I also run my own email server, but it's not something I would easily recommend. In 1996, the anti-spam measures were totally different. Notice I'm saying anti

I also run my own email server, but it's not something I would easily recommend. In 1996, the anti-spam measures were totally different. Notice I'm saying anti-spam, not spam (even though of course there's no one without the other). Getting a "clean" IP today on providers like DigitalOcean, is far from trivial. Several big players (from my personal experience, yahoo) will likely blacklist the entire net range with little or no options to get it unlisted. So sending out emails is a gamble. Setting up DKIM / SPF is also a minor hurdle and won't necessarily help that much. And that's just outbound emails, not to mention fighting incoming spam... If we're talking about family (which is what my own mail server is used for) - they too are used to things like Google, so it's hard to compete in terms of integration and ease of use there. Explaining to my sister how to set her iPhone, or to my brother and his wife who want to access the same email account on two computers... things get tricky very fast...