Alternate Email hosting to G Suite

I second Fastmail for email & calendar.

The key vendor lockin that has made it hard for me to get away from Google Workspace (f/k/a GSuite) is Google Docs. Lots of people in my work and personal life share and collaborate on Google Docs. That's not easy to deal with unless your email address is on the Google platform.

I tried and desperately wanted to like Microsoft's equivalent Office 365 or whatever its called now. I quickly learned that to administer Microsoft's product requires a full time job. It's horrendously buggy, complex and not catered to SMBs.

Microsoft Office itself is pretty good and Word's collaboration features are approaching parity with Google's. But administering a domain in Microsoft world is just not worth the effort. Google Workspace's domain admin panel, on the other hand, seems to strike the right balance between features and complexity and more-or-less works as expected.

I am really trying to move my life away from Google, but as long as folks in my sphere use Google Docs, that is hard to do. If Google Docs doesn't concern you, I fully endorse Fastmail and have used it in my personal life since 2017.

From all the places I'm surprised Fastmail gets so much praise in HN. I'm sure it's a nice paid service but it's based in Australia which is notorious for being a disaster for those who care for privacy. There are countless posts in Hacker News about this (just search Australia + privacy) and here's one [1] that's specifically addressing Fastmail and its situation over there.

I'm not against Fastmail specifically but I'd definitely consider services based in countries which do better privacy-wise.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28410178

1. https://www.fastmail.com/ 2. https://protonmail.com/ 3. https://posteo.de/en 4. https://mailbox.org/de/ 5. https://purelymail.com/ 6. https://www.migadu.com/

I've been using Office 365 for about a year now after moving from G Suite - didn't like how on G Suite I couldn't use certain products like Stadia and my Google account was essentially hostage to the monthly bill.

I did have to go through the process of transferring my data (Photos) manually to a standard consumer Google account and losing some stuff like my Google Maps Local Guides status, Android purchases (I use an iPhone now anyway but not nice to lose the purchases in-case I switch in the future) and my YouTube account (wasn't much stuff on it anyway) and resubscribing to all my favourite YouTubers. Wasn't too painful - disgraceful how Google allow you to transfer your standard Google Account to a Gsuite one but not the reverse.

Been a rather pleasant experience on the Microsoft side. Integration into the Outlook smartphone apps and Windows 10/11 mail client is second to none and the webapp is solid too. The spam filtering is excellent too.

Quite nice how if you login to Microsoft services and have the same email address for your standard Microsoft account and O365 you can get the option to select which one when logging in.

You can find resellers selling keys for a year of it, I bought mine from Amazon. Will definitely be renewing this year.

Cloudflare's doing free mail forwarding now. It's in beta but they're onboarding people pretty fast.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/

outgoing is going to be a bit more tricky. That's an exercise for the reader.

edit: I have also failed to seen ImprovMX mentioned here, but they have a compelling offering for bulk domain owners. Run by a community member (cx42net: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22223783)

I know there are some other niche mail services that are out and do the things you can find through other mentioned companies like fastmail, o365, migadu, mxroute, et cetera. One of these days I should put some sort of mail guide together to collect and untangle this ecosystem.

Personally I use fastmail.com and I am happy with the service, but it costs $5/month so I am not sure that is what you are looking for.

You could self host, but setting it up is a time investment and probably not worth it unless you have fun doing it

Curious as to why no one is recommending just paying for Google Workspace? $6/month for Google vs $5/month for Fastmail seems similar enough to avoid the hassle of transferring email servers.

Thanks for the headsup- looks like I'll be impacted by this too. My admin page links to a google form which lets you say you're using it for personal use only (I am) -- wondering if they'll grandfather folks in. Otherwise it sounds like fastmail is the favorite for HN! I found the form via their FAQ @ https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nonbiz&zippy=%2Cwh...

I can recommend Fastmail. Switched to them a few years back. Privacy they aren't the greatest - Australia based company.

Besides that:

* They do mail, and do it well

* Calendar/contacts support

* they use standards (IMAP/caldav/cardav)

* Webclient is OK - faster than Google, and for me it just works better.

* They have labels! This is a killer feature, I really did miss it coming from Google. I have a bunch of filters that label my mails accordingly, I just hit archive when I'm done with them so they disappear from view

* Android client is 'ok'. To get the contacts/calendar in the Android apps I recommend DavX5.

