
Ask HN: What is the most reliable email provider? - stanleysmall
I&#x27;ve heard of people having Gmail accounts suspended and recently my iCloud email address stopped receiving messages due to a billing issue. I have work and school emails, but I would like something longterm and reliable (preferably a third party provider). Does anyone have any suggestions?
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ColinWright
Get your own domain and host your own email on that. I use a small, family run
ISP, and while there are the occasional outages because they can't be
available 24/7, there is always someone I can talk to if there are problems.

The main problem with every big provider is that there is no one to talk to if
something is wrong, and sometimes the people you _do_ end up talking with are
about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

With your own domain you then have a long-term solution, as you can migrate
the domain to a different host if necessary. You can even host the domain and
then redirect your email to someone recognisable, like fastmail, protonmail,
or even gmail, changing the redirect if/when needed.

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greenyoda
There are several recommendations for alternate e-mail providers in the
comments of this article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759)
(Search for "fastmail", "protonmail", "tutanota", etc. to find the relevant
subthreads.)

I've been using fastmail.com for years, and have found it to be very reliable.
(As with many e-mail providers, you can use it with your own domain.)

You mentioned work e-mail. That's the least reliable e-mail of all for
anything non-work-related, since (1) you lose access to it immediately if
you're fired or laid off, or if the company closes, and (2) you have
absolutely no expectation of privacy (your employer can read or delete your
messages on a system that it owns - the messages are its property, not yours).

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mcrwfrd
Another vote for Fastmail. I've been using it with my own domain for the last
couple of years with zero problems.

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gtirloni
You could run your own mail server easily if it was just send/receive. But you
need spam/virus protection and that's 99% of the time spent on it.

You could subscribe to something like SpamHero and have it check the emails
for you. That's the only service I know. Does anyone know about good
alternatives?

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fnigi
I’m super happy with Runbox.com both from service prospective, business model
and location

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Spoom
Fastmail has been rock solid for my personal email for a number of years.

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saluki
Another vote for fastmail.

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seanwilson
Besides anecdotes, do you know how reliable Gmail is?

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catacombs
Gmail is great if you don't mind having a multi-billion conglomerate profiting
off your email data.

