I’m contemplating taking control of my email by moving away from mainstream providers like Gmail or Outlook. What self-hosted email services have you tried, and which ones do you find most reliable and user-friendly? Are there any challenges or advantages you’ve encountered in making the switch?

  • scalyblue@alien.topBEnglish
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    10 months ago

    Trust me you do not want to point an MX record at your houses IP. It’s a terrible idea, dont do it, I don’t have the energy to qualify that statement but just trust me, don’t.

  • firebird789@alien.topBEnglish
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    10 months ago

    Mailcow is pretty straightforward to setup and has good documentation. No matter what you choose though be prepared to put a decent amount of work into it. I also recommend using an SMTP relay like SendGrid or Mailgun. That way you don’t have to worry about deliverability as much. If you’re not planning on sending a lot of email (<100 emails a day for SendGrid) you can use their free tiers.

  • FateOfNations@alien.topBEnglish
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    10 months ago

    Might not be the answer you are looking for: I would strongly advise against self-hosting your main email, especially if you are thinking about doing it on an IP address from a residential ISP or VPS/cloud provider. Unfortunately those kind of addresses have bad reputations for spam, and you will run in to significant deliverability issues at minimum. Some providers flat out block port 25, which makes sending and receiving unauthenticated email impossible (which is required to operate an “email provider”).

    • NiftyLogic@alien.topBEnglish
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      10 months ago

      Agree with Proton Mail, awesome service.

      Was thinking about self-hosting my email server, but Proton is just €40/year for me. Even if I value my time at only €20/hour, that means I have just two hours per year to fix issues with my email to break even.

      Sure, this is /r/selfhosted, but issues with email are usually not some config changes on my side, which can be easily resolved by rolling back my latest changes from git.

      Most of the issues arise from some asshat at email provider X deciding that I’m no longer trusted and blacklisting me. Resolving that issue is more like office politics than tinkering with my setup. Pretty happy if I can live my non-work life without any additional office politics.

      Thanks, but no thanks.

    • flunky_liversniffer@alien.topBEnglish
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      10 months ago

      3rd for MIAB. I use Linode. I believe most ISP’s restrict access to mail ports so running at home is probably not possible.

  • Ok_Construction4430@alien.topBEnglish
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    10 months ago

    I wouldnt selfhost my e-mail. You will quickly be blacklisted since your server wont have a good reputation and will have issues sending out emails to peers.

    • solarsparq@alien.topBEnglish
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      10 months ago

      I bought into Fastmail about 10 years ago (for 7 years) & recently moved to Proton about 5 years ago. Both are excellent privacy-first providers. Gmail is my junk e-mail at this point. Good recommendation. Australia-based business. Fastmail & Proton are my votes. I tried self-hosting for a few years & would agree with below – too many issues with blacklists. This is one you should consider paying for.