51
I use helloly.com because it is Austrian company
I use Proton. I have 3 aliases, then I use their mail forwarding SimpleLogin with another 7 aliases (that you toggle on and off), and I own a couple domains, which Proton has configured, so I can use those as well.
A mail server in my basement.
How do you send without ending up in gmail spam?
You spend an hour or two setting up DKIM , SPF, and DMARC, so that Gmail/Hotmail/etc can validate that you are who you say you are.
You still can end up in spam. Gmail’s spam filter is a big black box. I doubt even Google fully understands it.
DKIM/SPF/DMARC add extra legitimacy to your message, but you can certainly still end up marked as spam if Google thinks you're sending it.
One line emails, emails that just have links, emails with generic subjects, emails with just a subject and no text body, emails with no subjects - all that massively shoves Google's spam detection towards spam. But that generally holds true with all providers as all the big players are using some form of Bayesian filtering (and so am I, with SpamAssassin on my incoming). If you send spammy-looking stuff, you're gonna get marked as spam.
There’s also IP address reputation, IP warm-up (not necessary for personal servers, though), missing things like list-unsubscribe (again, not necessary for personal servers), and of course a touch of “this message looks like other messages that users have marked as spam” on an email from your own server with a message to yourself. There’s so much more than just a Bayesian spam filter in Gmail’s black box.
Also if your ISP puts your IP on the PBL. They also don't like it if your reverse lookup doesn't match your domain. I was able to send from my IP for a while and then Google stopped delivering my mail with the PBL given as the reason. Other destinations may be less picky but Google has a lot of requirements some of which are out of your hand unless you have a static IP.
I think all email services should be required to list their delivery requirements publicly.
I just ended up using the free plan of a relay that allows more on their free plan than I'll ever used in a month.
I was thinking about this (and possibly VoIP), but I probably couldn't manage to maintain a good uptime.
I'll need some more knowledge and experience first. Oh, and security is a thing as well.
Email is one of the hardest things to self host, but if you can handle the time commitment, it’s great.
I've been thinking about deploying an EC2 SMTP relay to my selfhost mail server.
this way if my network goes down mail just pools until network comes back. also I don't have to worry about exposing my internal infra to the internet other than a VPN port which is far easier to monitor than a SMTP server.
I use purelymail for mail and namecheap for my domains. My decision was based on long term pricing, IMAP availability, and pricing.
Oh, I like the pay-as-you-go pricing they have as well.
As well as
In Purelymail, Users represent unique email addresses, each with its own dedicated inbox and private login credentials. We operate on a resource-based model, meaning we don't charge per user or 'per seat'.
I could have a work related "user" and log only into that on a work computer, without exposing everything else. Neat.
I'm happy with Mailbox.org
Also happy with them. Might not be relevant but you can have all 50 aliases be different domains and wildcards count as 1.
Switched from protonmail because i wanted a second domain which was lots more expensive with them. I also didn't like having to use their app. With mailbox i gave them my public key and they still encrypt everything on receipt but i just use Thunderbird as the client.
I've switched from Gmail to Fastmail and I've been creating a new alias with my own domain for every page I sign up for
I'm using aliases differently. I let every mail through that is send to my domain. Then at websites I register with an alias per website and only create an alias in my Fastmail once the alias is starting to send spam so the mails will be removed whenever an email is send to that alias.
What if the web site sends an email that you need to read and it goes to the alias and gets deleted
Yeah that can happen. Usually its just some webshop that got hacked and leaked my email alias. Than it is easy: block all emails to that alias and create a new account whenever I shop there again.
It has happened twice this year that my email was leaked from a company that I could not just remove my account or block all mails. In those cases I changed my email address on their website to a new alias.
MXroute with a lifetime plan they sell on black friday
Same. And MXroute has been the most reliable email host I have used. I have not noticed any downtime in the 4 years I have been using them.
The spam filter is kind of annoying but at least it's optional
Fastmail
Migadu is fantastic.
I use, and I wrote and run, https://port87.com/.
For custom domains, it supports all the features you can read about on its home page on your own domain.
It takes a bit of adjusting to start using it effectively, because you don’t use the same flow you do with a “normal” email service. I’ve personally got about 150 labels in my account, so I’m definitely a power user (which, I should be, having written it).
What e-mail provider do you use with a custom domain?
Sendmail.
How did you choose them?
Yum install sendmail.
The list of apps to truly preserve privacy is kinda small, so it wasn't a hard choice.
I'm currently using Tuta, but the complete inability to do SMTP has pretty much guaranteed I'll be finding an alternative before my plan expires.
I’m using hover.com because I’ve been too lazy to change since my old provider got folded into them years ago.
They’re expensive and lately it seems bank-security emails are silently not coming in (Docusign signature requests and Huntington Bank password reset emails.. )
I don’t know if the silent failures are because of my private domain or because of the backend provider. I wish I knew how to figure that out.
I was using Yandex prior to the war.
OVH has a pretty solid email setup, would recommend.
Granddaddy in on zoho.
My webhost. Email is included and I'm already paying for it. Plus I get total control, without a company in the middle.
I would host it myself but a few things hold me back, like better uptime, I can't completely break it, and fancy spam software. And it's like $4 a month.
Isn’t your web host the company in the middle? Or, you just mean it’s also your registrar?
They're probably also just an email provider in addition to web hosting. Something like this: https://blog.racknerd.com/feature-spotlight-how-racknerd-can-save-you-on-email-costs/
I've also thought about that since they still have an old shared hosting deal at $10.49/year, but I can't find any information on reliability. Neither can I find any info whether this would let me use IMAP and SMTP with a 3rd party client.
I thought about that, but it's more like a server host than email hosting provider, so I still say the middleman comparison is valid. Like 'here you go, have fun' and leaves you to it, as opposed to 'here are what you can configure with the plan you selected, anything not available in our custom dashboard is not a feature and you should not ask about'. Similar to having a vps, they are like 'here are the very basics, good luck byeee'.
I'm on the cheapest plan for my host and the only restrictions that matter is (last time I checked) 25GB of storage for whatever I want to use it for. I get unlimited email addresses, forwarding, full spam software control panel, I can have very granular filters and actions. I've looked at several listed in this thread, and I've used proton, and I don't think any offer what I get with my host. So adding an extra entity that gives me less control and freedom is the middleman that I refer to.
I use mailbox.org and addy.io with a custom domain
Tuta has unlimited number, but doesn’t support PGP.
Tuta is good, but you're supposed to do the PGP part yourself with an application like Thunderbird. Anyway Tuta is E2E encrypted and will never support Thunderbird. Mailbox or Fastmail should be OK.
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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