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Ask HN: What are options to replace “G Suite legacy” when it's retired in May?

59 points by doctoboggan ↗ HN
If you haven't heard yet, Google is retiring the free version of G Suite. See more here: https://9to5google.com/2022/01/19/g-suite-legacy-free-edition/

I have been using G Suite legacy for a decade with my extended family, and have about 12 active accounts.

I am looking for either free or low cost alternatives to keeping email addresses active. My main priority is to be able to send and receiving using my own domain with multiple accounts without any deliverability issues. Still being able to use the gmail web interface would be nice as well.

I'd love to hear experiences from someone who has either gone through this recently or is planning to do it soon.

67 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] thread
Commodore63
Thanks for posting this, am also curious.
vhodges
I am using Migadu (https://www.migadu.com/) For one domain and I am planning to move my Google For Domains domain over to it as well. It supports multiple domains and mailboxes (it prices on message volume inbound and outbound). For us our usage fits into the 19USD/year price point. Everybody else seems to charge per user/address.
PenguinCoder
> it prices on message volume inbound and outbound

Sounds good on paper, but then you get charged for spam emails inbound. Is this the case? So you'll need to pay for unwanted inbound email as well as your outbound usage?

alias_neo
It appears they charge for mailbox capacity. e.g. 5GB for the $19/yr. Is that total, for all users/mailboxes? Even 30GB doesnt seem enough, I have 10-12 family members on GSuite but I certainly won't pay £600/yr for them.

We send emails with photos/videos to the kids addresses so capacity needs to be a little more than 5GB shared for us, even if I kick all of the extended family off.

swansonator
Fastmail is excellent. A bit cheaper than the new Google Workspace and less invasive. It supports multiple domains easily. Interface is great and the iOS app is just as great. I'm sure the Android version is good too.
aprdm
I only wish their iOS app worked offline
rastographics
Another happy fastmail customer here. Switched from Google with custom domain. Calendar and contacts are better than Google's too
1_player
The iOS app is meh, the webmail is much better but otherwise I'm a happy Fastmail customer and they're 100% worth the money.
newsbinator
I'm a happy Fastmail customer, except there's one major annoyance in the web interface: large images, like screenshots, completely break the viewport.

You have to scroll the browser horizontally for 2000 pixels sometimes, looking at fractions of the image at a time (or download each embedded image and open it in a local viewer to contain it to your screen size).

Fastmail support replied essentially "won't fix".

tut-urut-utut
Aren't they an Australian company, which is from the data protection standpoint still worse than Google?
trinsic2
Happy Fastmail customer as well. If you want to leave gmail behind, this service is the way to go. They have a great Web GUI, and accounts have the latest security features. Fastmail supports CalDav/CardDav which works great IMHO.
sephamorr
I use a personal Gmail account and my custom domain hosted on zoho (for free) . Each user on the custom/zoho redirects all the mail to Gmail. Gmail is configured to default use the zoho smtp server as the outbound. This has worked great for me for years. When my parents' custom domain needs to be migrated shortly, I expect to set them up with the same thing.
doctoboggan
It looks like I wouldn't be able to use their free plan with more than 5 users, but $1/user/month isn't too bad.

You've never had deliverability issues using zoho's servers?

sephamorr
I haven't, personally, though there is always a chance that I have had low rates of failures that I haven't noticed. Said personal domain is a .hk domain though, and I have had an issue where US defense-contractor type domains silently block all email from China or China adjacent domains or IP blocks.
[deleted]
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awin
Zoho email has a forever free plan with 5GB storage for upto 5 users.

Pretty decent. Have been using it for the past 3 years

rootsudo
O365
slantyyz
I looked into this as an option, and it's worth mentioning - if you need email aliases, you'll need a Business 365 account, not a Personal 365 account.

The Basic (lowest tier) Business account is roughly same price as the personal 365 account, but I believe they are completely different services. If you have an existing personal 365 account, I don't believe there is a seamless switchover to a business account. You will need to create a business account separately.

Osiris
I have a Microsoft 365 Family account and in outlook there is an option to configure a personalized domain.

