Recommendation for no-frills paid email service

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by ioneja

I noticed something similar with Soverin... the ticket numbers do indeed suggest that the userbase is very low. They've been in business about 5 years, I believe, so that at least says they aren't a fly-by-night operation. But long term viability does concern me too. I might still go for it, but I'm now cautious.

Every chance that Soverin will become a more major player. They are hosting the mail of the new internetprovider Freedom.nl.

Basically, I'm struggling to find a new email service too. Like many here, I've tried and used many services, and use several services right now, including, like you, Fastmail.

Nice overview.

Also, as for your OP, I noticed you mentioned Tuffmail. I used to be a huge fan of Tuffmail years ago... with the original owner, to the new owner, and back to the original owner. Good guy as I recall, ran a tight ship. I loved the super detailed control you could have over accounts. But it is in the US, and I'm trying to avoid that. If Tuffmail were outside the Five Eyes, I'd try it again.

John Capo has done a hell of job to comply to the latest internet standards. The service has been neglected by the previous owner for the past 7 years and is now up to date again.

[TenFour]

This type of thread is proof of the wide variety of email solutions for a wide variety of tastes and requirements, and also shows why it is so hard to make recommendations!

[Cory]

Originally Posted by TenFour

This type of thread is proof of the wide variety of email solutions for a wide variety of tastes and requirements, and also shows why it is so hard to make recommendations!

So agreed!

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by TenFour

This type of thread is proof of the wide variety of email solutions for a wide variety of tastes and requirements, and also shows why it is so hard to make recommendations!

100% -- and why I really appreciate this forum. The collective experience over the years here is fantastic, and the "noise" level is very low. Still the best place to learn about email on the planet.

[ioneja]

This is frustrating. I think I've been spoiled by the well-oiled webmail clients for Fastmail, Gmail, Outlook, etc... webmail is really important to me, so I'm having a tough time.

My personal non-5-eyes list was:

Tutanota, ProtonMail, Mailbox.org, Posteo, Startmail, Soverin, Mailfence, Runbox, Countermail, CTemplar, and KolabNow

And now after a lot of personal testing and/or research, it's down to Tutanota, Mailbox.org, Posteo, and Kolab Now. More testing to come.

At the same time, like I mentioned in a previous post, I'll still keep Fastmail for some things, plus I have the standard ubiquitous Google + Microsoft offerings for specific features I am unfortunately stuck with for work/clients. But I hope to move as much as I can to one (or maybe two) of the four new services I'm checking out.

TBH, Mailbox.org and KolabNow are taking the lead for me. Seem pretty solid and businesslike so far. Tutanota is so affordable I'll probably keep that just because I like the encryption features and elegant simplicity. And Posteo is strangely growing on me, but it just feels a bit too much on the "vegan activist" side of the spectrum for me. Nothing against vegans or activists.

[Cory]

What are your thoughts on Roundcube? https://roundcube.net

Pretty much every web hosting account has Roundcube built-in. You could always get a hosting account located in a country you like, and use the email built into it? Won't be the best...but it won't be the worst either .

Originally Posted by ioneja

This is frustrating. I think I've been spoiled by the well-oiled webmail clients for Fastmail, Gmail, Outlook, etc... webmail is really important to me, so I'm having a tough time.

My personal non-5-eyes list was:

Tutanota, ProtonMail, Mailbox.org, Posteo, Startmail, Soverin, Mailfence, Runbox, Countermail, CTemplar, and KolabNow

And now after a lot of personal testing and/or research, it's down to Tutanota, Mailbox.org, Posteo, and Kolab Now. More testing to come.

At the same time, like I mentioned in a previous post, I'll still keep Fastmail for some things, plus I have the standard ubiquitous Google + Microsoft offerings for specific features I am unfortunately stuck with for work/clients. But I hope to move as much as I can to one (or maybe two) of the four new services I'm checking out.

TBH, Mailbox.org and KolabNow are taking the lead for me. Seem pretty solid and businesslike so far. Tutanota is so affordable I'll probably keep that just because I like the encryption features and elegant simplicity. And Posteo is strangely growing on me, but it just feels a bit too much on the "vegan activist" side of the spectrum for me. Nothing against vegans or activists.

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by Cory

What are your thoughts on Roundcube? https://roundcube.net

Pretty much every web hosting account has Roundcube built-in. You could always get a hosting account located in a country you like, and use the email built into it? Won't be the best...but it won't be the worst either .

