Proton. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lucaprinaorg · 2023-11-13 09:42 Most reliable and easy to setup is a full Mail server with OpenBSD + OpenSMTPD + Dovecot + Rspamd + let's encrypt acme-client following step by step this simple guide: [https://poolp.org/posts/2019-09-14/setting-up-a-mail-server-with- opensmtpd-dovecot-and- rspamd/](https://poolp.org/posts/2019-09-14/setting-up-a-mail-server- with-opensmtpd-dovecot-and-rspamd/) ([poolp.org](https://poolp.org) it's the creator of OpenSMTPD just to say...) no webmail at all, just use your mail client (Thunderbird, Mail.app, Outlook, ...) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ZAFJB · 2023-11-13 11:37 On-Prem Exchange Server. Way better than anything else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ZAFJB · 2023-11-13 11:48 > The last time I played with nginx and owa You don't need nginx in front of owa. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jamesthethirteenth · 2023-11-13 11:52 I use postfix, dovecot and snappymail. Very happy. I already had a well-configured postfix (DKIM, DMARC) for web applications, so adding dovecot was easy. It's also really powerful, you can define who gets mailboxes in scripts. I tried going with providers but I couldn't get this kind of power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrSliff84 · 2023-11-13 12:25 Self hosting with mailcow. Alternatively proton.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Keanne1021 · 2023-11-13 13:10 we played with nginx + waf (owasp) protecting owa ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Low-Chapter5294 · 2023-11-13 14:03 This is a generalization that not useful to keep repeating. Better advice would be check to be sure YOUR ISP allows access to the ports you need. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lowlowsomehow · 2023-11-13 17:55 The IP is probably blacklisted. I think contact support of who’s emails it’s going to ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ybizeul · 2023-11-14 07:43 Been running self hosted for ages, Kerio and then mailcow for the last few years. Don’t underestimate the resources needed my a mail server when it comes with antispam bundled. Mailcow is pretty neat full featured and easy to setup. Here is the twist : self hosting your email is nice and a great learning experience but murphy’s law is a bitch and it’s always when your internet goes down that you need some kind of email 2FA or you’re waiting for a critical email. For that reason I move my domain to iCloud+ (I have a Apple One subscription for the family) and frankly it’s been great. You get secure 2FA by default with iCloud integration and you can also generate applications specific passwords for your products that need to send emails in a lab. I know it’s not what you’re asking hence the first part of my answer, just be careful when you decide to self host emails.