While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
I haven't found any problems with it over the years for practically every use.
Deliverabilty, availability - top class.
What do you find lacking with MXroute in particular?
While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
I haven't found any problems with it over the years for practically every use.
Deliverabilty, availability - top class.
What do you find lacking with MXroute in particular?
To clarify, strictly on deliverability and uptime, I agree 100%—MXRoute is a beast. Jarland is a wizard at managing IP reputation, better than providers charging 10x more.
When I say 'lacking,' I’m referring specifically to the integrated ecosystem and UX friction.
With MXRoute, the burden of the interface is on me—I’m relying on 3rd party MUAs, Crossbox, or Roundcube. They work, but they lack the proprietary polish, instantaneous server-side search (especially on massive archives), and the seamless calendar/contacts integration that Fastmail's native web/mobile clients offer.
MXRoute is the best engine for the price; Fastmail is just a more comfortable car for my daily drive.
@Shot² said:
This was not a criticism addressed to your service specifically.
Companies can get registered in any effingcountry they want if they think it's easier or cheaper for them.
Just like consumers can snub any company or product they want for whatever reason they like ^^
Oh I know, was just sort of a general rant about the topic at hand from my side.
I had considered at one point changing jurisdictions but just couldn't find anything that made actual business sense. Increased regulation, increased taxes, decreased banking and merchant options, increased cookie banners.
I did (and haven't 100% written it off) consider Georgian jurisdiction for non-IncogNET businesses, but that was mainly because I wouldn't be opposed to making Tbilisi or similar my home for a part of the year and this would be an easy entry to local banking and established roots that may make eventual residency easier later.
@COLBYLICIOUS said:
I just started to use EU-only providers due to privacy and GDPR reasons. Can someone recommend me an email service besides Proton & Tuta Mail?
If you want to escape the 'walled garden' of encryption-at-rest providers like Proton/Tuta and just want standard, solid IMAP implementation within the EU, Mailbox.org is the answer.
@MannDude said:
I had considered at one point changing jurisdictions but just couldn't find anything that made actual business sense. Increased regulation, increased taxes, decreased banking and merchant options, increased cookie banners.
I completely understand your point of view and I agree with all of it, but as always, every coin has two sides.
I work a lot with customers that for one reason or another is obligated by law to adhere to certain policies and processes. It can be government, healthcare, military or basically any kind of business that do business with those kind of businesses.
These customers specifically ask for those extra regulations and will not and can not host with a provider that does not adhere to the same juridical framework as they do. I've got a shitload of customers that would love to run 365 or Google Workspace, but they cant because that's American companies and lets be honest, nobody trusts the US. Google even tried to remedy this by setting up business in Ireland, which is a member of the EU. Every customer in the EU is now billed by Google Ireland, or "Google Cloud EMEA Limited" as the company is officially called. Smoke and mirrors if you ask me, but legally, it works.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the thing that at first sight might seem like disadvantages, could in some cases actually be selling points. I'm not saying you are wrong, believe me I know the bureaucratic hassle better then most, I'm just saying keep in mind that even though it's a bitch, there is a (albeit small) silver lining to it as well and a good opportunity to gain access to a customer market that would otherwise not be able to buy from you.
@COLBYLICIOUS said:
I just started to use EU-only providers due to privacy and GDPR reasons. Can someone recommend me an email service besides Proton & Tuta Mail?
If you want to escape the 'walled garden' of encryption-at-rest providers like Proton/Tuta and just want standard, solid IMAP implementation within the EU, Mailbox.org is the answer.
@COLBYLICIOUS said:
I just started to use EU-only providers due to privacy and GDPR reasons. Can someone recommend me an email service besides Proton & Tuta Mail?
If you want to escape the 'walled garden' of encryption-at-rest providers like Proton/Tuta and just want standard, solid IMAP implementation within the EU, Mailbox.org is the answer.
Isn't Mailbox.org encrypted though?
