5 ms·

Anyone have opinions comparing Fastmail with Protonmail? I know they're not going for the exact same market, but in the more generic market of "email services f

Anyone have opinions comparing Fastmail with Protonmail? I know they're not going for the exact same market, but in the more generic market of "email services for people who don't want to use Gmail" I'd be interested in someone's comparison.

eatwater123 7y ago
Fastmail is probably the more 'open' of the two; in the sense that you can use any mail client to access your emails without a need for a bridge or anything.
LeoPanthera 7y ago
Proton does not offer SMTP or IMAP (except through a special tool which can't be used on mobile devices) so as far as I am concerned they're not a real "email" provider at all. I totally understand why they do that. It's just not for me.
glofish 7y ago
Fastmail lets you receive emails for the domains you own. Not forward, but actually be delivered there. Plus you can create other free addresses with domains such as fastmail.us etc. All of which can be seamlessly connected to the same single account - you can then use rules to distribute the incoming emails as you see fit. Switched from Gmail some five years ago, I have been happy with the choice every since!
Leace 7y ago
Fastmail is a direct competitor to Gmail. That is Fastmail is Gmail but different. Fastmail is opposed to E2E e-mail encryption as this makes some of their features impossible (e.g. full text e-mail search). Protonmail on the other hand has OpenPGP encryption that can be used even cross providers (on https://beta.protonmail.com https://beta.protonmail.com composing an e-mail to Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org> will enable encryption). But they don't support all usual e-mail features like IMAP and SMTP (there are bridges but...).
- radicalriddler 7y ago
  Wow I'm a fulltime user of protonmail for the past 12 months, but hadn't heard about the beta version. Thanks for linking that.
  - Leace 7y ago
    That's really surprising as the beta link is on the login page: https://mail.protonmail.com/login https://mail.protonmail.com/login :)
    - radicalriddler 7y ago
      Holy. I just missed it completely for the last 12 months then :(.
wp381640 7y ago
I use both - protonmail for personal email and fastmail for corporate/business Both with custom domains and aliases on PM for throaway stuff They're both very good - the upside with PM is privacy while the downside is compatability. Fastmail I just assume my email is archived and read.

eatwater123 7y ago

Fastmail is probably the more 'open' of the two; in the sense that you can use any mail client to access your emails without a need for a bridge or anything.

LeoPanthera 7y ago

Proton does not offer SMTP or IMAP (except through a special tool which can't be used on mobile devices) so as far as I am concerned they're not a real "email" provider at all. I totally understand why they do that. It's just not for me.

glofish 7y ago

Fastmail lets you receive emails for the domains you own. Not forward, but actually be delivered there. Plus you can create other free addresses with domains such as fastmail.us etc. All of which can be seamlessly connected to the same single account - you can then use rules to distribute the incoming emails as you see fit. Switched from Gmail some five years ago, I have been happy with the choice every since!

Leace 7y ago

Fastmail is a direct competitor to Gmail. That is Fastmail is Gmail but different. Fastmail is opposed to E2E e-mail encryption as this makes some of their features impossible (e.g. full text e-mail search). Protonmail on the other hand has OpenPGP encryption that can be used even cross providers (on https://beta.protonmail.com https://beta.protonmail.com composing an e-mail to Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org> will enable encryption). But they don't support all usual e-mail features like IMAP and SMTP (there are bridges but...).

radicalriddler 7y ago
Wow I'm a fulltime user of protonmail for the past 12 months, but hadn't heard about the beta version. Thanks for linking that.
- Leace 7y ago
  That's really surprising as the beta link is on the login page: https://mail.protonmail.com/login https://mail.protonmail.com/login :)
  - radicalriddler 7y ago
    Holy. I just missed it completely for the last 12 months then :(.

wp381640 7y ago

I use both - protonmail for personal email and fastmail for corporate/business Both with custom domains and aliases on PM for throaway stuff They're both very good - the upside with PM is privacy while the downside is compatability. Fastmail I just assume my email is archived and read.