
Ask HN: FastMail vs. ProtonMail? - doorbellguy
I&#x27;m looking to de-google myself and these are two services that impress me.<p>&gt;Fastmail offers 25 GB storage, full mobile sync with push: mail, contacts and calendars and your own domain name at $5&#x2F;month<p>&gt;Protonmail offers 5 GB storage, up to 1000 messages per day, send encrypted messages to external recipients, own domain and email aliases for 4€&#x2F;Month<p>These are the comparable plans - price wise, but I&#x27;m honestly unsure which one to try. Any personal comments are appreciated. If you use either, I&#x27;d love some feedback if you may.
======
lrsjng
From Wikipedia:

"ProtonMail maintains and owns its server hardware and network in order to
avoid trusting a third party. It maintains two data centres in Lausanne and
Attinghausen (in the former K7 military bunker under 1,000 meters of granite
rock) for redundancy. Since the data centres are located in Switzerland, they
are legally outside of US and EU jurisdiction. Under Swiss law, all
surveillance requests from foreign countries must go through a Swiss court and
are subject to international treaties. Prospective surveillance targets are
notified and can appeal the request in court."

"As of December 2018, FastMail and all other Australian companies are subject
to the Assistance and Access Bill, which compells them to provide backdoors
for accessing encrypted communications if warranted by law enforcement. The
company stated that concerns over the bill has affected their business."

~~~
closeparen
So ProtonMail responds to Swiss warrants, and Fastmail to Australian warrants.
Is either jurisdiction clearly better?

~~~
SheinhardtWigCo
The Australian ones come with a gag order.

------
robert_foss
FastMail has been sponsoring the development of JMAP, which is a modern
replacement to IMAP and SMTP. Naturally their service supports JMAP. This is
the first major step in modernizing email in a _long_ time.

There was a recent FOSDEM talk by the author about the recent IETF standards
ratification for JMAP[1].

[1]
[https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/email_standards/](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/email_standards/)

------
kitsunesoba
For me, ProtonMail’s inability to support standard clients without an awkward
bridge app completely kills it. One of email’s biggest positive points is its
client agnostic nature which makes it cheap and dead easy to use _anywhere_.
Being tied to a web client, as ubiquitous as web browsers may be, is a marked
downgrade.

~~~
oh_boy
That's what you get for privacy. Honestly, the bridge works so flawlessy on my
Mac and Linux machines, I don't mind that it is there.

~~~
bad_user
Except it is snakeoil.

------
badpun
I’ve recently switched to ProtonMail. Here are my takeaways:

\- web client and mobile clients are functional for day to day work.

\- IMAP integration (only in paid version) is a SNAFU and basically does not
work.

\- support responds to emails, but slowly (takes them 24-48 hours).

\- importing messages is possible via the (beta) ImportExport tool. The tool
is not 100% stable yet, so prepare to waste half a day on it.

Honestly, I was disappointed by how some of their software is garbage (esp.
the IMAP integration). As security starts with good software practices, it
makes me wonder if their service is actually that secure...

~~~
tradertef
Similar observations. However, I have not tried to use IMAP or Import
function. For IMAP, you need to use another software which does the encryption
and communication with the server one one side and provides IMAP server to
your application on the other side. So, it is an artifact of security
application and not because they can not do straight IMAP. Overall, I am happy
though..

~~~
badpun
Yep, I was talking about that special software for IMAP (Protonmail Bridge),
which they provide and which is very broken.

------
m33k44
There is also tutanota.com based in Germany. There pricing is here:
[https://tutanota.com/pricing](https://tutanota.com/pricing)

~~~
satan9
I use tutanota and they are great! More free strange space than proton mail
too (1 gb).

edit: I didn't release how cheap the premium was and just upgraded.

~~~
laurentl
> More free strange space

I love this typo!

------
LinuxBender
Both are very usable. I set both up for people that I care enough about to get
them away from Google.