Yes, but the implementation is fundamentally different.
Proton is encrypted by architecture. Their server has zero access, which breaks standard protocols—that's why you need their Bridge to use IMAP.
Mailbox.org is encrypted by feature (via their 'Encrypted Inbox').
@MannDude said:
I had considered at one point changing jurisdictions but just couldn't find anything that made actual business sense. Increased regulation, increased taxes, decreased banking and merchant options, increased cookie banners.
I completely understand your point of view and I agree with all of it, but as always, every coin has two sides.
I work a lot with customers that for one reason or another is obligated by law to adhere to certain policies and processes. It can be government, healthcare, military or basically any kind of business that do business with those kind of businesses.
These customers specifically ask for those extra regulations and will not and can not host with a provider that does not adhere to the same juridical framework as they do. I've got a shitload of customers that would love to run 365 or Google Workspace, but they cant because that's American companies and lets be honest, nobody trusts the US. Google even tried to remedy this by setting up business in Ireland, which is a member of the EU. Every customer in the EU is now billed by Google Ireland, or "Google Cloud EMEA Limited" as the company is officially called. Smoke and mirrors if you ask me, but legally, it works.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the thing that at first sight might seem like disadvantages, could in some cases actually be selling points. I'm not saying you are wrong, believe me I know the bureaucratic hassle better then most, I'm just saying keep in mind that even though it's a bitch, there is a (albeit small) silver lining to it as well and a good opportunity to gain access to a customer market that would otherwise not be able to buy from you.
Yes. GDPR is discriminatory. For EU companies or companies targeting EU citizens there aren’t options to avoid it.
@MannDude said:
Was ready to launch this during Black Friday of 2024, but held off as it was the wrong time to enter the market with Namecrane launching at the same time and also knowing that we'd be doing a massive datacenter migration that would have disrupted service for the email hosting in the coming months.
Sort of sat on the project a while, getting busy with other things.
It's back on the table now and should be ready soon(ish)!
I'm intrigued. Most email host only offered roundcube, rarely sogo. Imho vanilla roundcube are too basic, no caldav and carddav unless the provider customised it further. Sogo seems to be better at that, proper dav by default. Can't wait to try.
@MannDude said:
Was ready to launch this during Black Friday of 2024, but held off as it was the wrong time to enter the market with Namecrane launching at the same time and also knowing that we'd be doing a massive datacenter migration that would have disrupted service for the email hosting in the coming months.
Sort of sat on the project a while, getting busy with other things.
It's back on the table now and should be ready soon(ish)!
Looking forward to this.
If you plan to sell any lifetime deals (at reasonable cost, with the idea to avoid monthly charges, not to get stuff for free/supercheap), I'd be happy to support with my $.
@Shot² said:
Too bad all these nice projects are always US-based
We're a US based company but the service will be in Bulgaria. Where would you realistically like to see companies registered, assuming it doesn't make it nearly impossible or not worth the bureaucratic hassle to register a company in that country as a non-resident?
People gloat about the "offshore companies" then limit themselves to being blacklisted from banking and merchant accounts like PayPal. Then there is the option to register a foreign owned company in a number of European countries, but then you've gotta deal with their overbearing tax policies and changing landscape towards speech (bUt GdRp!!!) and stuff.
That you could be compelled to produce offshore data. However in this case it's encrypted so it wouldn't do them much good anyway. I do know there's history of warrants going further though like in the case of Lavabit where he chose to shut down the service rather than turn over the keys. What would you do in such a case? I'm seeing now that Lavabit was able to set something up later that would have avoid this attack on the wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)
@WSS said:
Zoho isn't the cheapest, but it's good.
IIRC they offer a usable $1/Month thingie?
I haven't tried it, though. Tried their free tier just after that lost IMAP access, so I moved on ... 😇
I got a BlackFriday or some other deal a couple years ago. Their filtering is decent, their apps are usable (Actually gave up K-9 to use their native App, it's that good), and other than some dumb filtering on their part, everything is amazingly deep for administrative tasks. I'd have no problem using it in a corporate setting- but being that we get Google for free, we're using that.
