5 ms·

It's unfortunate that email hosting and email infrastructure can really be done only well by major players. The days of people running and maintaining their own

by maz1b 1y ago

It's unfortunate that email hosting and email infrastructure can really be done only well by major players. The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone. Fwiw, not a knock against CF. I like their products, mostly simple, fair pricing, etc. Just a bit unfortunate commentary on the state of email infra on the internet.

jasondigitized 1y ago
Resend was a breath of fresh air for me recently.
sgt 1y ago
This is a myth though (with some truth to it in certain cases). I've run my own mail infrastructure since 1999, no issues.
- logicallee 1y ago
  >This is a myth though (with some truth to it in certain cases). I've run my own mail infrastructure since 1999, no issues. when was the last time you got a reply to an email you sent?
  - sgt 1y ago
    All the time. I use it in production and I have many users.
- cj 1y ago
  I suspect if you shared more info about your mail infrastructure, it might reveal that what is working for you is too complicated for 99.9% of people to set up and maintain themselves.
  - seszett 1y ago
    I don't think the goal is that every non technical person can host their own mail infra. But most people who can run a server should be able to setup OpenSMTPd with the DKIM filter and Dovecot. It's much easier than configuring postfix like we had to do in the past. To answer a sibling comment, the last time I received an answer is a few minutes ago. The correspondent's email infra is hosted by Google.
  - kordlessagain 1y ago
    Your argument might have worked 5 years ago. Now, with AI, it's very dated.
  - sgt 1y ago
    You're right, it used to be a bit complicated. Now you just need to have a reputable and clean IP address, and knowledge of running some services in docker and of course understanding DNS and its crucial role for running a mail server. I used to run all the components and maintain it (even that wasn't bad), but I changed to mailu[1] about a year ago [1] https://mailu.io https://mailu.io
- nicce 1y ago
  Have you had static IP since then? A problem is that most new mail servers will have IP address with history.
  - sgt 1y ago
    The current static IP (it changed over the years) I got in 2016 or so.
- lomase 1y ago
  Every single IT team I know wanted to get rid of the mails servers. I don't know why. At the same time they don't want to get rid of the bbdd servers, or the app servers. Maintaining a email service must not be as easy for them.
- SoKamil 1y ago
  Well, it’s hard to beat 26 years of expertise.
- zokier 1y ago
  It is probably because you have run it so long that you have good reputation and less issues. Too bad we don't have time machine to go back to ninties to start building up reputation.
drnick1 1y ago
I run my own email server and you couldn't pay me to use a commercial provider like Google instead. The privacy benefits are huge and there is no one to restrict my storage or change my "terms and conditions" overnight. The days of people running their own servers are gone because of the shortsightedness and laziness of IT managers. They though the "cloud" would be easier and cheaper, and they are now trapped.
- stackskipton 1y ago
  I’m the reverse, I can Microsoft 8 bucks not to mess with this? Sign me up!
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  You don't have deliverability issues? I entertained the idea of running my own mail servers for a while. After researching the topic it turned out that the internet now runs on an IP reputation system. Major email services like gmail assume that anything sent from unknown IPs is malicious. So it looks like we've gotta be well connected to federate with the other email servers now. A nobody like me can't just start up his own mail server at home and expect to deliver email to his family members who use gmail or outlook. So I became a Proton Mail customer instead.
  - truekonrads 1y ago
    Deliver via sendgrid*, receive directly is probably the only viable path for self hosted systems. Where sendgrid=any major player, could be Mimecast, proofpoint or anyone else who will forward outgoing email.
    - dpifke 1y ago
      FWIW, a huge percentage of the spam I get is via Sendgrid, and at some point in the past year or two their abuse reporting mechanisms all turned into black holes, so mail sent via Sendgrid is heavily penalized in my spam rules. Sending reputation is just as applicable if you're using a third party as if you're hosting it yourself, but much less under your control.
parliament32 1y ago
> The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone This is very much a myth. There's a lot of FUD around how mail is "hard", but it's much less complicated than, say, running and maintaining a k8s cluster (professionally, I'm responsible for both at my org, so I can make this comparison with some authority). Honestly `apt install postfix dovecot` gets you 90% of the way there. Getting spambinned isn't a problem in my experience, as long as you're doing SPF and DKIM and not using an often-abused IP range (yes, this means you can't use AWS). The MTA/MDA software is rock-solid and will happily run for years on end without human intervention. There really isn't anything to maintain on a regular basis apart from patches/updates every few months.
- drnick1 1y ago
  This is 100% my experience too. Self-hosting email isn't any harder than self-hosting something else and there is no maintenance beyond apt update and apt upgrade. Even if you choose to do this in hard mode using postfix/dovecot instead of a dockerized stack, you can get a working config in a few minutes from an LLM these days.
