What Is A Good Replacement For Fastmail?

[bjh]

For those of you who have decided to use an alternative to Fastmail, given the recent debacle, do you have recommend a particular company, and why?

As an alternative, is there a webmail package that I could install on my own domain (hosted on a third-party site like www.asmallorange.com) that is, in your opinion, worth considering as an alternative to a Fastmail-type service? I can see the advantage of using my own, permanent, email address.

Or would you recommend merely using an email address on my own domain and having that forwarded to a Fastmail-type service?

[Tricia Marie]

FuseMail https://www.fusemail.com it's a good alternative if you want to enjoy a modern interface enabled with all the features currently missing on FastMail new UI, also FuseMail has file storage, address book, calendar, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, 10 GB Mailboxes, unlimited aliases, domains and so on for just only USD 2 per month.

However I will stay with FastMail, I have confidence that common sense will prevail and some basic and obvious features as attachments to file storage from mail and compose screens will be implemented in the future as it is in FuseMail and other state-of-the-art webmail packages.

[David]

Regardless of anything else, I would recommend that you purchase your own domain name (from a domain name registrar) and then decide where to host your mail. After doing this you will be able to point your mail (using an MX record) at your new mail host.

[hobbes]

Originally Posted by bjh

For those of you who have decided to use an alternative to Fastmail, given the recent debacle, do you have recommend a particular company, and why?

As an alternative, is there a webmail package that I could install on my own domain (hosted on a third-party site like www.asmallorange.com) that is, in your opinion, worth considering as an alternative to a Fastmail-type service? I can see the advantage of using my own, permanent, email address.

Or would you recommend merely using an email address on my own domain and having that forwarded to a Fastmail-type service?

I now host my email with asmallorange, with whom you get Horde, Roundcube and Squirrel webmail clients, as well as POP3 and IMAP.

I wouldn't recommend installing your own webmail, since you won't be able to use HTTPS - unless you have a VPS or dedicated with them.

And, ASO support response has been excellent in my experience.

[ChinaLamb]

Originally Posted by bjh

For those of you who have decided to use an alternative to Fastmail, given the recent debacle, do you have recommend a particular company, and why?

As an alternative, is there a webmail package that I could install on my own domain (hosted on a third-party site like www.asmallorange.com) that is, in your opinion, worth considering as an alternative to a Fastmail-type service? I can see the advantage of using my own, permanent, email address.

Or would you recommend merely using an email address on my own domain and having that forwarded to a Fastmail-type service?

It all depends on your needs. Everyone needs something different - you can't just take someone's suggestion. You have to weigh the alternatives. Check out the following thread:

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=64118

Polarismail is getting a lot of attention, but I was totally unimpressed. I got some strange call after trying to pay, sounded like someone working from their house talking to me through a cheap skype headset to verify and process my payment. It was very unprofessional - and it set the tone for what happened. Their setup is completely confusing. It took forever and many emails just to get set up to receive an email. The owner talks a lot in the forums, which is a draw, but it couldn't compensate for what felt like a garage operation. I cancelled my order within 20 days. I tried Zimbra at 01.com, paid google, Office365, Open Exchange, custom providers - big ones and small ones.

I came straight back to Fastmail. That's why I've not been pessimistic and as angry as others responding to these problems. I've seen the other side of the fence, it is not as rosy as it seems. Every 2 years I contemplate switching, sign up for a number of services, try them all out and come back to FM.

It is going to be much more money to switch from Fastmail to something that could handle all my specialty issues. I guess I am too embedded into their back-end to switch to something else. Fastmail's "classic" interface and robust back-end keep me parked. And now there's the promise of synchronization across mobile devices...

Communication the last few weeks was poor. The switch had a bunch of bugs that legitimately made people mad. But they are continuing to learn and move forward, and they have given us assurances that the classic interface won't go away. I like having these forums and I am impressed by the quality of the FM people that work with the customers here.

I'm staying.

[hobbes]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

It all depends on your needs....

It is going to be much more money to switch from Fastmail to something that could handle all my specialty issues.

I think this is the key. FM has an excellent back-end for speciality needs.

For "standard" email hosting, there are a multitude of options out there (ie virtually every web host, and other email-only services).

