email domain hosting OR 3rd party provider

[BassMan]

Hi,

just thinking... I'd like to get rid of Gmail as my personal email. Leave reasons for now... So, I', thinking to buy my own domain just for email and host it on my shared server with same hosting provider where I host my websites. As I read on the www this is not recommended by some people... I'm not actually sure why not have it and why 3rd party providers should be better.

Oh, and I don't want to add my email domain to Gmail...

Any thoughts are welcome.

BassMan

 

[Mr Lucky]

I believe if it’s shared hosting then all it needs is one spammer on that server and the ip can be blacklisted

 

[BassMan]

Thanks, Mr Lucky. Yes, I guess that's the main problem...

 

[webbouk]

Yes, been there and got that T shirt in the past.

 

[TPerry]

I personally use mailcow-dockerized on a standalone VPS. It's very easy to set up and has most features that are needed. Not to mention the cost - free. You will have to get a VPS and around 1GB should be enough - I personally am using 2GB ($10 a month). Using mailcow-dockerized allows me to have as many domains as I want as well as as many mailboxes.

There is some work getting your IP whitelisted with HotMail and sometimes GMail but it's not that hard to do.
I have a domain that I was going to use for an IT related site that I now use for my mail server and then simply have XenForo (and my other scripts) use SMTP to connect to the mail server for mail delivery.

The problem with using shared hosting providers email is that there are typically multiple accounts using the same IP and all it takes is a one (or a few) bad apples on that IP to get it blacklisted.
If you do go with mailcow-dockerized I'd suggest choosing carefully your VPS. Digital Ocean has a lot of "dirty" IP's that take a bit to get whitelisted since they are so cheap and spammers tend to use them. Same with OVH. I'm with DO for my mail server and it took me a while to get it all done but I'm seriously considering moving over to RamNode as they are stricter with their clients.

You can go with a 3rd party solution, but the cost is not comparable to a VPS with mailcow-dockerized. There are features that you get with the 3rd party providers that if you use a mailing list that are nice, but if you simply need mail why pay more.

I had also investigated mail-in-a-box and iRedMail but decided on mailcow-dockerized since it allowed me to use external DNS services for it.

 

[BassMan]

Thank you @Tracy Perry.

I just went with posteo.de. So far it's perfect. I've also decided not to go with my own domain for personal email. For now...

 

[TPerry]

I see that they use RoundCube (which many do). I have gotten to where I prefer SoGo as it's more mobile friendly and just about as powerful and looks more modern to me.

Desktop

Mobil viewport

The downfall with mailcow-dockerized version of SoGo is it's rolled into it and there is not that much changing you can do unless you want to mess with pulling the GIT code and modifying it to fit your needs. If the provider you chose doesn't work out you may want to consider it as it's really easy to set up and utilize.

 

[BassMan]

Indeed it looks great, but I really like my email client so I use IMAP all the time. Also on my phone. I'm not so for the web mail interface. And this last Gmail change... No comment...

 

[TPerry]

Oh, don't get me wrong - I use IMAP for most of my accounts on both the phone and the Mac I have at the house - but I do use the web interface when I'm at a remote location and do not have my phone with me or it's turned off due to possible instrument interference.
Just something to keep in mind in case you decide you do want to host your own email.