* Catchall

* Recently added "Masked Email" - you create a random alias on your mail account to use to sign up for services. If you have 1Password it'll even generated a pw for you.

When I first switched I had issues with an iCal feed from O365 where MS didn't honor the spec, and this caused duplicate issues. FM implemented a fix. Forget about this kind of service from Google or MS, unless you are an international multi-million dollar company.

Slightly OT, but since you mention accidentally deleting it, how do I delete my G Suite?

The screen to delete says

> You have at least 1 active subscription. You need to cancel your subscriptions before you can delete this account.

and when I click to cancel my subscription it says

> All administrative controls available only with G Suite legacy (such as sharing policies, audit and reporting, and alerts) will be removed. To continue accessing these administrative controls, you'll need to purchase G Suite legacy again. > To use the Admin console free of charge to delete your organisation’s account, you agree to the Cloud Identity agreement. > You’ll lose access to your G Suite legacy service immediately You can’t undo this action

So I'm paranoid of locking myself out with no way to still access the admin console to delete it... and with no support obviously

I use zoho. The free tier lets you use your own domain and so far that's been plenty for me.

I use Hover for my personal domain, and added a "small mailbox" for my email address. For calendaring, I use iCloud, which works fine since I'm an iPhone user and that thing is _always_ with me. I switched my personal website (which I basically never utilize), from Blogger to GitHub Pages. Should I ever want to post things, the Jekyll integration will be plenty. At the moment the page has 90s style "under construction" notice, which I find mildly amusing and is all I wanted over Hover's own missing website page.

I looked at other options -- ProtonMail or FastMail -- but figured my needs were fairly basic. I don't use multiple mailboxes, I very rarely search my email history, iCloud handles my calendar (I had switch this up already), and I don't need a huge amount of space. After 10+ years on G Suite, my personal email was 1.5GB, so I figured any email host would work.

I didn't bother importing all of my email to the new Hover email, nor did I want to. Instead I archived my G Suite email and copy / pasted my current Inbox across, which was 20-some messages (I practice a slightly messy version of Inbox Zero). If I ever need to search the old email history, I'll import the old G Suite email archive to Thunderbird or Apple Mail.

About having my domain and email hosted by the same provider: I understand the risk, however I have managed to keep my personal website and email going consistently for over two decades, and I'm not terribly worried. Plus I have auto-renew enabled.

I use MXRoute [0] which is still offering a lifetime promo. Looks like it increased to $175 since I bought it. I haven't been disappointed and it is faster than Gmail from my experience. I host Cypht [1] instead of using their webmail which allows me to aggregate other emails and RSS feeds together in one interface.

[0] https://mxroute.com/ [1] https://cypht.org/

AWS SES Inbound + a Lambda function to drop the mail where you want it (e.g. a topic, an S3 bucket, or forward it to somewhere else). Overall monthly cost is practically $0.

I use Protonmail.com and I'm quite happy with their service. It does allow custom email domains, etc., but is paid.

I switched to a http://www.migadu.com trial plan last weekend and transfered my mail to a free Gmail account with https://github.com/imapsync/imapsync.

I hope Google makes up it's mind soon about family accounts, otherwise I'm not going back.

I'm currently deciding between Office365 Family or Fastmail. I would prefer Fastmail, they seem modern & less headache inducing than configuring Office365 for my custom domain. But some family members would benefit from having access to the Office suite of products, so that benefit is quite nice.

I've done the research (and already some action) even though I have only 2 non-related users on 2 different GSuites who use solely GMail.

For myself I use FastMail and there is nothing I can complain about, however I wasn't really fond of migrating towards it, since that'd require 2 separate organizations, which would pretty much beat the point (pricing would be similar, but it takes some time).

Few random thoughts about whole thing: - Fastmail is OK, there's nothing good or bad about it, however if someone is GMail user (with their fancy UI and filtering) they will be disappointed. One can add Sanebox but that's additional cost.

- I'd stay away from Protonmail for two reasons - first is they don't really have IMAP (as it's encrypted etc.), so it's either hack your own bridge or use their applications. Second reason is that I've worked with few organization which perceived protonmail-based e-mails as spam and phishing (it's super easy to create anonymous e-mail account there so...)