I haven't actually switched it yet so I can't confirm that it works, but the option is there.

slantyyz
From what I understand you can use a custom domain on the personal/family plans, but if you're aliasing emails (e.g. info@yourdomain, notify@yourdomain) to a single address, you need the business plans.
syshum
Offically you can only use the Family account on a custom domain register with GoDaddy, there are a few hacks out there to get around this but they could be broken at any time
myobripicusni
I'm looking into this too, and found the Exchange Online Plan 1 which is a dollar cheaper at 4/user/month.

I'm just trying to figure out if you can add multiple domains and aliases (that can be used for sending) with a single user license.

rootsudo
you can if you are on a business o365 plan, so if you get Exchange Online Plan 1, you should be able to do so.
mikebos
If it's cost you’re worried about there are some creative options:

- Use Cloudflare mail beta with your SMTP

- POBox.com (fastmail lite in essence)

- Migadu

- Servermx

- Host your own solution on a VPS and use for example postmark for sending e-mail.

minerva23
Wow. No one here mentioned the obvious.

Transfer your domains to Google Domains. Use the free email alias feature to rewrite your custom domain users into Gmail users (or wherever else). Configure Gmail to send from your custom domain.

I do this. It works spectacularly.

anon1094
Does this prevent the whole custom@domain.com via name@gmail.com thing?
charcircuit
I'm not sure what you are talking about so I don't think it's a problem as my emails look normal in gmail and it doesn't show anything weird.
krono
You might want to go over some of your email/message/security headers and look for anything unexpected (e.g. actual email address, device names, locations, etc.). The web-interface won't display most of what you'll find in there, with good reason.

Finding a way to access those headers from gmail will be a challenge though. Don't think I've ever found that button in the same place twice!

krehl
I don't think that this will enable you to send emails that conform to the DMARC standard (using DKIM and SPF). Might be ok for a side project, but in my opinion not enough for a small business.
minerva23
Yes
feupan
That didn't work for me.

My domain is still set up with G Suite with SPF and all so Google is technically fully capable of sending emails on my domain’s behalf, but if I got the "me@example.com via example@gmail.com" text regardless.

My setup:

    1. log into example@gmail.com
    2. set up "Send as me@example.com" with alias
    3. enter example@gmail.com as the SMTP username
Headers:

    ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; mx.google.com;
       spf=pass (google.com: domain of example@gmail.com designates 209.85.220.41 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=example@gmail.com
    Return-Path: <example@gmail.com>
    From: Me <me@example.com>
doctoboggan
Can I do this for multiple accounts? Do you k ow if there is a description of this solution online somewhere?
charcircuit
Yes, but you have to manually set up each account (eg. name1@example com) you want to send mail from to verify that you own the account.
doctoboggan
Would it work for others in my family, without me being able to read all their emails?
charcircuit
Yes, each email alias can be set to forward messages to a different address.
maxwelldone
Can you really configure to send from the forwarded address? From the faq[0] page: "When you need to both receive and reply to emails from a custom address, and unlock other professional features, upgrade to Google Workspace."

[0]https://domains.google/learn/how-to-use-email-forwarding/

charcircuit
I've done it just fine without Google workspace and people get my mail just fine.
seanwilson
There's a special reason to use Google Domains or it's just an example? Don't most registrars have web forwarding and mail sending features?
minerva23
I don't know other registrars offerings, but OP was particularly concerned about using Gmail (or something like it) and having good deliverability, which makes Google Domains + Gmail the right solution in my mind.
davidgh
Which SMTP server do you use for sending? Are you able to use Gmail's SMTP servers with your setup?
minerva23
Yes, gmail's. You set a SPF record authorizing it.
hammyhavoc
Plenty of people would rather stick to dealing with ICANN's pricing directly via CloudFlare.
jstx1
Can anyone clarify what G Suite covers and what's being taken away? If you sign up for a free Google account, you can use free gmail/docs/sheets/drive etc - that's not going away, is it?
jtdressel
I believe you lose gmail/docs/sheets.

