6 ms·

Ask HN: Paid email hosting, with custom domains

20 points by petecooper 11y ago

I'm a one-person operation with email addresses on 8 domains. I'm currently paying for Fastmail (Standard and Professional) and I'm broadly happy with the service and price. My contract comes up for renewal in early summer and I'd like to compare some of the other reputable players in the email space. I've been with Fastmail 3 years and I suspect the email hosting landscape has evolved since. I looked at Google Apps for Work, but with 8x domains I don't want to pay for 8x accounts on the non-email apps when 1x is enough. I looked at Outlook 365, and I'm sort of neutral about the whole thing price- and performance-wise. I had shortlisted, and almost decided on, ProtonMail until I heard about the DDoS and the ransom payment. I'd like to pay for a service that offers: * IMAP over SSL * a good track record of security * a good track record of reliability * wildcard email (i.e., @example.com drops into alice@example.com) some reassurance that they won't instantly cave if/when the feds come knocking * minimal extra fluff that I likely won't use I prefer to keep domains, web hosting and email at different places, so Gandi and self-hosting with Digital Ocean is out. I have no interest in running my own server. I've done that before, and it was a bag of hurt. I'm still leaning toward ProtonMail. Whether that's a good or bad idea is up for debate. I am interested and grateful for your feedback on: * what you use - would you recommend it? * is ProtonMail worth pursuing? Thank you in advance.

