HN Explorer

Ask HN: Alternatives to Gmail?

26 points by snoopybbt ↗ HN
Hello HN!

Let's assume that for some reason you don't want to use GMail for your emails.

And that also, you don't want to run your own mail server.

What are the alternatives to GMail, comparable in services and quality?

I think this is a general interest question, but by the way, I'm mostly interested in SMTP/IMAP access, a decent amount of space, reliability.

Thanks in advance!

17 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 53.2 ms ] thread
getdavidhiggins
- fastmail.fm

- mailbox.org

Running your own mail server is only difficult if you're a security pedant and want ultra-perfect security & privacy. Perfect security is a massive enterprise. Even Google with their seemingly endless amounts of money can't even achieve perfect security. NSA backdoors in Gmail anyone?

Mailbox.org is German, so they sort of care more than others. Fastmail is second best, but again - I have yet to see any serious efforts by them to ensure security/privacy.

sergiotapia
I use outlook.com - it's good for an email website.
nickthemagicman
I used outlook it was great except for the limit on number of folders.
zamalek
Or the bigger variant: Exchange 365. After live dropped support for custom domains I switched to that. I was looking specifically for activesync support, but it also covers IMAP/SMTP/reliability.
latch
I've been using fastmail for a while. It's been solid. A trickle more spam gets through (like, 1 every 2 weeks instead of 1 a month). The android client is solid (had been using K9 before its release). $40/yr for email is more than reasonable in my books.
x0x0
does it do labels ala gmail or is it folders (ie only one label per email)? Their website doesn't seem to answer this question so my strong suspicion is it is a folder based email architecture.

Thanks!

latch
Your suspicion is correct.
nailer
I'd be interested in an actual gmail alternative: search-based email, ie, an API that is explicitly NOT IMAP and where a single message can live in an arbitrary amount of folders.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
27182818284
It is amazing how this comes up on HN so often.

There is a serious startup that could take advantage maybe. Or heck, I'm going to recommend fastmail.fm, anyway, so I have to wonder if they're growing like mad.

sjs382
I use Zoho for my startup's email, mainly because it's free at our usage level, and we're very budget conscious at the moment.

The only downside I've encountered so far is that the Zoho Mail Android app doesn't support multiple accounts, so if that's something you need, you're stuck with a pop3/imap client.

I started off using Google Apps, using a Domain Alias for my personal GAFYD account, but keeping the "me" identity and the "startup" identity separate became a little bit unwieldy.