from Hacker News

Ask HN: Best Paid Gmail Replacement?

by smaps on 12/21/20, 5:29 PM with 87 comments

I’ve been getting on the privacy and anti-tracking bandwagon big time recently and am looking to replace gmail. What are good email services that allow you to use your own domain name?

  • by anuragsoni on 12/21/20, 5:48 PM

    I've been using Fastmail [1] for around five years now. I've been pretty happy with their service and I use it with my own domain name. I find the pricing to be reasonable, and their webmail interface is really fast, and I've found their spam detection to be really good.

    [1] https://www.fastmail.com/

  • by jborak on 12/21/20, 5:39 PM

    I use ProtonMail and overall it works pretty good and the value is great. The product is focused on security first so I think user experience suffers a bit. It's works fine but if you previously used a mail client like Spark on your phone you'll definitely miss it.

    The mobile app is okay, it's good enough for reading and sending short replies. The web interface is alright. I like to use the bridge application from ProtonMail on my desktop and use a mail client like Thunderbird or Apple Mail.

  • by uniqueid on 12/21/20, 5:49 PM

    I'm happy with Fastmail. It's certainly more pleasant to use than Gmail ever was.

    I miss nothing, but absolutely nothing, about Gmail.

  • by gtf21 on 12/21/20, 6:16 PM

    I looked at Fastmail and many others when I made this switch at the end of 2018. I moved my whole family's email setup from google. Fastmail is based in Australia, which is a five-eyes country so I ruled it out (sadly, as would have loved to use it). I wrote all of this up here: https://www.gtf.io/musings/moving-away-from-google-email/

    Spoiler: ended up using Runbox (www.runbox.com). I disagree with them on this but I think the webmail UI is pretty crap. I don't use it though, and instead use neomutt (on Linux) and Apple Mail (on iOS). I've found it to be pretty reliable and the support is very responsive.

  • by shafyy on 12/21/20, 5:55 PM

    I use Fastmail (for work) and Hey and ProtonMail for my private mail. I pay for Fastmail and Hey (free plan on ProtonMail).

    If I would pick one I would go with Hey, since I really love their Screener feature which helped me reduce a lot of noise. When they launch Hey for Work we'll probably switch from Fastmail (not that anythig is wrong with it).

  • by actuator on 12/21/20, 5:59 PM

    Google Apps version of Gmail or the Microsoft equivalent?

    You can use your own domain and I don't think data there is used for ads.

    I am really scared to put my trust in a small provider from a data security and availability view. Security is really really hard and emails are a critical part of your online and offline identity. YMMV

  • by qznc on 12/21/20, 6:00 PM

    http://mailbox.org

    I'm on their cheapest 1€/month plan for three years and happy.

  • by smt88 on 12/21/20, 5:42 PM

    There's no great way to know that your emails are private when they're hosted by a SaaS email provider. It's easy to get around third-party audits if you want to.

    The most private solution by far is to self-host, but that's also very challenging these days.

    And any email you send to a non-private service (Gmail, Yahoo, anyone's work account) is instantly going to be just as insecure as if you yourself used that other person's service.

    What I'm getting at is that email is inherently a not-very-private communication method and you should try to avoid it. The amount of time required to make it more private is not going to have much benefit for most people (whose contacts will be using Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.)

    You also can't easily or meaningfully get E2E encryption with email, so there's a lot of surface area to lose your privacy.

  • by gspr on 12/21/20, 6:01 PM

    I'm happy with Mailbox [1]. Been around for a while. Cheap, but a clear business model. IMAP and SMTP (should be obvious, but apparently not anymore). Under German and EU jurisdiction.

    It works well with my own domain, but my understanding is that it's not great if you have a lot of users with email on that domain (you have to pay more).

    [1] https://mailbox.org/en/

  • by justusthane on 12/21/20, 5:57 PM

    Fastmail. If it’s helpful, I wrote a short guide to switching off of gmail here: https://www.justus.ws/tech/how-to-ditch-gmail/

  • by busterarm on 12/21/20, 6:00 PM

  • by djaahk on 12/21/20, 9:20 PM

    ProtonMail [1] Plus user for the past 4 years now with my own domain. They've since added the VPN, which I find excellent and use all the time.