patio11 11y ago
I looked at Google Apps for Work, but with 8x domains I don't want to pay for 8x accounts on the non-email apps when 1x is enough. You can have a single GAfW account, with one primary domain, and N secondary domains that you can receive and send email from. I did this for years prior to needing to split the account into one GAfW account per domain. That process was a disastrous timesuck and I do not recommend it.
- petecooper 11y ago
  Thanks, Patrick. You've hit on something that I had overlooked in my OP: modularity is attractive. The domains I have are business-related and may be retired at a given point. Unpicking one from a lump of connected domains is something I'd rather avoid. I've had the multiple-emails-from-one-Google-account and it wasn't for me.
adam_klein 11y ago
Have you considered mxroute.com?
jaxondu 11y ago
Soho Mail https://www.zoho.com/mail/ https://www.zoho.com/mail/ is another option. I have not used them.
- DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
  I am one of their customers. Often buggy (webmail) and issues with availability. Suffered a prolonged DDoS attack last year which left me a whole weekend without email. Upgrades seem to often cause outages. Some issues in Operational security. Also it is unclear if data at rest is encrypted. They use SSO with all their other apps (makes sense) but then support asks you to give them your password so they can verify any issues. (and they don't comprehend and treat you like an idiot if you say this isn't possible). Support issues generally take ages to solve and you have to mention the CEO in your tweets to get any response. Also even you have a premium subscription there is a limit on the number of mails you can send per day from your account. This might be an issue for companies with marketing or newsletter accounts and wish to build campaigns for this. I'm seriously questioning their technical competence not just from support but also from development. When I subscribed to Zoho first thing I noticed (in 2011) that sending emails with multi-part alternative MIME types results in an empty plain-text part so anyone reading the mail in a plain-text MUA would see just an empty email (and it took them ages to get this basic feature fixed). here some of my recent arguments with them: https://twitter.com/search?q=%40valbonneconsult%20zoho&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=%40valbonneconsult%20zoho&src=t... On the upside they are pretty easy to set up with IMAP and TLS in more exotic environments (e.g. offlineimap, postfix, mutt etc). If you go with them don't expect to scale your business because it's going to end in tears. OK for private use IMO. I still use Zoho until now because of integration with some other apps (once I migrate those I will turn my back on them and never look back).
  - hotcool 11y ago
    I'm seriously questioning their technical competence not just from support but also from development. Have to agree with you there. I tried their online office apps a few times over the years (also recently) and was surprised how limited and kind of janky the software is. They don't seem to be improving.
philiphodgen 11y ago
Google Apps for Work -- why not buy a grandfathered GAfW account? I have done this successfully three times using http://www.gappsdomain.com http://www.gappsdomain.com but there are plenty of other people selling these. Ask Mr. Google and he will lead you to them. For a one-time cost, you now have a free GAfW account forever.
aibara 11y ago
I don't think Protonmail supports IMAP. https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/imap-smtp-and-pop3-setup/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/imap-smtp-and-... I love Fastmail but my situation is less complex than yours.
- petecooper 11y ago
  >I don't think Protonmail supports IMAP. I had wrongly assumed they did - thanks for the clarification.
msh 11y ago
I use mailbox.org It works very well and seem to fulfill your requirements if you can live with all 8 domains going into a single email account. Proton do unfortunately not support imap or anything like it.
DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
>> won't instantly cave if/when the feds come knocking I have never used ProtonMail for business and only have a private account with them. I quite like them mainly because as you say they probably won't cave in when the feds come knocking. Since they aren't based in the US (nor the EU which is equally important). The DDoS was unfortunate as they are a very young company so a bit unfair to be tested like that. But I think it shows that they didn't cave in to the ransom - which I respect and support more than them "fixing it" by paying up.
- Joyfield 11y ago
  They did pay. "The first attack was tied to a ransom of 15 bitcoins (roughly US$6,000) which ProtonMail eventually paid due to pressure from ISPs and other companies affected by the attack." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail#2015_DDoS_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail#2015_DDoS_attacks
cweagans 11y ago
If you're happy with the price and service of Fastmail, why switch? Seems like a lot of time and hassle for not a lot of benefit.
- mattkrea 11y ago
  This. That and FastMail itself has improved significantly over the years IMO.
  - cweagans 11y ago
    Yeah. A provider that's already very good that has a demonstrably good track record of improving constantly over time seems like a win/win.
- petecooper 11y ago
  Fair point. I shop around for car insurance every year, and electricity suppliers, and I try to rebuild my hosting servers once a year to keep things 'fresh' and maintained. Email is no different to me, really. The hassle isn't that great, at least it wasn't the last time I switched suppliers: decide on new supplier, pay 'em, set up the accounts, change the MX records to the new supplier, and then migrate the archived email in. I tend to have an overlap of 7-14 days in case I need to switch back for any reason.
ldarby 11y ago
Have a look at http://www.tuffmail.com http://www.tuffmail.com.
doublerebel 11y ago
I use asmallorange shared hosting when I need cheap easy email for custom domains. Standard management through cpanel, multiple webmail options, IMAP over SSL, great customer service and security track record. It's kind of an old school choice these days but it's quick and it always works.
terinjokes 11y ago
Perhaps not a good answer for the OP, but for the greater HN community: I've been using Pobox.com fo a couple of years now, and been pretty happy with their services. They recently joined up with FastMail, but bring a silently different feature set.
__d 11y ago
pobox.com? (although it's now owned by fastmail, the service is still separate, I think).
peternicky 11y ago
I would recommend highly o365 exchange online accounts. I have been using this for my personal email for the past year and I recommend it.
_RPM 11y ago
FastMail has been doing this since 1999
dangrossman 11y ago
Rackspace Mail (formerly MailTrust) is the leader in this niche, with over 200K paying customers, yet nobody on HN seems to be aware they even exist. This is what they do. With a 100% availability SLA. And 24/7/365 phone/chat/email support. For just $2/mailbox.
- vincent_s 11y ago
  Problem is, you need to buy at least 10 mailboxes. So minimum monthly price is $20.
  - hackerboos 11y ago
    It's 5 these days.
danieltillett 11y ago
Just curious why deliverability is not on your list. For me this is requirement number 1 as one lost sale due to my email going into spam is far more costly.
- petecooper 11y ago
  Valid question, and it's not something I've encountered before. In the past 10 years I've run with Media Temple (VPS hosting), then Fastmail. I've never had reason to question delivery rates, come to think of it. I guess in that respect that's another point to stay with Fastmail.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I used to run my own mail server and had no trouble with deliverability for about 15 years. In the last 12 months it became so bad with certainly email providers (I am looking at you Microsoft and Yahoo) that I was forced to change over to a dedicated email service (I went with luxsci). It would appear that some of the large email companies have effectively outsource spam filtering to the email service providers (email from one of the known service provider == good - everyone else == drop 1 in 20 emails randomly). This means that in practice it is impossible to run your own email server anymore if you care about deliverability.
WaiterZ 11y ago
Mark
kiwichris 11y ago
Hey - ZOHO Mail comes up pretty good in this survey: http://www.smallbusinesswebdesigns.co.nz/business-email-hosting.html http://www.smallbusinesswebdesigns.co.nz/business-email-host... - I think it's probably your best option as it's free but also has IMAP and up to 25 accounts.