Based on the below comment, I think you can keep some services like youtube and photos. That said, I strongly recommend every do regular google takeouts https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout?pli=1

https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/s7v4my/google_...

slantyyz
Also, if you are using your GSuite account with Google Play, any purchases you made could be lost.
jstx1
> I believe you lose gmail/docs/sheets.

Do you have any source on this? It doesn't sound right to me. I'm talking about the base free services that Google offers to everyone, not about G Suite. Over a billion people are using free Gmail, I think it would have been bigger news if Google had pulled the plug.

prirun
I have a free Google Gmail account and can use all those free features. I never signed up for G Suite or Workspace. I think the problem is when a personal domain name is used.

I'm glad I moved from Gmail to Fastmail a month ago. After they screwed me over with Google Sites V2, I just don't trust them with my email address. It's tied to too many things, and if something ever went wrong, I'd be completely screwed and could not get any help from Google. I clicked their "Report a problem" button when trying to migrate to Sites V2, to report several big issues. I'll let you guess how many responses I got.

rovr138
Using your own domain, you pay per user on the platform.

So if you had 5 users using it, you now have to pay for those seats.

Regarding workspace, there's different plans/tiers. Here's a list of them, https://workspace.google.com/pricing.html

On all of them you keep gmail, docs, sheets, drive. But now if you had 5 users, you are paying 5 x $6 x 12 months = $360/year

jimmies
I am planning to move email to iCloud+.

- Provides custom domain support.

- Is cheap ($1 for 3 email addresses).

- Has email web interface and imap access.

- Seems to support contacts and calendar sync via carddav, caldav - standard stuff I can sync my other devices with.

- Apple is reputable enough with security.

Drawbacks:

- No standard two-factor authentication like Google, needs an iPhone/mac for two-factor.

- Migrating Google Photos/shared will be a pain in the ass.

doctoboggan
I initially liked this solution but I don’t think it’ll work for me. There seems to be a hard limit on the number of emails. It also seems like you can only share the domain with your apple family (my extended family isn’t part of my apple family sharing plan.)
aranelsurion
I assume by "hard limit on the number of emails" you mean daily sending limits, which is quite high for a personal user (500 per day)? If that's the case, Gmail also seems to have a similar limit.

Or do you mean there's a hard limit on total number of emails you can store?

doctoboggan
Sorry for the confusing wording, I meant email accounts. It looks like you can only share the domain in your apple family sharing plan which means only 6 different accounts.
unmole
Does it allow having a catch-all email address?
oskarc
Sadly, no. It also pushed me back from using their mail services (and far more complex issue where my @iCloud alias stopped working at all, but they fixed it after a few weeks).
unmole
I don't like the fact that you need an Apple device to sign up for iCloud+ and even to initially set up email. Still, I just switched over because it seems to be the best choice for my usecase.
achairapart
If I ever migrate, what will happen to all the services I signed up with Google oAuth system ("Sign in with Google")?
tut-urut-utut
"reset password" and then set your password instead using google single sign on.

And then remember not to use any single sign on service but generate separate passwords for every service and keep them in password manager you own.

Btw, the above works if you own the domain for your email, assumed yes since that was the whole point of Google for business. If not, buy own domain ASAP and switch to mail provider that allows custom domains.

syshum
I have not done this myself yet but seems the process is

https://old.reddit.com/r/gsuite/comments/s7t45q/g_suite_lega...

- Migrate everything (that google will let you) off your Workspaces to somewhere else. (critical you move email first as gmail mail box will be deleted when you remove the license below)

- Upgrade to paid GSuite (its cool, you’ll cancel in a sec)

- Add Cloud Identity Free (https://support.google.com/cloudidentity/answer/7319251?hl=e...)

- Move your users to Cloud Identity Free (? nfi how this part works, I’ve not done it yet)

- Remove Workspace subscriptions

- No more paid services, but you can continue to maintain identity services

danlugo92
Zoho has a 1 dolar per month plan, up to 5 or 6 users I think.
chachan
is Zimbra still a good idea?