    They have most recently added ProtonCalendar and ProtonDrive [2], which were the features I was missing the most. Thus, I moved everything over and pay for the bundle of all products which comes at just under EUR 8.00 a month (Mail, VPN, Calendar and Drive).

    As mentioned by others, the webmail and UI of all 4 products is minimalist, but it is snappy and pleasing (to my taste, at least). The mobile apps on both iPhone and Android work very well, just missing threaded messages on the Android one.

    Finally, of course, end-to-end encryption, hosted in Switzerland and abiding by stringent national privacy laws [3] and out of the US, 5 eyes network as well as EU realms.

    [1] https://protonmail.com/ [2] I believe they're still in Beta [3] https://protonmail.com/security-details

  • by holstvoogd on 12/21/20, 6:00 PM

    I use mailbox.org, pretty cheap, super focus on privacy, EU hosted etc. The web ui is a bit dated, but works fine

  • by diehunde on 12/21/20, 5:49 PM

    Another happy ProtonMail user here. I've been using it for about 2 years now. You can also import you Gmail content to your proton account if you want. Their VPN also works really well.

  • by kapep on 12/21/20, 6:08 PM

    I switched to Posteo [1] and am very happy with them. 1€ per month, based in Germany (but you can choose from many country TLDs [2]) and they take privacy very serious.

    [1]: https://posteo.de/en/ [2]: https://posteo.de/en/help/which-domains-are-available-to-use...

  • by mbirth on 12/21/20, 7:44 PM

    Since this is HN, why not get some cheap managed server with email service? E.g. I'm using uberspace.de (shared server available for as low as 1€/month) and they run qmail. Big advantage: You can setup as many aliases as you like (one for each site you've signed up to) and also install whatever web frontend you like (Roundcube, Nextcloud, etc.). And you can keep as many mails and as long as you like (and pay storage for). You'll need to read a bit into qmail rules, though.

  • by papaf on 12/21/20, 5:51 PM

    I am a happy user of startmail:

    https://www.startmail.com/en/#pricing

  • by creyes on 12/21/20, 6:07 PM

    I'm a big Hey fan. Have been using it since launch. The screener feature is great, and I like being able to organize my feeds. They've also done a good amount of iteration in the ~9 months I've had it so I'm hopeful for a consistent release of features.

    I do with it had better calendar integration, or maybe it's own calendar. I'm not sure, but that's the big thing that Gmail has that I really miss

  • by stanski on 12/21/20, 6:26 PM

    I use Zoho Mail. They're not super popular but everything has been up to my expectations.

    I also use their Invoice product for time tracking and invoicing.

  • by frettchen on 12/21/20, 6:32 PM

    I've been using Mailfance (https://mailfence.com/) for around two years now and been very happy with them - the interface isn't the most beautiful thing ever, but it is simple to use and it works, and the pricing is reasonable (from free to 25,00€ a month depending on storage space needed).

    I use my own domain and I do still have a separate Gmail account that I mostly use for newsletters, promotions, coupons, and other "semi-wanted spam" to keep things clean in my inbox.

    Mailfence is in Belgium, so they're outside of the main Five Eyes but are still in a cooperating area and part of the Fourteen Eyes, which may matter depending on your precise personal privacy/risk levels, but for general personal privacy it's plenty for my use case.

  • by antisthenes on 12/21/20, 7:20 PM

    Personally using https://soverin.net/ atm.

    No idea if it's better than any of the other alternatives. I also still have my Gmail account, as it would take way too much effort to change emails on all the websites I use.

  • by zarkov99 on 12/21/20, 6:06 PM

    Fastmail is brilliant, better in every way than gmail. Great mobile versions, great web ui, super easy to import mail from gmail, super easy to setup local desktop clients to use it. I made the exact switch you are aiming for, for the same reasons, 6 months ago and I am very satisfied.

