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Ask HN: Good email host?

48 points by frequentlywrong ↗ HN
Anyone know of a good IMAP host that I can use with my own domain?

Fastmail is good, but quite pricey (cheapest option if you have your own domain is $3.61 a month, and that's if you pay three years in advance. On top of that comes the price of the domain).

For privacy reasons I don't want to use Gmail, and I don't want to use my own server.

Zoho might be an option, but it's unclear to me whether or not it is an Indian company (the Wikipedia page is unclear regarding that), and it's unclear to me whether or not there are possible privacy concerns with Indian email hosts.

70 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] thread
wje
Run your own!
TheOtherHobbes
Postfix.

Not a miracle of simplicity to set up, but so far it's been bullet-proof while running.

pantalaimon
I still don't get why the configuration for something as simple as mail has to be such a hassle.
girzel
Yup. It took me a couple of weeks of slow reading to make sure I was doing it exactly right (this included me learning how email works on a deeper level than I had before), but once I launched I've had no problems whatsoever, and so far really no maintenance (what there has been has been spamassassin-related).

Sometimes I think someone could build something on top of postfix that simply made executive decisions about security policies, and exposed a much-simplified subset of configuration options to the user.

On the other hand, once you know how all the mapping and rewriting systems work, it's actually a real pleasure to make use of them.

sakopov
I thought there is a high chance of getting blocked by spam filters if you're not using a reputable email host. Is this true at all?
girzel
I've been running two domains for about a year and a half, and have only once been spam-canned. This only happened recently, and I haven't been able to get hold of the guy to ask what email system he's using, and whether there was any report of why my mails were marked as spam. I'm very curious to have that information.

I went through the whole rigmarole of reverse-DNS and SPF. I also started very gingerly in the beginning -- for a few weeks it was no bulk emails and trying to mostly email personal contacts. But I've never had any trouble until now.

Feld0
+1 for "running your own". I have a cPanel license on a personal server and it handles a lot of the rigamarole. Once you have DKIM and SPF set up, it practically runs itself.

The network your IP is in makes a difference. My mail server is currently at OVH, which is a good enough neighbourhood for Mailjet to have built an email business there.

I very occasionally have an email bounce back (once a year or less). The bounce message typically includes information on exactly why it bounced and how to contact the receiving server's operator to figure it out.

The vast majority of the work goes into the the initial setup, which takes an evening if you're using a packaged mail stack. [1]

[1] If you want a free packaged mail stack, here's a FOSS one: http://www.iredmail.org I have no experience with it but have heard good things.

KayL
Only if you using it for spam-like email marketing. With correct SPF and DKIM config, also dedicated IP, it would be no problems at all.
ranger207
There's still a chance. I've been running my personal email myself as a learning project for a couple of years now, and the only time I've had problems was when I emailed a bunch of people on the same domain at once. Other than setup and dealing with that one bulk email, it's just normal systems administration: updates, backups, and monitoring.
asdfghjkpoijh
False. Use a dedicated IP and don't send spam and you're fine (if you don't trust your users, run spamassassin in both directions).

Google will complain about deliveries if you don't have IPv6 records. Everything else: DKIM, SPF, etc is optional and helpful.

Simple greylisting works wonders to block incoming spam.

solidgumby
You should not have any problems until you start having problems and then you will deeply regret thinking that running your own mail server was a neat idea. My advice: don't host your own email server unless it's your core business or you're big company, your sanity is worth more than that.
dubcanada
Zoho is based in USA. It would carry the same privacy concerns as the other US companies.

Without knowing exactly what you want it's hard to say. There are literally thousands of email hosts.

frequentlywrong
> Without knowing exactly what you want it's hard to say

A single mailbox, 5 or so GB of space, IMAP, the ability to use my own domain.

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williamle8300
Don't use email. Just use end-to-end encryptions?!

I may be slightly churlish and glib.

myhf
Don't use glib. Just use musl.
eikenberry
gandi.net offers free email accounts on your domain if they are your registrar.
JoshTriplett
Seconding this recommendation. Their email hosting also lets you set up multiple accounts per domain, and a huge number of email aliases for those accounts, so that you can easily create service-specific addresses or addresses that forward to multiple places.