Both are monitored and subject to government requests. I see this discussion a
lot, but if you aren't running the mail server, you won't know when someone is
reading your emails. It is on the end users to encrypt the payload (gpg,
7-zip, etc...)

Just my own opinion, as I have a deep rooted devious streak and worked for big
brother. Don't trust a mail providers payload encryption. Do it yourself.

Both of them occasionally have hiccups on their web infrastructure according
to my monitoring tools. Consider using an IMAPs client if you have concerns
about availability.

------
benlawraus
Fastmail has DKIM, static webpage, shared email folders, DNS and more. Support
is also very good. Choose fastmail

------
asdfasdfad
My experience with protonmail as a personal email is great. However, my
experience with their paid service as a business email has been less than
stellar. I had to switch to fastmail because I was disappointed with their
service.

For one, if they automatically lock your account, there is no way to access
your email. Setting up the bridge for your email client is a pain, so no one
really uses it. The customer support only replies one email per day no matter
the emergency.

The second is that every alias is extra cash. In fastmail, you can create any
amount of alias and its the same price. Their emails are super fast, and you
can tell they have lots of business clients from their excellent customer
support.

If you have multiple users, its much more cumbersome to setup those emails as
the master admin in protonmail. In fastmail, you are just a few clicks away.

So in conclusion. Use protonmail for your personal email. Use fastmail for
business emails.

------
sunstone
Being banned by Russia has to be a vote of confidence for ProtonMail.

~~~
tracker1
was just going to mention not being able to recieve mail from .ru addresses
via ProtonMail.

------
Aeolun
My experience is that Protonmail works, and that Fastmail works great.

In the end the performance tradeoffs for Protonmail were just not worth it to
me.

------
OJFord
Related: when you run out of storage, what's the best way to archive old
emails?

Currently I just save .eml to standard backups (not offline, but not email-
connected in any way).

I suppose my ideal setup would be some sort of secondary IMAP server that I
run, serving archived emails from disk, that clients can access and
transparently merge with the primary server provided by the email provider.

Is anything similar possible? Anything better than what I'm doing today?

------
chrismeller
There are other non-Google options... Not sure if the storage is necessarily
comparable, but Rackspace starts at $3, Microsoft $4, Zoho at €1.

While Rackspace seems like a company on a downward slide I’ve used their email
before and it was solid. Microsoft of course is Microsoft, everyone knows what
Exchange is like and it’s up to you if you want them to have your data. I have
no experience with Zoho, but they’re definitely the cheapest.

------
josteink
Apples and oranges.

ProtonMail has focus on security, encryption and privacy.

FastMail has focus on features, standards-support and end-user experience.

As always: Pick what suits your needs best.

------
exolymph
I haven't used ProtonMail, and I don't have much of substance to say about
FastMail except that I'm a happy customer. The recent Australia backdoor thing
concerns me, but I'll wait to see what the company does. FastMail already has
access to all of my data anyway, but I didn't sign on for silent government
access at the same time...

Edit: I use Gmail at work and much as it pains me, I have to say that I prefer
Gmail's interface.

------
elliotec
I really like ProtonMail. I switched last month. Protonvpn is good too. I’ve
had no problems at all.

The security/privacy stuff is what does it for me. Just knowing that they are
serious about redundancy and are in a bunker in Switzerland makes it feel like
a Swiss bank account with that famously Swiss sense of privacy and security.
Love it.

------
aidenn0
I am a happy fastmail user. I've had zero issues using it for several years.

------
xupybd
My only issue with Proton Mail is that so many sites don't allow me to sign up
with a Proton Mail address. They seem more than happy to accept Gmail but for
some reason don't like Proton Mail.

~~~
m-p-3
Mind to name and shame?

~~~
xupybd
The first one was Instagram. I tried too many times and had my IP blocked from
signing up with Instagram.

------
rak00n
> 1000 messages per day

Most people should get more than thousand emails everyday if they sign up for
any service anywhere with that email address.

------
cerberusss
Or Zoho for $1/month.

