Ask HN: Who Is the Best Paid Email Provider? Why?
51 comments
Like someone else said best is subjective.
I prefer Fastmail.
They have a great web interface that knows how to properly deal with (catch all) aliases including using the proper address to reply.
They do DNS hosting.
They do WebDAV/Files hosting including being able to create unique shareable links to files and/or dirtree style websites or picture galleries. I've found it all very useful.
I also like their rules filtering which let's you do custom sieve code that I have found pretty handy.
Been with them for 12 years now and they've been consistently great. Before that I was hosting my own mail service using Cyrus IMAP (and since FM is the biggest contributor to the Cyrus suite, that's how I had learned of them).
I prefer Fastmail.
They have a great web interface that knows how to properly deal with (catch all) aliases including using the proper address to reply.
They do DNS hosting.
They do WebDAV/Files hosting including being able to create unique shareable links to files and/or dirtree style websites or picture galleries. I've found it all very useful.
I also like their rules filtering which let's you do custom sieve code that I have found pretty handy.
Been with them for 12 years now and they've been consistently great. Before that I was hosting my own mail service using Cyrus IMAP (and since FM is the biggest contributor to the Cyrus suite, that's how I had learned of them).
But it’s an Australian company that is subjected to draconian encryption and surveillance laws, so if privacy is important maybe not the optimal choice. https://www.fastmail.com/blog/access-and-assistance-bill/
True, but email is unencrypted anyway, so pretty much any provider can comply with a legal request and hand over email.
But agreed the TAA bill is pretty bad as that means the company receiving the notice cannot disclose the fact that they've been requested to assist.
As far as email goes, I wouldn't use it for any private conversation. There's better tools for that.
But agreed the TAA bill is pretty bad as that means the company receiving the notice cannot disclose the fact that they've been requested to assist.
As far as email goes, I wouldn't use it for any private conversation. There's better tools for that.
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I chose Migadu because they seem to be genuinely helpful and are very affordable. I probably would have gone Proton but they don't support forwarding.
The downside is that downloading messages is fairly slow when you have 10-20k messages in your inbox. And the webmail is fairly primitive.
I never tried Fastmail.
The downside is that downloading messages is fairly slow when you have 10-20k messages in your inbox. And the webmail is fairly primitive.
I never tried Fastmail.
I’m also a happy Migadu customer, and I have never had to interact with their support. I use it for most of my domains, except for a few that are work-related.
For Webmail, I have been meaning to try https://roundcube.net
You can try it out at https://www.pikapods.com/apps#email to see if this works for you.
For Webmail, I have been meaning to try https://roundcube.net
You can try it out at https://www.pikapods.com/apps#email to see if this works for you.
I’ve been a Migadu customer for a few years. It’s a simple company with simple pricing, and I couldn’t be happier.
Oh wow, that is a competitive rate vs fastmail!
> I probably would have gone Proton but they don't support forwarding.
They do on their paid plans. https://proton.me/support/email-forwarding
They do on their paid plans. https://proton.me/support/email-forwarding
Ooh, looks like they added that in late 2023. Man. In August 2023 I actually migrated all of my email to Proton and was ready to go when I realized they didn't support forwarding. Thanks for letting me know.
In your Inbox,
or whole mailbox?
or whole mailbox?
Best can be such a loaded word, especially in this case. What's best for one person might not be for someone else. Preferred is a better term.
As for my preferred email provider, that's Fastmail.
As for my preferred email provider, that's Fastmail.
Not quite. Yes, modern email services are not commodities. But email itself is.
And if you breakdown all features you can easily (in theory) draw a multidimensional plot where youll see a group of winners at least.
And if you breakdown all features you can easily (in theory) draw a multidimensional plot where youll see a group of winners at least.
Winners? Or just potential choices?
Choices are subjective. “Better” is objective
FastMail. Reasonable cost, acts like a utility. My email just works.
Proton for me. Privacy is a priority and it’s EU based plus zero knowledge.
Downsides are you need to use proton client or web UI.
The proton suite now also features other useful (and secure) apps like Drive, Password manager, etc. I’m not using those though.
Downsides are you need to use proton client or web UI.
The proton suite now also features other useful (and secure) apps like Drive, Password manager, etc. I’m not using those though.
I second the support for Proton. Proton, however, is not EU-based (not that it matters in this context). It's Swiss. Switzerland, like Norway and the UK, is not part of the EU.
Yes, my mistake I was thinking Europe based (but having said that Swiss have stricter privacy laws than EUs GDPR and is a considered adequate for data transfer).