  - tyingq 1y ago
    I think this quote: > > The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone Is less about the pieces you've mentioned, and more about reliable delivery without fighting blacklists, ip/domain reputation blackholes, etc.
- btown 1y ago
  I think that there's a mindset among younger coders that "if it's not a modern post-AWS cloud provider, servers will take ages to come online and aren't going to give me full access, that's why EC2 exists." And this is conflated with the myth that running a mail server is hard. But in practice, you can find any number of VPS providers, running in local datacenters, with modern self-service interfaces, with at least some IPs that aren't already spam flagged (and you can usually file a ticket to get a new IP if you need it), that are often cheaper per month than AWS, and give full root and everything. Find a service that will help you warm the IPs before you send to customers, and you're good to go!
cullumsmith 1y ago
I've run my own mail for 10 years (postfix/dovecot/rspamd), no issues. Reverse DNS, SPF, and DKIM records need to be in place, but that's a small lift. Well, one time I was unable to send mail to a guy with an ancient @att.com email address from his ISP. I got a nice bounce message back with instructions to contact their sysadmins to get unblocked. To my surprise, they unblocked the IP of my mail server in a matter of hours.
- everfrustrated 1y ago
  Private email will have no problems. I also ran my own mail server for personal use and had almost zero problem (and this was on an AWS IP!). Where people will absolutely have problems is trying to run a marketing campaign through their own IP. You absolutely will (and should) get blocked. This is why these mixer companies exist and why you pay for an intermediary to delivery your mail.
mbeex 1y ago
There is a sweet spot between Gmail and self-hosting. I use Runbox and generally separate contexts, with CF being an exception as I use CF pages for static blog websites, some of their core services, AND as a registrar. For the latter, the default setting is porkbun. The reason for this is not CF's mandatory in-house DNS servers, but the simple fact that they do not register .de domains.
egorfine 1y ago
> I like their products I do, too. What I don't like is that they became too large and now are effectively in position to gatekeep the whole internet.
python273 1y ago
It's really not that hard to run a mailserver with https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver The problem is that Gmail will bounce any emails from DigitalOcean IP, even if you sit on this IP for years (so no recent spam), even if replying to someone, even if you registered as 'Postmaster' on Google. So if you want to selfhost, you'll first need to find an IP that's not blocked to begin with.
- SahAssar 1y ago
  That is not my experience at all. Using a pretty fresh IP and domain I get pretty good deliverability as long as I have proper rDNS and all the other normal steps (like DKIM, etc.)
- TZubiri 1y ago
  > It's not hard, if you do it in a way that you can't send to like 50% of the recipients. So it's hard (to do well) >The problem is that Gmail will bounce any emails from DigitalOcean IP, even if you sit on this IP for years (so no recent spam), even if replying to someone, even if you registered as 'Postmaster' on Google. >So if you want to selfhost, you'll first need to find an IP that's not blocked to begin with. I'd say this is just the thing antitrust was made for. Hopefully some incumbent can get them to court.
TZubiri 1y ago
I see this common pattern where a previously private infrastructure is opened up (usually from low abstraction), and the ecosystem is split into an open base and a private thin layer, and that private layer might just reimplement the same tradeoffs that the incumbent private monoliths made. Examples being Git/Github, Crypto/Centralized Exchanges, and as per the topic, email. But I think that it's an important distinction that the base infrastructure is open, and that technically an incumbent could join the fray, albeit with a lot of catching up to do, and mix it up.
sgustard 1y ago
Cloudflare's customers are companies that have to send out, say, reset password emails and verify account emails and other crumbs of the modern web. You want me to build my own infrastructure for that? Personally I can't wait for them to expand to SMS and crush Twilio.
jesterson 1y ago
> It's unfortunate that email hosting and email infrastructure can really be done only well by major players. The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone. Its really not. Everyone can do that (doesn't mean everyone should). I'm running it for millions of emails daily and don't see why I would crappy proprietary service instead.
supz_k 1y ago
We are working on an open-source, self-hosted solution [0] to make this easier. When you correctly set up DKIM, SPF, reverse/forward DNS for IPs, it is not much hard to get emails delivered. IPs can still get blacklisted and you need to monitor blacklists and contact them if it happens. Solutions like Postfix are great, but they lack observability. In our solution, we have developed dashboards and health checks to make it easier to find problems with the set up. We are currently running beta tests (really appreciate it if you can join). [0] https://github.com/hyvor/relay https://github.com/hyvor/relay

by maz1b 1y ago

jasondigitized 1y ago

Resend was a breath of fresh air for me recently.

