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Moving away from Gmail. Which service to choose?

13 points by comatory ↗ HN
I know i could go all nerdy and set up my own mail server but honestly I don't want to deal with it. My main concern with Gmail/Google in general is ad targeting and I've been slowly moving away from their services that I've been using since 2005.

I am looking for following: - IMAP based email. - Reasonable inbox size ( 5 GB or so) - contact syncing ( Card DAV, LDAP ) - calendar sync - nice little extra would be custom domain

I've heard good things about Fastmail but I'm not sure if $40 a year is too much. Maybe not I just don't know other options. I've also heard about Rackspace but that seems more complex to setup plus I couldn't find the pricing on their site.

Thanks for suggestions.

23 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 35.1 ms ] thread
duncan_bayne
I can't speak highly enough of Fastmail.

Great UI (nowadays, I've heard it has been rough in the past), they've just added calendars with CalDAV sync and are working on contact sync with CardDAV. My custom domain (bayne.id.au) was handled quickly and easily. Also, they have excellent support - I've emailed them a few times and always wound up speaking to a clueful developer (when it hasn't been PEBKAC on my part).

I do wonder what the software world is coming to, though, when $40 / year is considered expensive. I saw a similar complaint about an Android app I use (Tasker) which costs around $5 if I remember rightly. $5! That's less than the price of a (good) hamburger, for an app that makes my life easier in a number of significant ways.

Are we on some sort of doomed race to the bottom like budget airlines?

zachlatta
Going to second Fastmail. I've been a user of it for the past three months and it's easily worth the cost, especially considering it's for something as vital as email. Before Fastmail I hosted my own email server and used sup to access my email. Switching to Fastmail was one of my biggest productivity boosts in the past 6 months. Really wish they'd get CardDAV sync in though :-/.
Andrenid
I switched to Fastmail about a year or so ago, and love it. Custom domain as well.

Reliable, nice UI, works flawlessly on all my devices (would like Push notifications on iPhone but 15 minute polling works fine for my purposes).

ro-ka
I also recommend Fastmail. No complaints. UI is great.
comatory
oh maybe I wasn't clear enough about the price. I am willing to pay for quality software I just wasn't sure what the prices are. if you're saying it's totally worth the price then I'm good with it.

just a note: not everyone is from western world, 40 bucks can mean a way more money to someone say in India etc.

bluerail
I would recommend Outlook.com from MS.

I switched from all of my google services recently[1] for the same reason as you, targeting. And for the email services, I picked outlook for its minimal nature and the nice UI that gives a pleasant experience compared to the cluttered Gmail interface(IMO).

I created a new email with Outlook and forwarded all my Gmail content to the Outlook including contacts using their 'Gmail to Outlook' migration tool[2]. And along with it created some aliases for different purposes. The only thing I miss from Gmail is their multiple email accounts using "+', but as said Outlook provides a more or less alternative "aliases" feature.

One thing I really like about Outlook apart from its UI and manageability is its ability on managing everything from my Twitter account to Gmail chat right from the mailbox itself.

[1] - http://blog.therth.com/blog/2014/09/23/my-new-outlook/ [2] - http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/outlook-com/gmail/

fuj
Upvoted for the courage of recommending a service that actually works fine but is not welcome in the HN's hipster culture. Expect getting downvoted to oblivion...
bluerail
So, that means I shouldn't post a service/product that even if suffices the OP's question but didn't welcomed by community?

It's a matter of choice isn't it?

fuj
Hey I'm on your side, I was being sarcastic. I also switched from gmail to outlook. But in HN everything "mainstream" gets downvoted. You like Outlook? Enjoy the downvotes, You like MS Office instead of XYZ ? Downvoted, etc, etc
comatory
No I'm glad Outlook is mentioned, I haven't even considered it. I do have one account in there, although it's not the main one. I'm just thinking if I should move from one big corporation to another, I feel like supporting the small guys. But hey, I'm gonna check it out - thanks for mentioning it.
munimkazia
Wow, it looks like you can chat with your Gmail contacts from outlook. This looks quite promising.
monsterix
I've been using Zoho Mail [1] service for past one year. While it's not very fancy it gets the job done for me well and is lightweight. Even got a custom domain for free!

https://www.zoho.com/mail/

LogIN-
Postfix, dovecot, roundcube.. you'll figure something...
rawland
Some people are mentiong services like Fastmail here.

To me this sounds like replacing one "evil" with another. Can somebody please prove me wrong! Right now, I'm walking the Postfix+Dovecot+Roundcube path. Other options I'm looking into right now are:

https://www.mailpile.is/ - which look very promising

https://whiteout.io/ - also interesting

hhandoko
Can you elaborate why you think Fastmail is "evil"? It's the first I heard about it (being evil). Is it because of its proprietary nature?

I think solutions like Fastmail is popular because they work well, and most people would rather focus on running their business than working on mail server administration.

zachlatta
In terms of ownership of data, Fastmail is definitely not ideal. However, I trust a company that has a single paid product and employees committed to the point of buying the company back from their acquirer (http://blog.fastmail.com/2013/09/25/exciting-news-fastmail-s...) more than a company with a free product committed to monetizing me and my data.

I recently switched from a setup similar to yours (Postfix+Dovecot+sup) to Fastmail because I'll never have to worry about deliverability again and Fastmail's web client is miles beyond anything else other there, especially the open source offerings (Mailpile looks promising though! I'm hoping this won't stay the case).

mobiuscog
Fastmail aren't tracking you across many other services you use. It may be just one small point, but it's an important one.
kumaresh
You may want to check the free mail from Zoho. They offer 5GB, ad-free email service that is free of cost and can be configured in POP / IMAP as well. You can configure your domain.

https://mail.zoho.com/

sreenadh
@comatory, think it this way. Google should be paying you $40/yr for using their service. Fastmail's business is emails. But Google's business is ads not search. That is a big difference. Considering that I have been using Fastmail's free service since 19 Oct 2003. I can assure you that they are doing a great job. The people at Fastmail need to live and their charges are very nice for the service they provide. Their webmail is great and delivery is good. But if your concern is staying away from PRISM, then I guess getting up your own is the way to go. Hotmail(Outlook.com) is great but there is not guarantee its going remain the same. Yahoo mail was great at one time, now its just a pain. Good Luck. Do tell what is your final decision. I too am planning to move away from Gmail.
dangrossman
> I've also heard about Rackspace but that seems more complex to setup plus I couldn't find the pricing on their site

Rackspace Mail costs $2/mailbox/month. It comes with 24/7/365 phone/chat/email support and a 100% uptime SLA. The product began as MailTrust, a separate company Rackspace acquired, with over 2M users (now over 3M).

http://www.rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail/pricing/

They host all the mailboxes on my domains for a couple bucks a month. I don't use their webmail, just IMAP (Thunderbird/K9). There's nothing complex to set up for e-mail; I don't know about calendar or contact syncing since I don't use those things.

cgar
Minimum quantity of 5 though.