Proton Mail + VPN (for my soon to be built NAS) + cloud storage + Pass for $10/month is very tempting via their whole suite subscription.
I use Zoho, here in India. It was the most economical solution I could find. Outgoing international payments are also a bit of a hassle here. However, it has been nearly a year now and they've delivered a pleasant experience. I really like their UI (may be subjective). Their base packages offer almost the same features as Google Workspace (mail, contacts, calendar, storage, office suite, etc), but at a much lower price. I don't know much about their customer support since it has mostly been a fire and forget affair with no downtime (as far as I'm aware of) or any other technical issues.
It's ultimately subject to people's individual tastes. I don't have a strong opinion about it, except that I'm grateful for the existence of these smaller players. The two large comonopolies are so dreadful that the email ecosystem would be a dead place even for self hosters, if it weren't for these smaller players. Anything is better than the big two and well worth it, even if you have to shell out a reasonable monthly fee.
It's ultimately subject to people's individual tastes. I don't have a strong opinion about it, except that I'm grateful for the existence of these smaller players. The two large comonopolies are so dreadful that the email ecosystem would be a dead place even for self hosters, if it weren't for these smaller players. Anything is better than the big two and well worth it, even if you have to shell out a reasonable monthly fee.
I’ve been a big fan of mailbox.org. Cheap, easy to use, just works. Been using it for years.
I only have experience with Proton. You must use their client or the web UI, or a "bridge" to standard IMAP. That's annoying.
But I know it's private, and I can generate email aliases to use for each service I sign up for.
But I know it's private, and I can generate email aliases to use for each service I sign up for.
Depends entirely on your use case. Mailchimp is solid for marketing automation and small-medium businesses, but 'best' varies significantly:
For developers/transactional: SendGrid or Postmark dominate with superior APIs and deliverability rates (99%+ inbox rates).
For enterprise: Salesforce Marketing Cloud or HubSpot, though expensive.
For price-conscious startups: ConvertKit or EmailOctopus offer 90% of Mailchimp's features at fraction of the cost.
For developers/transactional: SendGrid or Postmark dominate with superior APIs and deliverability rates (99%+ inbox rates).
For enterprise: Salesforce Marketing Cloud or HubSpot, though expensive.
For price-conscious startups: ConvertKit or EmailOctopus offer 90% of Mailchimp's features at fraction of the cost.
I would like to move my email to a good email provider with actual customer service.
Free email providers get paid by selling your data or stuffing your inbox with advertising.
Many free email providers also have terrible or non-existent customer service because that would raise their costs.
If you are happy with your email provider, who is your email provider and what is it about their service that makes you happy?
Free email providers get paid by selling your data or stuffing your inbox with advertising.
Many free email providers also have terrible or non-existent customer service because that would raise their costs.
If you are happy with your email provider, who is your email provider and what is it about their service that makes you happy?
I wrote about Fastmail on another thread, but they have dedicated customer support, which is another good reason I use them. They aren't the snappiest by any means and I imagine they do a bit of triaging before they get to your issue, but they will respond to every enquiry.
I've been with Fastmail for almost 10 years now.
No fuss, just works, good price for what they deliver. Never had any issues.
No fuss, just works, good price for what they deliver. Never had any issues.
The Proton ecosystem (email, calendar, drive, docs, password management, VPN, etc.) is great. https://proton.me
Protonmail — more of proton ecosystem of apps.
It is so refreshing to see how they are making these apps better and better every day. I was a really early user of Proton.
Honest question: I find email to be almost useless now. I get a hundred emails across 3-4 personal accounts and I read almost none of them. I do scan them.. noise is high and signal is low, but not entirely possible to ignore completely.
I wanted to like hey.com for some of their enhanced email management tools but I didn’t like the platform in general.
I can’t believe no one lets me set “keep 30 days of this newsletter but delete the rest”. Setting filter rules per email in Gmail feels silly. With newsletters, value is inversely proportional to receive date.
What I’m getting at is.. best email provider and options for someone who is kinda, but not entirely, done with email..? Most email platforms still treat email as a first class communication platform, but for me, it definitely isn’t.
I wanted to like hey.com for some of their enhanced email management tools but I didn’t like the platform in general.
I can’t believe no one lets me set “keep 30 days of this newsletter but delete the rest”. Setting filter rules per email in Gmail feels silly. With newsletters, value is inversely proportional to receive date.