- iCloud+ provides custom domain support, it's kind of interesting how it works, and might save you few bucks, but the migration process is not exactly Apple-like

- Migrating away is going to take a lot of effort. When I made decision I noticed that my DNS TTL were set to 604800. I set that domain LONG time ago, so I suppose those were recommended values back then.

- Either forget about archives or be prepared for a long time to sync it. Google allows export (and that's pretty much the only way as there is 2500MB daily download quota for IMAP) but getting it uploaded is something else.

- iCloud is funny because you can't really admin it - you add and setup domain and when you share it within family it's theirs to setup, one cannot make overreaching management

For my 2 users I'm going for iCloud, cause they are already in the ecosystem quite deep, as paying customers and also it integrates nicely with other services.

I thought ElGoog announced yesterday that they’ve decided (for now) to reverse course on the plan to take away legacy G-suite accounts?

Relevant links:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/google-will-let-legacy-g-s...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30114343

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30118907

In any case, good riddance. I’d love to get out of the abusive relationship I have with google and “Legacy G-suite”, so a workable long-term alternative would be great!

I switched to iCloud despite the fact that I have zero personal Apple devices.

Having just done this myself I would HIGHLY recommend transferring email using a IMAP based tool. Any POP based tool will not retain any of the folder organization you may have in your Gmail mailbox.

Gmail implements folders via labels, and the only way that I know of how to pass these through to the new mailbox (whether it be Gmail or not) is by using IMAP.

I used:

https://imapsync.lamiral.info/#install

This one is free if you don't need support. There are others.

The email hosting service I settled for is:

https://mxroute.com

Use them only for forwarding, so their cheapest package is OK for me.

I've just switched to fastmail for email from gsuite and Gmail. It was effortless and I feel it works better than the Gmail systems did. I also enjoy the ease with which alias and catch all emails from my various domain names work.

The calendar though, this is proving the harder lock in from Google. Google calendar app on Android is superb but has no equivalent, especially if you have Google home devices or you use Android in your car, etc. At the moment I've moved my calendars to Google calendar and have yet to find an equivalent that works as well for it. Fastmail is good, but it's the apps for calendar which aren't quite there in my opinion.

I just helped a couple friends move to iCloud+ for the custom domain email feature. It was very simple to set up and got it working under 15 mins. Highly recommended, especially if you're already on iCloud+.

Both iCloud and Zoho free tier were good options to park one's custom domain for email. Both services support security features like SPF and DKIM, without which you may experience bounced email due to the spam filter on receiving sides. Eventually I picked Zoho because it supported catch-all email account, and its instruction to set up DNS records were easy to follow too.

I used Namecheap for domain transfer, and found its support responsive. For example, I found that I could immediately resubmit transfer request with its refund, after I failed the first transfer attempt due to GoDaddy's "protection" measures.

For old emails, Google Takeout let you download a mbox file that you can easily open on Mozilla Thunderbird. Takeout also downloaded all your content in Photos and Drive etc that you can keep offline.

Now that I don't have a custom domain associated with my G Suite account, I can sit back and let Google do its things. Overall, on positive note, this was a good excuse to learn about / brush up one's knowledge on domain transfer, DNS records (MX/TXT/CNAME), SPF/DKIM email security, mbox import.

I’ve loved Fastmail. Wildcard emails are really nice. It’s also much faster than Gmail, in my experience (I still have a Gmail account at work.)

If you have a high volume email inbox (role-based address), neither G Suit nor fastmail will suffice. Or they will, but you'll live in fear of a super high volume day when you get blocked, or start dropping messages.

This critique is for inbound mail for DAQ, not outbound mail (spam).

Does anyone know if G Suite, Fastmail or others offer a high volume option? receive 10K or more messages per day?

Check if your domain comes with free web forwarding and SMTP outgoing mail because you can wire this up to a free gmail account to get email behind a custom domain. I know Gandi offers this for every domain for example but I don't know how common it is (Namecheap offers web forwarding but not mail sending for example). Do other registrars offer this?

Fastmail. Been using them for ever and they have been nothing but great. Really nice to have actual support if you do need it (I did once for a misconfig on my end of my domain records, they got it sorted in a few hours).