20 points by petecooper 11y ago

patio11 11y ago

I looked at Google Apps for Work, but with 8x domains I don't want to pay for 8x accounts on the non-email apps when 1x is enough. You can have a single GAfW account, with one primary domain, and N secondary domains that you can receive and send email from. I did this for years prior to needing to split the account into one GAfW account per domain. That process was a disastrous timesuck and I do not recommend it.

petecooper 11y ago
Thanks, Patrick. You've hit on something that I had overlooked in my OP: modularity is attractive. The domains I have are business-related and may be retired at a given point. Unpicking one from a lump of connected domains is something I'd rather avoid. I've had the multiple-emails-from-one-Google-account and it wasn't for me.

adam_klein 11y ago

Have you considered mxroute.com?

jaxondu 11y ago

Soho Mail https://www.zoho.com/mail/ https://www.zoho.com/mail/ is another option. I have not used them.

DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
I am one of their customers. Often buggy (webmail) and issues with availability. Suffered a prolonged DDoS attack last year which left me a whole weekend without email. Upgrades seem to often cause outages. Some issues in Operational security. Also it is unclear if data at rest is encrypted. They use SSO with all their other apps (makes sense) but then support asks you to give them your password so they can verify any issues. (and they don't comprehend and treat you like an idiot if you say this isn't possible). Support issues generally take ages to solve and you have to mention the CEO in your tweets to get any response. Also even you have a premium subscription there is a limit on the number of mails you can send per day from your account. This might be an issue for companies with marketing or newsletter accounts and wish to build campaigns for this. I'm seriously questioning their technical competence not just from support but also from development. When I subscribed to Zoho first thing I noticed (in 2011) that sending emails with multi-part alternative MIME types results in an empty plain-text part so anyone reading the mail in a plain-text MUA would see just an empty email (and it took them ages to get this basic feature fixed). here some of my recent arguments with them: https://twitter.com/search?q=%40valbonneconsult%20zoho&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=%40valbonneconsult%20zoho&src=t... On the upside they are pretty easy to set up with IMAP and TLS in more exotic environments (e.g. offlineimap, postfix, mutt etc). If you go with them don't expect to scale your business because it's going to end in tears. OK for private use IMO. I still use Zoho until now because of integration with some other apps (once I migrate those I will turn my back on them and never look back).
- hotcool 11y ago
  I'm seriously questioning their technical competence not just from support but also from development. Have to agree with you there. I tried their online office apps a few times over the years (also recently) and was surprised how limited and kind of janky the software is. They don't seem to be improving.

philiphodgen 11y ago

Google Apps for Work -- why not buy a grandfathered GAfW account? I have done this successfully three times using http://www.gappsdomain.com http://www.gappsdomain.com but there are plenty of other people selling these. Ask Mr. Google and he will lead you to them. For a one-time cost, you now have a free GAfW account forever.

aibara 11y ago

I don't think Protonmail supports IMAP. https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/imap-smtp-and-pop3-setup/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/imap-smtp-and-... I love Fastmail but my situation is less complex than yours.

petecooper 11y ago
>I don't think Protonmail supports IMAP. I had wrongly assumed they did - thanks for the clarification.

msh 11y ago

I use mailbox.org It works very well and seem to fulfill your requirements if you can live with all 8 domains going into a single email account. Proton do unfortunately not support imap or anything like it.