What I’m getting at is.. best email provider and options for someone who is kinda, but not entirely, done with email..? Most email platforms still treat email as a first class communication platform, but for me, it definitely isn’t.
I think you're saying that you want mailing lists to be handled as a series, and old editions deleted automatically. And indeed, I've never seen that.
But Fastmail has an "auto purge after x days" feature on folders, which comes pretty close in practice. You just need a rule that routes your mailing lists there. I use their email wildcards with my domain along with a convention of using a specific prefix to my address when signing up to mailing lists.
Combined with OR rules for other individual from: addresses and most of my lists show up in one place and delete after 30 days.
But Fastmail has an "auto purge after x days" feature on folders, which comes pretty close in practice. You just need a rule that routes your mailing lists there. I use their email wildcards with my domain along with a convention of using a specific prefix to my address when signing up to mailing lists.
Combined with OR rules for other individual from: addresses and most of my lists show up in one place and delete after 30 days.
How do you wind up getting that many emails that you don't want? I'm genuinely curious because I get a couple of emails a day, and they're usually ones that I wanted to get. High spam volume and poor filtering from the email provider? Signing up for every newsletter and never unsubscribing?
Lots of travel things, github things, tech things, solopreneur things, seasonal things, banking things, etc.
Almost no human emails.
Almost no human emails.
So...yes?
I know that others deal with emails in different ways. Of all things in communication, email will remain. Zawinski’s Law rightly expressed that, “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”[1]
Anyways, take time, take it slow, but use Labels, Filters, and Rules. Set them up one at a time, and play around with them. For instance, I’ve set up to label all emails from `@amazon.*` under the label/filter `DELETE ’EM.` During my digital chore, I just go there and `Select All` and delete them. The emails may be relevant at the time, but they go stale after a few days. Another way is to set up, say, newsletters to Skip the Inbox, so you can read them later on the weekends or at the end of the day, etc.
I just updated my article to reflect this. I will continue to edit/update that article as life happens.
https://brajeshwar.com/2024/email/#a-well-maintained-email-l...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
Anyways, take time, take it slow, but use Labels, Filters, and Rules. Set them up one at a time, and play around with them. For instance, I’ve set up to label all emails from `@amazon.*` under the label/filter `DELETE ’EM.` During my digital chore, I just go there and `Select All` and delete them. The emails may be relevant at the time, but they go stale after a few days. Another way is to set up, say, newsletters to Skip the Inbox, so you can read them later on the weekends or at the end of the day, etc.
I just updated my article to reflect this. I will continue to edit/update that article as life happens.
https://brajeshwar.com/2024/email/#a-well-maintained-email-l...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
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Still looking for an email provider with customer support I can call 24/7. I'm willing to pay for peace of mind.
Google Workspace. If you're willing to depend on Google, nothing comes even close to what you get per dollar.
Fastmail. Supports normal auth for IMAP instead of some complicated oAuth loop that breaks your software.
I use easymail.ca. I'm not sure if they're the best but they're good enough.
For standard email, fastmail.com is very very good. Plus they're working on JMAP, which may actually improve standard email for everyone.
If you're okay with a non-standard email account that you need to use their app for, hey.com has been a game changer for me. Being able to handle the flood of incoming messages that comes from having an email address for 35 years.
If you're okay with a non-standard email account that you need to use their app for, hey.com has been a game changer for me. Being able to handle the flood of incoming messages that comes from having an email address for 35 years.
+1 for hey.com. Learning curve coming off years of both outlook & gmail, but been nice to be using a service that is actually working to earn my money by making email better.
If you haven’t yet i recommend their family plan. 5 accounts for less than the price of 2.
This made sense for me as two of my family are already using it.
This made sense for me as two of my family are already using it.
Fastmail. They are cheap enough, and featureful. They allow you to use your own domain, and support IMAP and calendars.
I would like to say protonmail, which is cheaper and has a more secure email setup (which involves encrypting incoming emails as they come in) but because of this it doesn't support IMAP integration without an extra decryption daemon. Ultimately this extra security is useless anyways because the email protocol is weak to MITM (see lavabit situation).
I would like to say protonmail, which is cheaper and has a more secure email setup (which involves encrypting incoming emails as they come in) but because of this it doesn't support IMAP integration without an extra decryption daemon. Ultimately this extra security is useless anyways because the email protocol is weak to MITM (see lavabit situation).
Gmail. Best free and best paid.
it is absolutely not hey.com's email services. terrible reinvention of their version of email delivery is stressful to navigate.
Why are they the best?