sgt 1y ago

This is a myth though (with some truth to it in certain cases). I've run my own mail infrastructure since 1999, no issues.

logicallee 1y ago
>This is a myth though (with some truth to it in certain cases). I've run my own mail infrastructure since 1999, no issues. when was the last time you got a reply to an email you sent?
- sgt 1y ago
  All the time. I use it in production and I have many users.
cj 1y ago
I suspect if you shared more info about your mail infrastructure, it might reveal that what is working for you is too complicated for 99.9% of people to set up and maintain themselves.
- seszett 1y ago
  I don't think the goal is that every non technical person can host their own mail infra. But most people who can run a server should be able to setup OpenSMTPd with the DKIM filter and Dovecot. It's much easier than configuring postfix like we had to do in the past. To answer a sibling comment, the last time I received an answer is a few minutes ago. The correspondent's email infra is hosted by Google.
- kordlessagain 1y ago
  Your argument might have worked 5 years ago. Now, with AI, it's very dated.
- sgt 1y ago
  You're right, it used to be a bit complicated. Now you just need to have a reputable and clean IP address, and knowledge of running some services in docker and of course understanding DNS and its crucial role for running a mail server. I used to run all the components and maintain it (even that wasn't bad), but I changed to mailu[1] about a year ago [1] https://mailu.io https://mailu.io
nicce 1y ago
Have you had static IP since then? A problem is that most new mail servers will have IP address with history.
- sgt 1y ago
  The current static IP (it changed over the years) I got in 2016 or so.
lomase 1y ago
Every single IT team I know wanted to get rid of the mails servers. I don't know why. At the same time they don't want to get rid of the bbdd servers, or the app servers. Maintaining a email service must not be as easy for them.
SoKamil 1y ago
Well, it’s hard to beat 26 years of expertise.
zokier 1y ago
It is probably because you have run it so long that you have good reputation and less issues. Too bad we don't have time machine to go back to ninties to start building up reputation.

drnick1 1y ago

I run my own email server and you couldn't pay me to use a commercial provider like Google instead. The privacy benefits are huge and there is no one to restrict my storage or change my "terms and conditions" overnight. The days of people running their own servers are gone because of the shortsightedness and laziness of IT managers. They though the "cloud" would be easier and cheaper, and they are now trapped.

stackskipton 1y ago
I’m the reverse, I can Microsoft 8 bucks not to mess with this? Sign me up!
matheusmoreira 1y ago
You don't have deliverability issues? I entertained the idea of running my own mail servers for a while. After researching the topic it turned out that the internet now runs on an IP reputation system. Major email services like gmail assume that anything sent from unknown IPs is malicious. So it looks like we've gotta be well connected to federate with the other email servers now. A nobody like me can't just start up his own mail server at home and expect to deliver email to his family members who use gmail or outlook. So I became a Proton Mail customer instead.
- truekonrads 1y ago
  Deliver via sendgrid*, receive directly is probably the only viable path for self hosted systems. Where sendgrid=any major player, could be Mimecast, proofpoint or anyone else who will forward outgoing email.
  - dpifke 1y ago
    FWIW, a huge percentage of the spam I get is via Sendgrid, and at some point in the past year or two their abuse reporting mechanisms all turned into black holes, so mail sent via Sendgrid is heavily penalized in my spam rules. Sending reputation is just as applicable if you're using a third party as if you're hosting it yourself, but much less under your control.

parliament32 1y ago

> The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone This is very much a myth. There's a lot of FUD around how mail is "hard", but it's much less complicated than, say, running and maintaining a k8s cluster (professionally, I'm responsible for both at my org, so I can make this comparison with some authority). Honestly `apt install postfix dovecot` gets you 90% of the way there. Getting spambinned isn't a problem in my experience, as long as you're doing SPF and DKIM and not using an often-abused IP range (yes, this means you can't use AWS). The MTA/MDA software is rock-solid and will happily run for years on end without human intervention. There really isn't anything to maintain on a regular basis apart from patches/updates every few months.