DyslexicAtheist 11y ago

>> won't instantly cave if/when the feds come knocking I have never used ProtonMail for business and only have a private account with them. I quite like them mainly because as you say they probably won't cave in when the feds come knocking. Since they aren't based in the US (nor the EU which is equally important). The DDoS was unfortunate as they are a very young company so a bit unfair to be tested like that. But I think it shows that they didn't cave in to the ransom - which I respect and support more than them "fixing it" by paying up.

Joyfield 11y ago
They did pay. "The first attack was tied to a ransom of 15 bitcoins (roughly US$6,000) which ProtonMail eventually paid due to pressure from ISPs and other companies affected by the attack." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail#2015_DDoS_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail#2015_DDoS_attacks

cweagans 11y ago

If you're happy with the price and service of Fastmail, why switch? Seems like a lot of time and hassle for not a lot of benefit.

mattkrea 11y ago
This. That and FastMail itself has improved significantly over the years IMO.
- cweagans 11y ago
  Yeah. A provider that's already very good that has a demonstrably good track record of improving constantly over time seems like a win/win.
petecooper 11y ago
Fair point. I shop around for car insurance every year, and electricity suppliers, and I try to rebuild my hosting servers once a year to keep things 'fresh' and maintained. Email is no different to me, really. The hassle isn't that great, at least it wasn't the last time I switched suppliers: decide on new supplier, pay 'em, set up the accounts, change the MX records to the new supplier, and then migrate the archived email in. I tend to have an overlap of 7-14 days in case I need to switch back for any reason.

ldarby 11y ago

Have a look at http://www.tuffmail.com http://www.tuffmail.com.

doublerebel 11y ago

I use asmallorange shared hosting when I need cheap easy email for custom domains. Standard management through cpanel, multiple webmail options, IMAP over SSL, great customer service and security track record. It's kind of an old school choice these days but it's quick and it always works.

terinjokes 11y ago

Perhaps not a good answer for the OP, but for the greater HN community: I've been using Pobox.com fo a couple of years now, and been pretty happy with their services. They recently joined up with FastMail, but bring a silently different feature set.

__d 11y ago

pobox.com? (although it's now owned by fastmail, the service is still separate, I think).

peternicky 11y ago

I would recommend highly o365 exchange online accounts. I have been using this for my personal email for the past year and I recommend it.

_RPM 11y ago

FastMail has been doing this since 1999

dangrossman 11y ago

Rackspace Mail (formerly MailTrust) is the leader in this niche, with over 200K paying customers, yet nobody on HN seems to be aware they even exist. This is what they do. With a 100% availability SLA. And 24/7/365 phone/chat/email support. For just $2/mailbox.

vincent_s 11y ago
Problem is, you need to buy at least 10 mailboxes. So minimum monthly price is $20.
- hackerboos 11y ago
  It's 5 these days.

danieltillett 11y ago

Just curious why deliverability is not on your list. For me this is requirement number 1 as one lost sale due to my email going into spam is far more costly.

petecooper 11y ago
Valid question, and it's not something I've encountered before. In the past 10 years I've run with Media Temple (VPS hosting), then Fastmail. I've never had reason to question delivery rates, come to think of it. I guess in that respect that's another point to stay with Fastmail.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I used to run my own mail server and had no trouble with deliverability for about 15 years. In the last 12 months it became so bad with certainly email providers (I am looking at you Microsoft and Yahoo) that I was forced to change over to a dedicated email service (I went with luxsci). It would appear that some of the large email companies have effectively outsource spam filtering to the email service providers (email from one of the known service provider == good - everyone else == drop 1 in 20 emails randomly). This means that in practice it is impossible to run your own email server anymore if you care about deliverability.

WaiterZ 11y ago

Mark

kiwichris 11y ago

Hey - ZOHO Mail comes up pretty good in this survey: http://www.smallbusinesswebdesigns.co.nz/business-email-hosting.html http://www.smallbusinesswebdesigns.co.nz/business-email-host... - I think it's probably your best option as it's free but also has IMAP and up to 25 accounts.