I need to change ISPs and need to find a new email provider. This time I want to move to my own domain which I purchased through Namecheap and I do not want to use another ISP’s email system nor do I want to use Google, or Microsoft since I am Linux (and Android too) based. I would like this to be US based or at least have a strong US presence so obvious choices like Proton Mail, Mailfence, and Mailbox.org are out. I would prefer it interoperate well with FOSS software too, I use Thunderbird and K-9 Mail for example. Also so want them to be trustworthy, have good security, and have good OpSec with respect to their their servers and service.
After looking I find three I am considering and they are quite different:
- Fastmail. Long history. No PGP support but they do have their own domains one can use also.
- Namecheap Private Email. Uses Ox App Suite, may support PGP, and quite new. I think you have to have your own domain (not sure).
- Forward Email (forwardemail.net). A forwarder with IMAP support. You supply the webmail if you want webmail, but otherwise it should work fine with IMAP and normal clients.
So questions:
- Any thoughts and experience, pros and cons with the above 3.
- Other better ideas.
So thoughts? Thanks.
https://purelymail.com/ is brilliant, have been using it for 4 years and am using it with thunderbird and k9.
It is a one person operation but it is very stable, I have not had any issues during the 4 years. I had some questions when I signed up and they were answered quickly (within few hours). The ‘Beta’ sign has been there always, in my opinion it doesn’t mean anything. The is a news page, https://news.purelymail.com/ and there are about 5 ‘items’ (mostly some disturbances) per year since 2020. There is a ‘free trial’ so you have nothing to lose :)
Unfortunately all the volume-based email providers I know (Purely, MXroute, Migadu) are one or two-person operations. Doesn’t stop them from being excellent, of course.
I wish the volume-based pricing model was more popular but unfortunately very few people know about it, and is course the large providers prefer to charge by account or add all kinds of artificial limitations because they make much more money that way. Having multiple mailboxes for the same domain costs the provider nothing and yet you get charged per mailbox.