Hey guys,
after looking into selfhosting email it seems to me that it’s probably better if I use an existing email hoster like Namecheap or Porkbun.
Now I saw that Porkbun doesn’t offer catchall emails so I can’t use it for my usecase.
Do you guys have any recommendations for a reasonably priced email hoster for a custom domain that offers all basic features like catchall? The purpose is for one domain I use for my personal stuff and one for a small side hustle/ small business.
Thanks so much in advance for your help!
ProtonMail has been my go to, really fantastic service, you get simplelogin as well and can add custom domains up to 10 iirc. And the VPN is top tier too.
Someone shared this post about ProtonMail the other day and thought I should share here as well.
I have Protonmail rolled together with AnonAddy and that gives me all the aliases I could ever want.
I recommend fastmail.com though they do have done shortcomings that you need to consider such as the fact that they’re based in Australia (five eyes country) and have servers in the USA. Their advantage is a slick interface, fantastic app based on JMAP, and just generally being super convenient. They allow catch all addresses, masked emails, custom domain etc. I find them super convenient.
Another upvote or seven for fastmail.com - I spent a little too much time spinning my personal domain hosting through Fastmail, Tutanota, Proton, mailbox.org… and then came back full circle to Fastmail.
Their shortcomings, if you’re concerned about privacy, are listed right above^^^ but I don’t think you can find a better email hosting provider for the pricing.
Email isn’t that secure anyway (don’t use email if your life or freedom depends on it), so I don’t see that as much as a downside.
Not self-hosted, however Proton supports custom domains and catch-all. Their monthly plans are very reasonable IMO.
Proton and fastmail you can use custom domains. I only have experience using fastmail. They provide great instructions for the settings in cloudflare (mx records, etc). My domain is purchased through namecheap.
I can receive mail on *@mydomain.com and I can send email from any thing I want ad-hoc (anything@mydomain.com or anything@anything.mydomain.com)
I thought about selfhosting as well, but the internet concensus was it can be a hassle with your email getting rejected.
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I already posted that I recommend fastmail elsewhere in this thread, but you raised so many good points that it reminded me of some extra points :)
Fastmail offers granular, per-app passwords – I have a single password which has read-only access to IMAP in order to back up all the data on a timer. This feature is missing from many (many) other email providers - using the 80/20 rule, if they even offer it it’s a single password with full access (Mailfence, for example)
Since this community is about selfhosting I think it’s worth pointing out that this is AMAZING for selfhosting. I have all me selfhosted services sending e-mail via fastmail’s SMTP. With per-app passwords I don’t need to store my normal e-mail password and the apps can be limited to SMTP only (so no read access). And in case of compromise you can revoke permissions on a per-app granularity.
Fastmail offers full CardDAV (contacts) and CalDAV (calendar) access, which makes plugging it into any other app that supports this very easy - their DNS wizard helps you set up the service records. I use “DavX5” on my Android to sync all Contacts and Calendar outside of using the Fastmail app (which is a self contained app on Android, it’s not too bad)
Fastmail has become my contacts app now - it’s really great to have all your e-mail and contacts in the same place. The contacts don’t even need to have an e-mail address - I have a lot of contacts stored for whom I only have a phone number. I sync to android using the same DavX5 app and then immediately have these contacts in whatsapp and signal.
I have a couple domains that are very low volume for outgoing mail. I use Migadu. I’m happy with their cheapest tier ($19/year for both domains). They have catch-alls and many other nice features.
Edit: They have no hard limits on the number of addresses, users, or domains and such. They just want you to be reasonable. You choose a tier based on your average quantity of outgoing mails per day. Again, there are no hard limits; they won’t cut you off unless you abuse the system.
Seconding Migadu! I’ve had them for about 3 years now and never had a problem.
I’ve been happy as well with migadu for the time I’ve been using it ~3 years. Have different mailboxes, and I used aliases for pretty much every website I sign up with.
I’ve just moved my email hosting from Fastmail to Migadu, very competitive pricing if you have a lot of users/mailboxes/domains but not that much email traffic
I use Fastmail and it’s pretty reasonable, has some nice tie-ins with 1Password, alias emails, etc.
Purelymail.com has been great for me for years. Insanely cheap and just works.
It’s great, I just wish the admin UI was better somehow. Especially the routing page quickly gets out of hand.
I’ve been very happy with mxroute for quite a few years now. They have a summer deal going on for $40 a year for unlimited domains and accounts, you’re only limited by storage (100GB) and outgoing emails per hour.
t would be helpful to know what you consider basic features you want the host to support, but catchall works.How good is mxroute at blocking spam correctly?
Proton mail offers catchall, assuming you mean what I think you do. Basically I can receive mail sent to anything@mydomain.com, though my account only has 5 named accounts that I can send from.
I can’t recommend Migadu enough. I’m on the $99/year plan and have dozens of domains and clients with their own domains too, it’s easy to manage and does everything I need it to.
ProtonMail for regular email + smtp2go for services to send outbound email.
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Well shit, didn’t know that was a thing.
So far my usage is enough to keep me on the free smtp2go plan. But that’s worth keeping in mind if my needs grow.
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For 24$/year porkbun has been really easy!
I use Proton mail and Anonaddy.