I used the auto-import tool from my existing google accounts and it took a while but successfully imported everything with basically zero effort.

I really like pobox.net. They handle storing and forwarding email for my domain. I forward from my domain to a regular Gmail account and primarily use Superhuman as my interface to Gmail.

If Gmail ever goes away or I want to switch services I can just point pobox (and thus my domain) at another service, or use pobox directly.

I'm in the same boat - I have a free GSuite account and need to either pay Google for it or move elsewhere. What's not clear is that I have a YouTube channel attached to this Google identity and I don't know if when my custom .com GMail address enters the 'suspended' state whether I will lose access to my YouTube channel.

Both the email and the YouTube channel are for my video games business, so I'm okay paying for the privilege of my domain with my email, but I'm unsure that I want to trust Google with that. The whole way they have announced cancelling this GSuite deal, which they originally promised they would never do (it was "for life"), makes me think that all the more. But my YouTube account is pretty important to my business and I don't want to lose that.

I think it depends on the price point you are comfortable with .

There is Zoho at $2/user, Rackspace at $3/user and then GSuite and Office 365 at $5/user per month if paid annually.

There is also Namecheap business email from $.90 to $1.50 per user price point depending on how many users you are looking for.

https://www.infomaniak.com/en/free-email- free email if you move the domain to their service. Pretty inexpensive (1/4 of go daddy).

I’d go with fastmail or proton if it were just me, but my extended family is using my domain and I’m not paying $60+ a year per user.

I’m currently evaluating Zoho Mail as their prices are pretty reasonable.

I use Tutanota due to its privacy focus. 1€/mo is very affordable.

I was thinking of using icloud with custom domains as it appears to be the cheapest, $1/mth but reviews seem mixed.

Anyone that has used this config, please weigh in. Thanks.

After I switch to an alternate email host will my Google account still exist? Will I still be able to login to Google services using my@personaldomain.com?

Migadu is an alternative with a competitive pricing model - https://www.migadu.com

I also notice someone mentioned iCloud+ as an alternative. I have an apple ecosystem at home so this would make the most sense for me.

Seems like Fastmail is extremely popular here, based on the other comments. What are its advantages compared to say, Protonmail?

I'm going to switch to fastmail. Purelymail looks appealing but it seems less established. I may try it for my non-main e-mail.

One thing I am not sure about is the fact that I also relied on using oauth with my custom domain through google. Some providers will let me reset the password via e-mail; but not sure that's going to work everywhere.

I recently moved from Gmail to Fastmail, and noted a detailed process here: https://sami.eljabali.org/how-to-replace-gmail/

My current direction is to setup an email server on one of my Linux boxes and forward everything to my gmail account. That way my regular gmail account has full domain support like before.

Cloudflares forwarding is great for one email but useless for many emails/domains as I have quite a few domains and a few users.

I've been using Zoho. Seems to work well and is one of the cheaper ones out there.

I have been using Purelymail since July 2021 and it's worked very well for me so far. You can have as many domains and accounts as you want and the pricing comes down to total usage. For me it's been $0.40 per month.

I am currently using Cloudflare as an email forwarder, but used forwardemail.net before, and saw both are equally fast and secure. They forward emails to my random Gmail account, which I reply to as that domain.

Aws WorkMail is ok.

Zoho or Fastmail. Have been using both for years. Zoho is more of a GSuite competitor, Fastmail is perfect for family or personal.

I'd recommend picking one between (1) Fastmail and (2) Hey.

There are some pros and cons, but both are good.

I went with Fastmail.

What’s the best way to transfer or archive your gmail in a way that keeps it searchable?

Try the search function. There’s been lots of discussion about this the past weeks :)

I can’t recommend Fastmail enough. I used to host my own email server after moving off of Google Apps back in the day, and I don’t miss it at all.

Fastmail is reliable and affordable, has great customer service, and supports the sieve language for defining filtering rules. Really tough to beat.

Protonmail's been fantastic

fastmail is one of the very few good options. it’s not great, but it’s OK.

mailbox.org is good if you want to avoid the USA and Australia.

Zoho Mail

I am quite pleased with zoho feature rich and modestly prized. The nice thing is that zoho.com and zoho.eu are different entities.