If you want more storage than their default 1GB, I suggest running your own IMAP server and running getmail to download all your mail continuously, while still using their SMTP server for all incoming and outgoing mail to avoid having to worry about deliverability. getmail supports IMAP IDLE, so it can download new mail and add it to your IMAP server the moment it arrives.

(Or, if you don't want to do that, you can pay Gandi for more storage.)

frequentlywrong
I've used them and I recommend them, but the 1 GB included with their offering is not enough, and additional space is ridiculously expensive.
AlligatorAxe
Try Rackspace Email - rackspace.com/email -- They have 25GB IMAP boxes for $2/mo and 24/7 support
fmisle
Faisal w/Rackspace here. If you have any questions about our email hosting, feel free to email me faisal.misle(at)rackspace.com
TuringNYC
I realize this is a sample size of 1, but i've had poor experiences with Rackspace's cloud offerrings. Unlike AWS and SoftLayer, both of which I also use, it was very difficult canceling Rackspace's services. Some residual block storage would get left behind, it would not be referenced anywhere and you'd keep paying month after month. It took almost a half year of calls before i was able to cancel all the services. Discussions would be as follows: - Me: I want to cancel all services - Them: OK done - Me (month 3): I want to cancel this other service I still got charged for - Them: Oh, that one too? - Me (month 5): I want to cancel this other residual service I still got charged for - Them: Oh, you want it all gone?
ryanlol
I think Amazon is still trying to bill me for an EC2 instance "seized" by the FBI in 2013. Perhaps it's still running somewhere without networking.

No amount of contacting them seemed to help, so billing departments unable to deal with edge cases isn't restricted to rackspace.

Oh, and Softlayer sent me a bill a few days ago for a server cancelled 6 months ago.

frequentlywrong
They have a good reputation, but are not ideal if you only want a single mailbox. They have a five-account minimum.
fmisle
I may be able to help you around that - shoot me an email.
mappu
Be careful with using your own domain, there have recently been a number of high-profile attacks based on hijacking the DNS.
frequentlywrong
I haven't heard about those. Do you have a link to a web page that explains more?

The reason I'd prefer my own domain is quite simply that I'd like to avoid being locked into a specific email company.

mappu
I've read a number of stories on the topic - the basic technique is to identify the domain registrar or DNS provider and attempt to manually reset the password by spear-phishing with the customer service rep. Once you're in, MX can be redirected to a host of the attacker's choice, and then you can initiate password resets on any number of third-party services.

One example of a DNS-based MX hijack is http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/attackers-take-contr... although i'm at a loss to come up with some more specific (and exciting!) examples that i can clearly remember.

It's a vulnerability that simply doesn't exist with gmail/hotmail/outlook.com addresses. Do you know whether your domain registrar and DNS providers' CSRs mandate 2FA or allow multiple attempts at guessing security questions?

EDIT: https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-username-... used the same attack.

rufius
As a fastmail user for the last 3 years, I would say fastmail.

I pay $130/3 yr so about $3.61 a month. Considering how integral email is to my day to day life, the cost of a drink at Starbucks seems reasonable to pay per month.

The flexibility in configuring aliases is excellent - I maintain a couple distinct email address domains but can send all my mail from a single account. Not to mention my wife and I now share address books, calendars, and domains which has all been exceedingly easy to setup.

Honestly, I think FastMail is absolutely worth it. Give them a shot - it's a great service that I'd pay twice as much for.

jghn
Not Dreamhost, their spam filtering has gone from mediocre to nonexistent over the last few years.
meira
I recommendation yandex domain.
logane
What kind of privacy concerns are there with email providers based in Russia?
sakopov
This gets asked every time Yandex mail is mentioned. Nobody can answer this question. We can just speculate that Russia is evil and wants to read your emails. Just like Yahoo which scans and analyzes your emails apparently for NSA or Google which scans your emails for ads. Seems to me like privacy is a concern as long as your email isn't on your own server.
zie
I agree with sakapov(sp?), it's not an answer we can really know, but I think it's safe to say most every large government is very very happy to read every email they can get their hands on. But think of it a different way, if A government is going to read your email(and it's pretty safe to say they will), then who would you rather read it, one you are beholden to, or one that probably doesn't care at all about you, since you are not their citizen, and are not doing anything against them?