  • by gsimons88 on 12/21/20, 5:38 PM

    Ha, I was just like you, just recently starting to look away from GMail, though mostly because of all the incessant and obtrusive ads.

    I am using protonmail now, which has the option for a bunch of aliases that I really like, the web interface works fine though it's missing bells and whistles - I do miss the smart grouping of GMail! - and you get to use custom domains. It also provides encryption and you can even get VPN to go with it. Here's all the options you get per tier: https://protonmail.com/pricing

    Still an early user, but so far quite happy with it!

  • by muttantt on 12/21/20, 5:51 PM

    Fastmail is the best out there

  • by miles on 12/21/20, 6:09 PM

    They've definitely gone downhill since their peak, but Rackspace still has decent, US-based phone support. Called about a sub-account user who had had their mailbox frozen; re-enabling the account via the control panel was of course no problem, but the cool part was this: the support rep was able to find and confirm the source of the problem (a group message which had been flagged as spam by some number of recipients). I haven't seen many other email hosts that can provide this level of detail.

  • by sparrc on 12/21/20, 11:18 PM

    I use AWS Workmail. If you have a personal aws account then it's very easy to setup. The web UI is pretty basic but I just use Apple calendar and Spark for email anyways so it doesn't matter to me.

    It's $4/month and you can very easily bring any domain you have registered in route53. They also let you create as many aliases as you want. It also supports both the microsoft exchange protocol and plain SMTP.

  • by ulfw on 12/21/20, 6:05 PM

    I'm on Exchange Online ($48/year) for Exchange push email to iPhone and iPads on my own domain - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/exchange/compa...

  • by ravenstine on 12/21/20, 5:59 PM

    I pay for ProtonMail and really enjoy it, but you have to appreciate a certain level of minimalism. It's obviously not going to have some of the bells and whistles of Gmail. Personally, I don't like those bells and whistles anyway.

  • by eecks on 12/23/20, 3:29 PM

    I use Hey. I plan to renew with them next year too. I switched to Hey when email had become unmanageable for me using Gmail. I also wanted to move away from Google.

  • by Eddy_Viscosity2 on 12/21/20, 5:58 PM

    Protonmail for me. Using it over a year now and no complaints.

  • by joyed on 12/21/20, 6:46 PM

    https://mailbox.org/en/ Helpful support, secure, privacy oriented.

  • by xtiansimon on 12/22/20, 12:25 PM

    If we’re just talking about email, why not just sign up with an isp and use Horde or Squirrel web access? Because Gmail has better spam filtering?

  • by bsg75 on 12/21/20, 6:28 PM

    Fastmail:

    Supports domains Good UI, web and mobile app Support for multiple other providers to federate into one system Calendar, notes, files

  • by eurasiantiger on 12/21/20, 6:00 PM

    Be mindful of the fact that any service recommended here is likely going to be ”unofficially pentested” for a while.

  • by LaSombra on 12/21/20, 8:56 PM

    I’m very happy with mailbox.org

  • by gmoore on 12/21/20, 6:06 PM

    Protonmail - for sure

  • by waynesonfire on 12/21/20, 5:54 PM

    don't underestimate the importance of the calendar.

  • by linuxlizard on 12/21/20, 6:02 PM

    Many years ago, someone asked this same question on HN and recommended runbox.com I started using them then and still subscribe. Good IMAP support. New web ui (v7) is quite nice but I still hit the older config pages.

    tl;dr. runbox.com

  • by emehex on 12/21/20, 5:49 PM

    I've been using https://hey.com/ for the past 6 months. Big fan!

  • by toomuchtodo on 12/21/20, 6:02 PM

    FastMail

  • by TnkBldr on 12/21/20, 6:01 PM

    ProtonMail is very good.

  • by allthecybers on 12/21/20, 6:16 PM

    Hey.com - blocks trackers, good modern web apps and mobile apps. Brought to you by the team behind Basecamp. I’ve used it since early access was available and have completely switched over.

  • by patel011393 on 12/21/20, 6:16 PM

    Hey.com for personal + work email and ProtonMail for secure personal mail.