[krimlin]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

I got some strange call after trying to pay, sounded like someone working from their house talking to me through a cheap skype headset to verify and process my payment. It was very unprofessional

I can absolutely confirm this. Payprogobal.com sent me German emails to which I was supposed to reply. They asked for a phone number, although - as far as I can remember - I had had to fill it in when I went through the signup process. So, they asked - in German - for my phone number in order to verify my payment, I replied - in German - that if they were suspicious, because my IP didn't match with the country of my credit card, that's alright, I'm in a different country. 20 minutes later they called me on the phone number I had submitted in that email, let me hold the line for 1 minute, and all she asked - in English - was, if it was correct that I was staying in a different country. Huh?

To make it clear, I really appreciate George's efforts on this forum, he listens to users and implements new features to Polarismail pretty fast. Moreover, he often finds individual solutions for some features or settings one might need. Everything Polarismail has to offer is becoming better and better and this is actually the only provider I would consider to move to, should I decide to leave Fastmail (what I seriously have considered over the last week). However, Polarismail appears to me like a bunch of different interfaces, several places to login and to configure settings, filters, ... I think I do understand what everything is for and why these settings for instance (enhanced interface & control panel) have been separated, but still, comparing Fastmail to this points out that FM is much more "complete".

I haven't decided yet. Would love Polarismail for their Activesync, but I will need some more time to decide.

[bjh]

Thanks for the feedback. I do actually have several domains, one of which I forward to Fastmail. I've basically three choices, as I see it:

a) continue to forward to fastmail
b) forward to some new provider, like Polaris
c) look into using Horde or something similar on my own domain

Now to decide which is best...

[placebo]

This thread is a bit confusing to me. The reason for leaving FastMail is purportedly the loss of key features in the classic interface. To address this problem, people are saying they're going to find a new provider so they can use Squirrelmail or Horde? Really?

I can understand those people who haven't been able to access their mail and who haven't been satisfied with FastMail support's response leaving, but they seem to be a pretty small minority among those complaining.

[George_B]

Just to address some of the concerns here.

We are indeed using a third party billing solution - PayproGlobal - and we did receive quite a bit of complaints which I'm still analyzing right now. It's not so much that they cause problems with the billing but that their staff is not very professional.

For us it makes a lot of sense to use a third party processor, especially in Canada where legislation makes it very difficult to have a one-stop solution. Had we chosen Paypal for example, we couldn't have processed American Express cards so in the end there had to be a compromise.

As for our different control panels, the reason for that is that we come from a different background. Gmail/Hotmail/Fastmail mostly have individual account holders whereas we started with customers having multiple accounts. From that point of view, our design makes more sense and it's easier to manage. We are continuously improving the service and our turnaround time is pretty fast so if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to write them up at: http://ideas.polarismail.com

Cheers

[ChinaLamb]

Moderator: A discussion regarding other providers probably best belongs best in the "Email Comments, Questions and Miscellanea" Forum...

[ServiceTech]

Originally Posted by placebo

I can understand those people who haven't been able to access their mail and who haven't been satisfied with FastMail support's response leaving, but they seem to be a pretty small minority among those complaining.

They are expected to be a minority of those complaining: they have no reason to waste their time in this forum when they want nothing more to do with Fastmail.

Two weeks of no service and no support = they are long gone.

They are having me set them up on other services. Most common is outlook.com (integrates well with Windows 8).

[ServiceTech]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Moderator: A discussion regarding other providers probably best belongs best in the "Email Comments, Questions and Miscellanea" Forum...

Sorry.

I based my reply to this forum on its instruction:
"Everything that does not belong in the help or feature requests Forums goes here."

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Moderator: A discussion regarding other providers probably best belongs best in the "Email Comments, Questions and Miscellanea" Forum...

Disagree. I regards a discussion specifically asking for information on email providers with features similar to FM to be on topic.

[Mystakill]

Originally Posted by George_B

... Had we chosen Paypal for example, we couldn't have processed American Express cards so in the end there had to be a compromise.

PayPal must offer different tiers, or different solutions per country then, as I use my AmEx card via PayPal fairly regularly. I do run into an occasional PayPal link from a vendor's site which doesn't allow AmEx cards though.