Hence, why I use Yandex. As an American, what do I care if Russia reads my email?

sashk
I was researching this. And still am.

I always come to conclusion that either I have to host mail for myself, or use Google Apps.

I can't trust Microsoft to host my email, nor I want to trust Rackspace (for some odd reason, two feedbacks I received were from people who had negative experiences with them). Zoho is nice choise, but they had multi-week outage year or two ago, with somewhat unclear notification to users.

Fastmail was always second choice, because it was more expensive for amount of mail I have now, which will need to be stored on their servers.

Also, as I'll be hosting email for family, I calculate for 5 accounts.

Google Apps came out to 25/month.

Self-hosting option came out to one Linode machine, plus one other VPS provider machine located in different location for backup MX. That came out to 15/month.

Fastmail was more expensive at the time (was I looking at business account for some reason?), but their pricing page -- https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/ -- shows that they are same price as Google. Can't seem to find their multi-year discount information.

fmisle
Hey sashk,

Sorry to hear you don't trust us. Is there anything I can clear up, or any questions I can answer? Feel free to email me directly - faisal.misle(at)rackspace.com. I'd love to hear any feedback/questions/concerns.

teddyh
> Self-hosting option came out to one Linode machine, plus one other VPS provider machine

So, that’s what “self-hosting” means nowadays? Because of course we can’t have these infernal machines in our homes; what are we, savages, to sully our hands with manual labor and physical hardware? /s

Note: Your home is the only place where you can host your server and be reasonably sure that the government is at least going to show you a warrant when they want all your data.

sashk
I understand that, but unfortunately my provider at home is blocking port 25 (both directions), so that's not an option.
jethro_tell
Use a home machine then tunnel to one VPS for an endpoint. Saves one box.
spc476
Good luck in finding an ISP that will let unrestricted SMTP traffic without paying an arm and a leg for a "business account."
cuckcuckspruce
Your ISP allows incoming and outgoing port 25? You're likely already in every DNSBL out there.
programminggeek
Paying $4/month for email is worth it. I pay a lot more for a lot less elsewhere.

If you are on HN, I can all but guarantee you this - you've already spent more than $4 of your time even doing the research and posting on HN.

If you can't afford it, go get a minimum wage job somewhere and work for an hour. That covers the $4 right with a few bucks to spare...

confounded
Very happy recent convert to KolabNow. They have a kind of ethical nerd deluxe service, based in Switzerland. It's not cheap (I pay about $10 a month, and that's only going to go up), but I'm very happy with it.

  Pros:

  - 100% green energy
  - 100% Free Software (+ meaningful upstream contributions)
  - Servers run on fully open POWER8 architecture!
  - Server for your contacts (CardDAV), calendar (CalDav), and 
  notes (IMAP)
  - Swiss privacy laws (not what they used to be, but still outside
   US, EU, N Eyes)
  - They run what seem like very fancy business-class LUG
  events in Europe. Of no utility to me what-so-ever, but I'm 
  glad to be indirectly funding this sort of thing.

  Cons:

  - No 2FA :(
  - Not the cheapest (but I'm happy to pay a little extra for 
  the above)
  - Slow webmail (moved back to native clients)
(Originally posted at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12251594)
ajdlinux
Personally, I've given in and just let Google raid my emails, but I have heard very good things about FastMail from quite a few people. The FastMail devs are pretty well known within the Australian open source community for being quite decent people, if that matters to you :)
brhsiao
I recently had this exact question. I finally decided on Pawnmail (https://pawnmail.com/). It's free and you get 2 GB.

I was worried whether it'd randomly shut down, so I emailed the creator, http://pastebin.com/raw/eWG8RQqk, and it looks like it'll be safe for a while.

I have no idea whether using services like these is a good idea.

frequentlywrong
"Pawnmail currently has enough funds to support 221 more days of hosting." It seems to be a free project (getting money from donations) run by a single person. No, thanks :)
jrnichols
my worry with that wouldn't really be if it runs out of money, but what's the backend like? any redundancy/etc? Is it running out of an old Sparc 20 in a basement in Memphis?
masnick
Here are the options I see:

1. Pay a reasonable amount for a reputable service like FastMail with a good user interface

2. Use a free, reputable service and make your peace with them selling ads off your email (they have to keep the lights on somehow)

3. Use a super cheap or free service that doesn't work as well as FastMail or Gmail (you get what you pay for)

4. Host your own and risk deliverability issues, and spend time maintaining a server.

There is no magic solution here that works great, is free or super cheap, doesn't require lots of time on my part, and doesn't have an ad-based business model.