@WSS said:
Zoho isn't the cheapest, but it's good.
IIRC they offer a usable $1/Month thingie?
I haven't tried it, though. Tried their free tier just after that lost IMAP access, so I moved on ... 😇
I got a BlackFriday or some other deal a couple years ago. Their filtering is decent, their apps are usable (Actually gave up K-9 to use their native App, it's that good), and other than some dumb filtering on their part, everything is amazingly deep for administrative tasks. I'd have no problem using it in a corporate setting- but being that we get Google for free, we're using that.
Didn't Google revoke all free accounts used for non-personal use?
@WSS said:
Zoho isn't the cheapest, but it's good.
IIRC they offer a usable $1/Month thingie?
I haven't tried it, though. Tried their free tier just after that lost IMAP access, so I moved on ... 😇
I got a BlackFriday or some other deal a couple years ago. Their filtering is decent, their apps are usable (Actually gave up K-9 to use their native App, it's that good), and other than some dumb filtering on their part, everything is amazingly deep for administrative tasks. I'd have no problem using it in a corporate setting- but being that we get Google for free, we're using that.
Didn't Google revoke all free accounts used for non-personal use?
While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
Fastmail pricing seems in the same ballpark as Google's pricing.
While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
Fastmail pricing seems in the same ballpark as Google's pricing.
You're right, the sticker price is very similar (around $5-6/month).
But the value proposition is different. With Google, you are paying for the ecosystem, but you are also dealing with a company whose primary business model is data. With Fastmail, that price ensures you are the customer, not the product.
For me, paying the same price to not have my data fed into the Google machine is a feature, not a bug.
Comments
Long-term user of Fastmail here.
While I respect budget options like MXRoute for side projects, Fastmail is the benchmark for a reason. It’s not just about hosting; it’s about their contribution to open standards (JMAP, Cyrus). The search speed is instantaneous, and the reliability is enterprise-grade without the Google privacy tax.
I tried Migadu for a while—great philosophy regarding simplified pricing (paying for bandwidth, not seats), but the administration features felt a bit too bare-bones for my daily driver.
Avoid PurelyMail for mission-critical stuff. The pricing is unbeatable, but you get what you pay for when it comes to uptime and IP consistency. Good for throwaways, not for business.
I haven't found any problems with it over the years for practically every use.
Deliverabilty, availability - top class.
What do you find lacking with MXroute in particular?
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
To clarify, strictly on deliverability and uptime, I agree 100%—MXRoute is a beast. Jarland is a wizard at managing IP reputation, better than providers charging 10x more.
When I say 'lacking,' I’m referring specifically to the integrated ecosystem and UX friction.
With MXRoute, the burden of the interface is on me—I’m relying on 3rd party MUAs, Crossbox, or Roundcube. They work, but they lack the proprietary polish, instantaneous server-side search (especially on massive archives), and the seamless calendar/contacts integration that Fastmail's native web/mobile clients offer.
MXRoute is the best engine for the price; Fastmail is just a more comfortable car for my daily drive.
Oh I know, was just sort of a general rant about the topic at hand from my side.
I had considered at one point changing jurisdictions but just couldn't find anything that made actual business sense. Increased regulation, increased taxes, decreased banking and merchant options, increased cookie banners.
I did (and haven't 100% written it off) consider Georgian jurisdiction for non-IncogNET businesses, but that was mainly because I wouldn't be opposed to making Tbilisi or similar my home for a part of the year and this would be an easy entry to local banking and established roots that may make eventual residency easier later.
[ IncogNET LLC ] - Since 2020
[ The Internet Speech & Privacy Company ]
I just started to use EU-only providers due to privacy and GDPR reasons. Can someone recommend me an email service besides Proton & Tuta Mail?
