Ask Lemmy

Proton

I use MXRoute which is inexpensive and run by someone who has the strong opinions of a wise grey beard. Also Black Friday/holiday sales can make the cost even more reasonable. Doesn’t have the suite of accessory products like some other options but it’s excellent for what it is.

i like tuta personally; the team is great, they're responsive, and they're smaller than proton which is a positive.

plus you can have as many custom domains as you want as they dont count toward your inboxes.

This post made me realize I should start planning my migration from gmail to other one. Preferably where I can use my own domain so I'll never be tied down to a service provider ever again.

I'm using mailbox.org with a custom domain. German company, all of their email services seem pretty industry standard, so the biggest advantage for me is that it works quite well with 3rd party mail & calendar clients. Forgot when I switched but so far I have no complaints

Proton is focused on privacy and security. You can get a free email and you can chose to pay for a subscription. The free version is great! I used it for 2 years before I went for a paid subscription including a keypass, 2FA, drive, wallet, calendar, VPN and some other things.

Self hosted mail isn’t marked spam because it’s new, it’s because there’s a foundation of security you need because of all the bad actors over the years

You need a good understanding of servers, dns and mail to do this yourself but it is possible.

This is a good guide other than the AWS and cloud service pieces

https://markfalk.github.io/docs/self-hosting-mail

Please, please, please, get a personal domain for your email.

Hosting doesn't matter, to some degree. You can keep your email for life and move it between services.

It costs like $15 a year with namecheap. Hosting might be as much as a single nice dinner out for a year.

Been using Fastmail for a couple years now, previously bouced between Proton and Tuta.

I cannot fault Fastmail, yes, like the name suggests, it is fast (sending is almost instant and new email comes through quickly too), but their features for inbox sorting, rules, and custom domains is incredble.

I have my own domain name that I wildcard in Fastmail, which means I can enter whateverthefuckIwant@domain.com and it'll be delivered.

Then I have several rules set-up to autotag depending on the address the email is going to.

Their interface is slick, easy to use, not too cramped and not too spacious, lovely contrast, just pleasant to be in.

All of that, along with a calendar with easy CalDAV support, notes in Markdown, and generous cloud storage which I mainly use for file transfer between my devices make the £5.40 I spend on it monthly an absolute steal.

Tuta has been pretty good to me. They have a calendar as well and possibly a cloud drive coming soon. Bonus was their apps were available on F-Droid and they're powered by renewables.

I've been very happy with Tuta! I moved to them from Proton after Proton's CEO said nice things about fascists, that and I didn't like how unfocused they became (too many services, too expensive given I didn't want those other services, even on the almost mail only plan).

The Linux desktop client has been fine, as has the Android client. Not PERFECT but honestly a lot better than Thunderbird and running Proton's bridge

Posteo is ridiculously cheap, secure (e2e encryption and the whole works) and just all-around great. Been using it for years without a single issue.

I am happy with Proton

I use Runbox. It's non-nonsense, cheap and privacy-focused. My family and I have been using it for many years.

I use Proton, but I use their other services as well (drive, vpn) so it's worth it for me.

I’m using Posteo for over a decade now. It just works, pricing is simple, never had any complaint.

I used proton for a year, then shifted to mailbox.org and I manage my own encryption keys.

purelymail.com no-bullshit, pay-as-you-go mail service.

I personally have used Proton and Tuta, and both have been pretty good to me, it just depends on what you want and how much you want to spend.

Proton is a lot more worth it if you also want additional features that would otherwise cost more to buy on their own, like cloud storage, or a VPN. (they also have a calendar, password manager, docs & sheets editing, video conferencing, and more) It also comes with unlimited email aliases if you pay for it, whereas Tuta has limits on how many aliases you can create unless you use your own domain, which then makes them much more easily fingerprintable.

Tuta is definitely cheaper though, has a much simpler and more janky UI, and has both mail and a calendar, but no cloud storage to my knowledge. They run on more green energy than Proton does, but I find they have less quality of life features than Proton. If all you need is just a cheap way to send and receive emails, with end-to-end encryption, Tuta's definitely way cheaper than Proton and probably worth it in that case.

For Thunderbird, Tuta has add-ons to allow it to work with Thunderbird, and Proton requires a background application running to decrypt and pass along emails to Thunderbird.

Any encrypted email will require some form of add-on or bridge between them and Thunderbird since they require a way to utilize their particular form of end-to-end encryption, otherwise all your emails would appear as gibberish in Thunderbird.

I've been pretty happy with Migadu they charge by volume instead of by address/domain and give you all the administrative controls for your domains. Other than that, no fluff, it does email, it's not advertised but they'll do caldav for calendar too.

Proton mail + IMAP bridge

I'm using Proton. European, encrypted, an ecosystem that generally works for me (there are exceptions.. such as Calendar). Ticks my boxes. What works for me might not work for you, but you could give it a try.

You could also try something like Migadu which has a nice low-budget plan and are generally a no-frills type of company which I don't see using AI anytime soon if at all.

I use courier and sendmail

the 'best' one that i personally use is proton. i don't really use email all that much myself, so even the free plan is more than adequate. the free webui is basic and it has upsells scattered about, but it's fast and responsive and 'enough' for me. third-party clients like thunderbird require a paid plan and their mail 'bridge' software (a local proxy your client connects to, that handles the encryption and actual transfer of the mail bits).

i did recently set someone up on namecheap for mail when we were registering a domain for them, too. fast and easy to set up. so far (it's been about six weeks now) rock solid reliable and has been a good choice for them.

I gave Proton Mail a try but there's no x send as" feature and no offline access. I believe Tuta is the same. There's services like mailbox.org and purelymail. I ended up using Fastmail with my own domain. Your regular Thunderbird IMAP will work fine with it. Also standard CalDAV, CardDAV, and WebDAV. I used DAVx5 on Android to sync my contacts and calendar, so other apps on my phone can make integrate. I use the FastMail mobile app just for mail.

Self started email servers are commonly marked as spam just because its new.

I would suggest the OVH email offerings. They've been in business a long time and don't price gouge their customers for basic features.

https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/emails-exchange/