My needs are pretty basic; I just want a reliable email service that I can run on my own domain, with a couple of addresses for family members. I'm not bothered about all the other business-related stuff. Privacy and encryption would be preferable, but not an absolute deal-breaker. Anything I want to discuss in private goes by encrypted messenger anyway, not email.
One must have is IMAP support. I run a load of email addresses [not all via Gmail or Google Workspaces] so I want to be able to keep them all in the same place [Thunderbird] and not have to fire up different apps for different accounts.
So far, I've checked out most of the oft-recommended options; Protonmail, Tutanota, Mailbox, Mailfence, CTemplar, Runbox, Zoho, etc. and found that there were issues with most of them --whether this was lack of IMAP support, lack of Unicode support [Hello Runbox and Zoho. It's 2022!] or just general uneasiness after reading customer reviews.
But, by far the biggest no-no with all of these services is that they charge for each separate email address. I have emails set up on my domain for the missus, and a couple of family members. So 4 in all. As each of these services charges per user, that effectively means quadruple the stated price for any of them. For amount of emails sent on the accounts --a handful a week at most, that ends up being prohibitively expensive, for the amount of usage.
Which brings me onto the 3 mentioned in the title. Migadu[0], Postale[1] and MXroute[2] all charge by the amount of emails you send, not by the number of actual addresses you set up on the domain. Which seems a much fairer system. Especially for my use case. So, unless anyone is aware of another option, I'm wavering between those three.
I still have some doubts though:
MIGADU --Probably the best known of this business model and the prices seem reasonable for what I want. But a quick read through their T&Cs is pretty alarming. Their Acceptable Use policy [3] pretty much says they can suspend your account without warning for a huge range of subjective reasons. Including:
>Hate speech, racism, calls for violence, Nazism as well any other immoral, unethical or socially unacceptable activity will be denied service. If illegal, we will report such to the authorities.
This virtue signalling shite is really going too far these days. By all means take down accounts that are indulging in illegal activity, but otherwise just keep your noses the hell out of people's private correspondence!
So, thats's MIGADU ruled out. Next up...
POSTALE --I didn't actually find anything too egregious on the Postale website. But that was part of the problem. I couldn't find any info about the company at all. ie. where are they based?.. where are their servers?.. etc? Even on the company 'About' page[4], all we get is mention of an unnamed 'creator' and the only contact details are an email address. I have absolutely no idea where this company is based, or what size it is. For all I know, it could be some kid in his bedroom. A bit dubious about entrusting my email to such an unknown entity.
MXROUTE --I hadn't heard of these, til I saw a few recommendations on HN. On the face of it, it seems to be a good fit. I'm not afraid of a bit of setup and configuration. However, I have noticed people complaining about the company's 'attitude' and, reading through their FAQs they do come across as pretty abrasive --even down to making a point of not offering refunds to anyone who signs up and doesn't like the service.
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In 2020, there was some turmoil with Migadu where they nearly (or completely) doubled their prices and didn't communicate it well. I was paying 45/yr then abruptly started paying 90/yr on the same/equivalent plan. They also took away a couple of features purported to be the cause behind some performance issues they had. During that time, their service was strained. Many users, me included, didn't realize there was an issue until no e-mail was received for days. Support just said "sorry" and that there was a post about it on their website. I think this situation soured a lot of users. You can read about it, including some of Migadu's response, if you search this site, reddit, and lowendtalk.
I agree with you that their speech codes in the TOS are sketchy, ambiguous, and trite. I'm not sending or receiving any e-mail like that, but I don't trust contemporary definitions for those topics. I've been considering another provider when my subscription is due for renewal because of the price change.
Source: I've hosted my own mail for more than 25 years now, taking it with me from ISP to IAP, from country to country, even through a period where I only had dialup (the consequence of moving to the countryside - now I have gigabit fibre in the same location) by having an arrangement with a friend who ran backup MX for me. Linux + Exim + Spamassassin + greylistd + Dovecot + Sieve is all it takes, all of it is free, running a Raspberry Pi (or similar) costs a pittance. An additional advantage is that you'll be ready for the decentralised future of the 'net.
It sounds more like you have philosophical differences with these 2 companies, as they are very opinionated right out the gate, as you noted. I think, since they're small teams, they're trying to scare off users who are going to require a lot of time and effort on the customer service side.
That said, my interactions with both companies has been pleasant and professional. But it really does sound like you're going to need to roll your own service based on your major complaints.
Maybe you will have a better time than I, but MXRoute is more opinionated than I'd like my mail provider to be. If you are ruling out Migadu, you might rule out MXRoute on the same grounds.
Migadu just added master password support so can now dsync easily with another dovecot server (ie backups, move, etc). My next config will probably be migadu + selfhosted vps.
>Hate speech, racism, calls for violence, Nazism as well any other immoral, unethical or socially unacceptable activity will be denied service. If illegal, we will report such to the authorities.