Recommended services*: Avoro, Bero-Host, Bunny, Enginyring, HetrixTools, HostBrr, Incognet, MXRoute, Mzungu, NameCrane, Sitebunker, SpeedyPage, Windscribe
*Some links may be affiliate links. The list is sorted alphabetically.
If you want to escape the 'walled garden' of encryption-at-rest providers like Proton/Tuta and just want standard, solid IMAP implementation within the EU, Mailbox.org is the answer.
I completely understand your point of view and I agree with all of it, but as always, every coin has two sides.
I work a lot with customers that for one reason or another is obligated by law to adhere to certain policies and processes. It can be government, healthcare, military or basically any kind of business that do business with those kind of businesses.
These customers specifically ask for those extra regulations and will not and can not host with a provider that does not adhere to the same juridical framework as they do. I've got a shitload of customers that would love to run 365 or Google Workspace, but they cant because that's American companies and lets be honest, nobody trusts the US. Google even tried to remedy this by setting up business in Ireland, which is a member of the EU. Every customer in the EU is now billed by Google Ireland, or "Google Cloud EMEA Limited" as the company is officially called. Smoke and mirrors if you ask me, but legally, it works.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the thing that at first sight might seem like disadvantages, could in some cases actually be selling points. I'm not saying you are wrong, believe me I know the bureaucratic hassle better then most, I'm just saying keep in mind that even though it's a bitch, there is a (albeit small) silver lining to it as well and a good opportunity to gain access to a customer market that would otherwise not be able to buy from you.
Zoho isn't the cheapest, but it's good.
My pronouns are like/subscribe.
Isn't Mailbox.org encrypted though?
Recommended services*: Avoro, Bero-Host, Bunny, Enginyring, HetrixTools, HostBrr, Incognet, MXRoute, Mzungu, NameCrane, Sitebunker, SpeedyPage, Windscribe
*Some links may be affiliate links. The list is sorted alphabetically.
Yes, but the implementation is fundamentally different.
Proton is encrypted by architecture. Their server has zero access, which breaks standard protocols—that's why you need their Bridge to use IMAP.
Mailbox.org is encrypted by feature (via their 'Encrypted Inbox').
Yes. GDPR is discriminatory. For EU companies or companies targeting EU citizens there aren’t options to avoid it.
I try to avoid it.
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
I'm intrigued. Most email host only offered roundcube, rarely sogo. Imho vanilla roundcube are too basic, no caldav and carddav unless the provider customised it further. Sogo seems to be better at that, proper dav by default. Can't wait to try.
IIRC they offer a usable $1/Month thingie?
I haven't tried it, though. Tried their free tier just after that lost IMAP access, so I moved on ... 😇
I second this I love lifetime deals!!
I understand where you are coming from but I think people are concerned due to legal precedents like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_States
That you could be compelled to produce offshore data. However in this case it's encrypted so it wouldn't do them much good anyway. I do know there's history of warrants going further though like in the case of Lavabit where he chose to shut down the service rather than turn over the keys. What would you do in such a case? I'm seeing now that Lavabit was able to set something up later that would have avoid this attack on the wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)
I got a BlackFriday or some other deal a couple years ago. Their filtering is decent, their apps are usable (Actually gave up K-9 to use their native App, it's that good), and other than some dumb filtering on their part, everything is amazingly deep for administrative tasks. I'd have no problem using it in a corporate setting- but being that we get Google for free, we're using that.
My pronouns are like/subscribe.
Didn't Google revoke all free accounts used for non-personal use?
Not non-profit.
My pronouns are like/subscribe.
Fastmail pricing seems in the same ballpark as Google's pricing.
You're right, the sticker price is very similar (around $5-6/month).
But the value proposition is different. With Google, you are paying for the ecosystem, but you are also dealing with a company whose primary business model is data. With Fastmail, that price ensures you are the customer, not the product.
For me, paying the same price to not have my data fed into the Google machine is a feature, not a bug.