I value my time too much to consider #3 or #4.

If I didn't want to pay for FastMail, I would just use Gmail. Realistically, I don't think Google's algorithms reading my email would have a noticeable negative impact on my life, but I would notice bad UI or failed deliveries.

syngrog66
obligatory joke: I traced the OP's IP address, its coming from the HRC campaign. (or DJT campaign. arguments for both.)
kybernetyk
/edit: Typical case of "just read the headline and replied". Sorry for telling you about Fastmail while you ruled it out.

I'm currently using Fastmail [0]. No issues so far (5 months in).

Switched initially because they support push on the native iPhone mail app while Google forces you to use their Gmail app if you want push. (Even if you have paid for Gmail for business service).

I'm using FM with my own domain. Setup was trivial. There's also a lot of material on the web about setting up fastmail with different software packages. (My MBP's postfix uses my fm account to send out cronjob messages).

Can't say anything about their webmail because I never really used any webmail front end. But from the little contact I had with FM's webmail frontend it looked tidy and was responsive.

[0] https://www.fastmail.com

x3ro
https://mailbox.org/en/ is my goto provider for email. its 1 euro a month, even if you have your own domain, and also does stuff like calendar and address book if you want.
sandworm101
Hushmail.com

I use it in my practice. It is Canadian (Vancouver) and really does care about privacy.

Manozco
I'm currently using FastMail and I would need to have a huge money issue in order to stop using it. The main thing I like is the possibility to use "alias", which basically allows me to have different e-mails for each service I'm using. Coupling that to the fact that they support catch all adresses and I rated them best email service forever. The only thing misssing would be an automation from specific e mail alias to folder, currently it is a two step action.
joshka
You should be able to just create a folder that matches the name of the alias and it just works (assuming you turn on wildcard aliases). Incidentally this opens up an odd vulnerability that allows people to effectively store email directly in your drafts folder. Add to this the ability to blacklist any email address that ends up on a spam list (using a disabled alias) and you're pretty much spam free.
hummerbliss
fastmail - Been using their service for couple of years. Here is how I migrated from yahoo and gmail.

1. Bought fastmail service and a personal domain. 2. Import yahoo and gmail email (they warn you to use it as onetime service and not as backup). 3. Autoforward all my gmail and yahoo to my fastmail. 4. As you get emails, you can make decision of unsubscribing/changing email addresses of various services.

TrevorStepnikkk
I can highly recommend https://mailbox.org/en/ . Based in Germany, complying to German data privacy laws. The smallest package is 1€/month with 2 GB storage for e-mails, 3 aliases, POP3/IMAP, calendar, address book, tasks. There are also options for anonymous registration and payment. They also have encryption built in: you can do PGP encryption in the webinterface. It also shows you whether there is working transport encryption (SMTP with TLS/STARTTLS) for each addressee. This might sound like a marketing post but i am a highly satisfied customer and really like the service. I have catch-all addresses for +5 domains ("Office package") and everything works like a charm.

Edit: changed currency

frequentlywrong
After having checked out their website, the one thing I don't like about them is how they say they'll reject spam before it reaches users' accounts (i.e. reach the spam folder or inbox). That sounds like a good thing in theory, but I've seen so many legitimate emails be marked as spam by aggressive spam systems that I fear losing legitimate emails if emails looking like spam are rejected and don't even reach the spam folder.
TrevorStepnikkk
In my 1,5 years of usage I haven't encountered any incidents of missing mails. As I understand it they rely on greylisting which makes it infeasible for spammers.

There have been e-mails that took around 5 minutes to show up in my inbox, but this was mostly with "low-traffic-domains" and only for the first e-mail. Subsequent e-mails have been delivered instantly.

And: it's a really nice not to have to check one's spam folder every day for falsely marked legitimate mails. I am very happy with the automatic system.