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Ask HN: Where do you host your own-domain email?
17 points by CodinM on Nov 22, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 44 comments
I've been using Google Apps/Google Suite for the past 10+ years, recently upon clicking the "Not Spam" button I had an email (from a govt agency no less) be gone from the account, the experience with support for a service I do pay for has been abysmal and I want to switch, but don't know where - especially given the integration Google has with everything nowadays. I have used Tuta before and did not enjoy it.



May I ask why you did not like Tuta? They now have unlimited email addresses for custom domains, which is pretty neat IMO: https://tuta.com/blog/summer-releases-2023


I've been using Tutanota for years, but now I'm looking to migrate due to the missing IMAP/POP3 Bridge, inability to easily export all emails and slow search performance - Old emails essentially become irretrievable.


Hi arran-nz, we plan to add batch-export in the near future. This how-to on how to export from the desktop clients will already help: https://tuta.com/support#generalMail

We also plan to re-build the search, as results on the browser are not good enough. In our apps (desktop & mobile) it works much better, please try search there!

Unfortunately, we can't build a bridge as this would leave your emails decrypted in a third-party client and open to tracking and vulnerabilities there. We can't allow that and promise maximum security at the same time... In the Tuta clients all your data is always encrypted.


I've been running my own mail server for 10 years. It fought me for nearly a year before I got it configured correctly, but since then I haven't had to do anything other than updates. Works great, no delivery issues and no spam to speak of.

I'd love to recommend running your own server, but I really don't. It's terrible and you'll hate it.

Also don't run your own server and let your boy/girlfriend to use it as their primary account unless you're cool with administrating your ex's email for the next decade.


I used to do this, but then I had to move and I moved my domain to Gmail “temporarily” so I could still get email while waiting for my isp at the new location. Short story is that I don’t miss the cognitive overhead and I’m still on Gmail.

How do you manage filtering spam?


Honestly, spam hasn't been much of a problem. Though I think it's more due to email hygiene than anything else. I use a random email for skectchy sites and have all emails to unregistered addresses drop into a folder in my personal account.

That traps pretty much everything other than the typical newsletter spam and recruitment emails.


I also self hosted my own email server but to be honest, even if you setup the server correctly and even if DNS and anything else is configured properly, some big player will reject your mails and you will have struggle to get your mails out of the spam for bigger companies. That takes even harder in place when you rent a new server with a maybe abused IP address. I switched some years ago for all work related stuff to a hosted exchange from Microsoft and pay around 5$ per month for one tenant. I never had problems with my mails being rejected or forwarded to spam anymore.

For sure you can host your own mail server and you can make it run with the most providers out there but you will always have some mailboxes you will not able to get your mails out of spam when you are a small player with a single mailserver.


Migadu has been good to me at $19/year for a couple domains, a few mailboxes and some decent features like distribution lists. They don't hard enforce limits and I've never come up or been warned about it.


Agreed. Opened thread just to recommend then.

Based in Switzerland and respects their laws.


Shortly after you posted this, it looks like their TLS certs expired. Checking my TLS-RPT bundles reveals 5 failures in the last couple days from Google.


I've been using Proton for a few years with my custom domains; no complaints so far.

Edit: Actually, when writing this I only had the web version in mind. I do have complaints about the Android app. It sometimes does not send an email and if you press the Send button again (because of no feedback/no idea if it's sending or not), it sometimes sends an _incomplete_ email. Which is actually a really big problem - I'm just lucky enough for it to be a rare occurrence because I usually only send email from desktop.


I've been a happy customer of protonmail for years. I exclusively use Android and have never experienced the issues described here when sending mail from the app. Obviously this is one person subjective view but I do recommend them as a company.


Thank you for sharing this. The Android app issues you are mentioning have been addressed in the new beta version, which you can download on Google Play Store. We plan to fully release it as soon as it's ready.


yep, the android app does not work. Proton had been working on a replacement for two years with little to no progress.

I have just migrated on to another provider because of Protons inability to provide a client on mobile (Downloading all my emails took 48 hours, indicating that Proton is doing what they can to hamper people ability to migrate away).

actually, their current Android app can potentially harm users: it will send previous unfinished versions of the email you are drafting resulting in the receiver getting bogus emails.