drnick1 1y ago
This is 100% my experience too. Self-hosting email isn't any harder than self-hosting something else and there is no maintenance beyond apt update and apt upgrade. Even if you choose to do this in hard mode using postfix/dovecot instead of a dockerized stack, you can get a working config in a few minutes from an LLM these days.
- tyingq 1y ago
  I think this quote: > > The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone Is less about the pieces you've mentioned, and more about reliable delivery without fighting blacklists, ip/domain reputation blackholes, etc.
btown 1y ago
I think that there's a mindset among younger coders that "if it's not a modern post-AWS cloud provider, servers will take ages to come online and aren't going to give me full access, that's why EC2 exists." And this is conflated with the myth that running a mail server is hard. But in practice, you can find any number of VPS providers, running in local datacenters, with modern self-service interfaces, with at least some IPs that aren't already spam flagged (and you can usually file a ticket to get a new IP if you need it), that are often cheaper per month than AWS, and give full root and everything. Find a service that will help you warm the IPs before you send to customers, and you're good to go!

cullumsmith 1y ago

I've run my own mail for 10 years (postfix/dovecot/rspamd), no issues. Reverse DNS, SPF, and DKIM records need to be in place, but that's a small lift. Well, one time I was unable to send mail to a guy with an ancient @att.com email address from his ISP. I got a nice bounce message back with instructions to contact their sysadmins to get unblocked. To my surprise, they unblocked the IP of my mail server in a matter of hours.

everfrustrated 1y ago
Private email will have no problems. I also ran my own mail server for personal use and had almost zero problem (and this was on an AWS IP!). Where people will absolutely have problems is trying to run a marketing campaign through their own IP. You absolutely will (and should) get blocked. This is why these mixer companies exist and why you pay for an intermediary to delivery your mail.

mbeex 1y ago

There is a sweet spot between Gmail and self-hosting. I use Runbox and generally separate contexts, with CF being an exception as I use CF pages for static blog websites, some of their core services, AND as a registrar. For the latter, the default setting is porkbun. The reason for this is not CF's mandatory in-house DNS servers, but the simple fact that they do not register .de domains.

egorfine 1y ago

> I like their products I do, too. What I don't like is that they became too large and now are effectively in position to gatekeep the whole internet.

python273 1y ago

It's really not that hard to run a mailserver with https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver The problem is that Gmail will bounce any emails from DigitalOcean IP, even if you sit on this IP for years (so no recent spam), even if replying to someone, even if you registered as 'Postmaster' on Google. So if you want to selfhost, you'll first need to find an IP that's not blocked to begin with.

SahAssar 1y ago
That is not my experience at all. Using a pretty fresh IP and domain I get pretty good deliverability as long as I have proper rDNS and all the other normal steps (like DKIM, etc.)
TZubiri 1y ago
> It's not hard, if you do it in a way that you can't send to like 50% of the recipients. So it's hard (to do well) >The problem is that Gmail will bounce any emails from DigitalOcean IP, even if you sit on this IP for years (so no recent spam), even if replying to someone, even if you registered as 'Postmaster' on Google. >So if you want to selfhost, you'll first need to find an IP that's not blocked to begin with. I'd say this is just the thing antitrust was made for. Hopefully some incumbent can get them to court.

TZubiri 1y ago

I see this common pattern where a previously private infrastructure is opened up (usually from low abstraction), and the ecosystem is split into an open base and a private thin layer, and that private layer might just reimplement the same tradeoffs that the incumbent private monoliths made. Examples being Git/Github, Crypto/Centralized Exchanges, and as per the topic, email. But I think that it's an important distinction that the base infrastructure is open, and that technically an incumbent could join the fray, albeit with a lot of catching up to do, and mix it up.

sgustard 1y ago

Cloudflare's customers are companies that have to send out, say, reset password emails and verify account emails and other crumbs of the modern web. You want me to build my own infrastructure for that? Personally I can't wait for them to expand to SMS and crush Twilio.

jesterson 1y ago

> It's unfortunate that email hosting and email infrastructure can really be done only well by major players. The days of people running and maintaining their own are pretty much long gone. Its really not. Everyone can do that (doesn't mean everyone should). I'm running it for millions of emails daily and don't see why I would crappy proprietary service instead.

supz_k 1y ago

We are working on an open-source, self-hosted solution [0] to make this easier. When you correctly set up DKIM, SPF, reverse/forward DNS for IPs, it is not much hard to get emails delivered. IPs can still get blacklisted and you need to monitor blacklists and contact them if it happens. Solutions like Postfix are great, but they lack observability. In our solution, we have developed dashboards and health checks to make it easier to find problems with the set up. We are currently running beta tests (really appreciate it if you can join). [0] https://github.com/hyvor/relay https://github.com/hyvor/relay