Hosting email isn't hard. Hosting email that blocks out spam, and prevents your server from being hacked is more work. There are some nice middle grounds for

Hosting email isn't hard. Hosting email that blocks out spam, and prevents your server from being hacked is more work. There are some nice middle grounds for self hosting like zimbra, or for the less adventurous, a tool like MDaemon which lets you self host but provides support in the right areas. Incoming email is pretty trivial, and outbound email can be greatly improved by using an external outbound email service. Whatever works for the level of time you want to invest and maintain. Try it out with a domain and you'll see if it's ok for you. You have to remember a lot of developers today don't have devops or hosting skills. There are developers who did have to manage complex web hosting themselves so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. I self hosted for a long time, switched to cloud, and am thinking of switching back.