I tried it for many months but their web UI is super slow.


That doesn't sound right at all. Please report this to us at: https://proton.me/support/contact so we can look into it closely.


I use Google Apps now because the pricing for Googlers is too good to pass up (practically free, 48 times cheaper than iCloud+), but before that when I was being frugal I just set up gmail with my own domain (no payment required).

Instructions: https://paulonteri.com/thoughts/how-to/custom-domain-with-gm...

If your org is more than one person, this might get unwieldy.


When the recipient receives your emails, doesn't it show it was sent via the original Gmail account upon closer inspection?


Yes, the original email address appears in the headers (In gmail you can click "see full email" if I remember correctly)


FastMail is absolutely flawless. Their feature improvements are always on point as well.


Their web interface is great too. Faster than Thunderbird in my experience (I tried the latest Thunderbird on Windows yesterday on a relatively fast PC and it kept pausing randomly all the time)


I love Fastmail for my personal email but the spam filtering leaves a lot to be desired.

For my startup we tried to use it but had to move because of deliverability issues.


Agree that spam filtering out of the box could be improved. If you want advanced control then write a SIEVE script https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360060591373-How...

Deliverability issue are foreign to me. Never had an issue in over a decade. Did you configure everything properly? Also, ask their support about this with a concrete example. They’re very helpful.


Huh, moving from gmail to Fastmail one of my pleasant surprises was how much better spam filtering works.


icloud+ and custom domain works fine for me. icloud+ is $0.99/month and it comes with other features like hide my email (I didn’t know I need it until I discovered it) and extra space in iCloud storage (I don’t use it).


And iCloud private relay.


Fastamail

previously I used Proton but I recommend staying away form them at all costs.

1. their android app will send previous drafts and disregard your later edits. 2. That is if the android app even works. as other people reports, sometimes the send button does not respond. it also regularly just spins when trying to open an email. 3. they are discarding their Google reviews for their app. they used to have 20% 1 star reviews, which was reasonable.

in the end it seems they focus hard on marketing without maintaining their product. they have switched on the value extraction faucet.


1. This usually occurs when your connection is unstable so the new edits are not properly saved. Regarding the extremely rare bug where emails would be sent incomplete, this was addressed in the most recent beta version. 2. Most of the issues in the Proton Mail Android app have been addressed in the most recent beta, which you can download on Google Play Store. This applies to the Send button being unresponsive (another extremely rare issue, easily solved by exiting the app and opening it again, or clearing the app cache). 3. This is a false statement. We in fact cannot remove Google Play Store reviews of our apps, only the Play Store can do that.

We constantly maintain and update our products - only in the last quarter we have launched about a 100 of the most requested updates and fixes to Proton Mail and Proton Calendar apps.


1. It is not rare, you perfectly know about it, and did not mitigate. That is in itself critical

2. That story has been told for 2 years now

3. Regardless, this happened

Everything points towards proton is spending increasing amounts on marketing without being able to serve even basic functionality such as providing a mail client for the phone market – something is off.


I use ProtonMail, mostly via the web interface. I do have the Android app installed, but I rarely need to use it for writing emails, so I can't speak about it being broken.


Own mail server. For critical mails i have an posteo address.


I have personally used fastmail and I am happy.

I have personally felt Microsoft/Outlook service is better than Gmail. I have a couple of clients in shipping business, and they had issues with Gmail. Moved them to Outlook in 2018 and they are still happy.

Of recently, I have suggested Zoho to some clients. Its been good.


We use Migadu.


(since 2011) I'm self-hosting Postfix with dovecot through openvpn on Linode. I plan to release ansible playbook with my setup.


I've been enjoying purelymail quite a bit


Same here. I’ve been a happy customer for 2 years now after I switched over from mailbox.org

The webinterface looks like it could use some fresh paint but everything else is top notch. Also never had any issues regarding email reputation.


Me too. I started using Purelymail in July 2021 and it costs me $0.40 per month on average.


iCloud+ for me as part of Apple One. Works as expected although the spam filters are not as good as with Gmail.


I've been using 1and1 to host warot.com and whatever else I decide to tinker with, for over a decade


I have been using Proton Mail.


Fastmail


Fastmail.


Zoho


netcup webspace




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