Yep, Roudcube is all over the place, and I don't have a problem with it. I kind of like it. I think KolabNow uses a custom version of Roundcube on top of their server stack, and it works very well.

As for using typical hosting accounts along with Roundcube or other open source webmail app, that's a viable option for some folks, and something I did years ago. But it always ended up having too many issues for me. Lag, timeouts, quality of service, security concerns, deprecated versions, authentication issues, lack of 2FA, serious spam issues, lousy support that didn't know how to handle their own email services, and even IP blacklisting issues since a lot of spammers do this precise approach, which can then affect all neighboring IPs of legit people, etc...

I even went the dedicated server direction for a while and I've tried to roll my own, and then I had all sorts of extra security headaches. Properly running a solid, secure email server is not an easy task. In the end, I just decided to let the email experts who focused on email-only services take care of the full email service, top to bottom. They've fine-tuned their systems way better than whatever approach I could put together.

That was probably the time when I first discovered Tuffmail, which was -- at the time -- one of the the most amazing email services. The original owner sold the business, but is now back in charge as I understand it, and I would absolutely consider Tuffmail again if his servers were outside the US. But after Tuffmail, I figured I could never top what he did in the backend, so I never tried a hosting kind of approach again. Since then I've tried tons of services. But never back to the hosting approach.

But other folks might want to go for it. I'm not that adventuresome anymore, and to do it really well takes more time, effort, and maybe a little blood, sweat and tears. If I can find a non-5-eyes provider that I really like, I'll just stick with them.

And look, even the the OP -- @rnkn -- seems to have chosen to go back to Fastmail. And Fastmail is really good TBH, and I understand his decision. But for me, I want something that doesn't have two offices in two 5-eyes countries. That's about as as bad as you can get in terms of jurisdictions. And again, I don't intend to get rid of my Fastmail account entirely. I like the approach of spreading things around, and I want to move some stuff out of the US just on principle alone... and maybe eventually totally outside the US.

And I've already half-heartedly tried. For years, I've also been using Runbox, but the experience has been, well, underwhelming to me. Don't get me wrong, they are solid and the people running it are nice as can be. But the webmail is really important to me and the old Runbox webmail v6 is honestly terrible to me. Some people like it. I can't tolerate it. I was holding out hope that they would really deliver on their v7 beta webmail, but I've been watching the iceberg-like progress on it for years, and I also don't like it. I just spent a good testing session on it now, and it was painful to me in all different ways than v6. I think they just don't know how to make great webmail, at least for me. Others might love the beta. Nothing against Runbox people.

So I've been procrastinating for way too long and am finally trying to find a service that I like outside the 5+eyes. Who knows. I might just give up and stick with the ones I already have like the OP. But Tutanota, Mailbox.org, Posteo, and KolabNow seem to have some potential for me. More testing needed though.

And I didn't intend to take over this thread, apologies to the OP. I'm just feeling very verbose right now and writing way too much. When you're cooped up in a pandemic, these things can happen.

[Cory]

Check out this program! https://www.group-office.com/

It is hosted in the Netherlands (their hosted version)

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by Cory

Check out this program! https://www.group-office.com/

It is hosted in the Netherlands (their hosted version)

Tried this out many years ago -- both versions -- and I remember liking it, although I didn't stick with it. Very cool back then, and very cool that it's still around. Didn't realize it's still going, will check it out again. Thanks for the heads up.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by Cory

Check out this program! https://www.group-office.com/

It is hosted in the Netherlands (their hosted version)

It's more focused on groupware and office work than email.

[rnkn]

Originally Posted by TenFour

Check out Purelymail. One-man band but price is right and he is very responsive:

I have signed up to the Purelymail trial. So far everything has been perfect. Contrary to another poster, I do like the advanced pricing; it probably works out cheaper for me (cheaper than the already peanuts pricing), but I would prefer to pay more if I used the service more. I also really like that he has an open issue tracker, so responses to past issues are available for everyone to see.

The only thing i was concerned about was his hit-by-bus policy, so I asked and got an immediate response:

This is actually one of the many things I need to work on. My plan in the event of untimely death is to get a trusted technical friend to handle the business as a skeleton crew, but I'm still working on finding the right person and getting them the minimum need-to-know to put out any needed updates. Hopefully there wouldn't be too much burden, as the design is as self-running as I can make it.

Fortunately there's little chance of being hit by a literal bus, as I'm mostly not allowed to leave the house at the moment, but actuarial statistics for my age say there's a 0.1665% chance I'll die per year. It's enough to worry about, but not super high.