That is not referring to the content of messages but rather general usage of our email service. We never look at the messages except when asked to. If you use our email service for things such as "hate speech, racism, calls for violence", all being illegal and punishable by law, we would know about it only once we receive a harassment complaint. With a valid proof we would act upon it, first level being asking you politely not to do it because it involves us then.
That is rather common sense, and we speak here from experience and past cases.
Disclaimers: I don't work for OVH; I use it consistently for my customers; Still, all my own/company stuff is self-hosted on my own Colo/AS/LIR.
It makes administrating and backing up an email server a breeze. Only real requirement is that you have your own domain name, and know how to generate API keys for a few services (really easy). Helps ensure you have all the important mail settings (SPF, DMARC, etc) set up.
I use BuyVM for the VPS because I can set up one of the mail settings, but you could easily use another provider (Hetzner might be good if you need a lot of space).
Also... you could host Nextcloud and OnlyOffice on the Cloudron box under the free plan as well... which is pretty much like hosting One Drive and Microsoft 365. A little more complexity to manage, but still very easy.
Now one thing to keep in mind... you still have a single point of failure in your domain name provider. It they don't act responsibly, there's not much you can do.
I have looked at the companies mentioned and came to much the same conclusion. Currently I am contemplating ImprovMX (https://improvmx.com) which could provide an SMTP server and allow those domains to continue to use Google's no-cost option (https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#nocost). If this option is anything like GMail it should be possible to setup the 'send mail as' account as the default to continue sending and receiving mail from the custom domain using ImprovMX's SMTP.
Here is an example. I have one family member who wants to keep her email address on the family domain but have all her mail forwarded to her address @gmail. So I have migadu forward her mail to google's gmail server. One day that forwarding stopped working. So I asked migadu to check why the forwarding was failing.
They replied that they have no way to do this, and I shouldn't be forwarding to gmail. I've never heard of an email service that can't forward! They pointed me to this doc: https://www.migadu.com/guides/gmail/
[0] https://poolp.org/posts/2019-08-30/you-should-not-run-your-m...
[1] https://karchnu.fr/posts/2020-09-17-certificate-smtp-imap-an...
Do they mention anywhere that they are actually scanning the content and/or metadata? I'd assume this just means that if they get reports about using their platform for sending unacceptable content, they have the rights to deny the service, and, if needed, report you to the authorities.
Both are excellent, Migadu raised prices so I snagged a lifetime Mxroute sub for $100 and have been content. Migadu gave seemingly more control and cleaner admin interface, Mxroute seems a bit slopped together but like I said, has worked flawlessly and was happy with both
The pricing is hard to beat, but the service is sort of no frills. It's been 100% reliable since I began using it, but the UI, documentation, and process for setting up domains with LetsEncrypt SSL and DKIM/SPF is...unrefined is a good way of putting it. Once you find the appropriate documentation (it exists, it's just not always where you'd first look for it) everything is straightforward.
I pay for 40GB of storage (I think I pay ~$25/40GB, but it's low enough that I literally don't recall), and from there I can host as many domains, email accounts, aliases, and my choice of webmail services incl. Rainloop, Squirrelmail, Roundcube, and MXLogin. Recently they've even added an option for Horde along with a slew of other groupware products such as Nextcloud, OpenOffice, and MatterMost--any/all can be deployed under any of my registered domains with little more than a few clicks. As long as I don't exceed my storage quota, my annual bill is always the same.
It's white label, so I can brand all of the relevant client-facing endpoints and products with logos, color themes, and custom URLs with LetsEncrypt SSL. Things like spam control are nothing to write home about, but my philosophy is to pay someone like MXRoute to handle the actual Dovecot/Postfix/DNS/security and then I can self-host or integrate the other features I want/need like spam control, sieve routing, and proxies. That's everything I can think of to define my experience with MXRoute. Mostly positive, albeit unrefined. I haven't had any cause to seek out their customer service, but I wouldn't expect anything too stellar, just given how their website's account management and documentation is setup, and the relatively little effort I have seen in maintaining communication for things like upcoming invoices. To be fair, I've not had any bad experiences with them, but the reports you mention don't strike me as surprising either.
Bottom line - MXRoute is a solid choice for flexibility and affordability, but only for a specific type of user.
It is suitable for:
- People who are typically self-sufficient, and are looking to strike a middle ground between total DIY/roll-your-own solution and a walled-garden hosted service like Microsoft or Google.
- Someone who is comfortable managing things like domain registrations, DNS, and DKIM/SPF/DMARC records, and who can seek out and parse sometimes spotty documentation without requiring hand-holding from customer support.
- Orgs that need/want the option to resell basic hosted email/groupware services to clients. Just bear in mind, you are the customer support for anyone you are reselling services to.
- Orgs that might need a lot of accounts/addresses, but don't consume excessive amounts of raw storage space for emails.