Best email hosting - IMAP and web based

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#833165 9-Jun-2013 18:50

I get almost none on gmail, but an occasional false positive. SpamAssassin is just not very effective.

mattwnz

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#833166 9-Jun-2013 18:57

The problem is getting a good balance between good RBL useage and good spam filtering. My providers seem to have got it working well and they use both. But i know of some providers that use heaps of different RBLs, and the filtering is set too high, which makes it too stringent, and just blocks too much legitimate email. Often emails from ISPs get blacklisted as ISps don't seem to be proactive at getting their IPs removed from blacklists. I guess if it a business that requires high reliability, they should expect to pay more for good reliable email hosting, and you can't probably expect much for a few bucks a month, which is all some medium companies pay, and they expect the earth for that.
Gmail is good, but google have spent a lot perfecting their email systems, but they have now begun monetizing it where you can probably get better deals elsewhere, as they seem to charge per account which can get expensive.

Earbanean

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#833426 10-Jun-2013 10:32

I've been using everyone.net for a long time (over 10 years) and they've been pretty good. IMAP, POP, webmail etc, as well as sync'd and/or shared calendars and address books. I don't know about catch all for multiple domains though, as I've just used a single domain.

They used to be quite cheap and I've stayed on a plan that is no longer available for new users. I think new options may be fairly pricey (don't have numbers to hand). I think these days they're mainly after business customers. Probably worth a look though.

timmmay

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#833431 10-Jun-2013 10:47

I think Rackspace is enterprize focussed as well. Zoho sound open to smaller customers, but again I'd prefer to go with a leading provider. Gmail is looking to be the best option other than cost, probably just moving the two main domains, leaving the rest on the ISP server.

Kyanar

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#833483 10-Jun-2013 12:18

timmmay: Zoho free tier doesn't support domains, but their paid tier does. $48 per year for two domains/users.

Rackspace would work best if I registered one user per domain, $4 per month - that's relatively cheap total. $48 per year as well.

With Gmail for domains/business I'd probably need two accounts, one for each domain - right? Total $100 per year, so more than double the cost of the others. One advantage is I know it works from work, from my tablet, etc, and I can stay signed in with as many users as I like at a time, which makes it super fast to check all my email accounts from a web browser. Alternately I could use some kind of notification tool, no doubt there are a lot of them for gmail.

With Zoho/Rackspace I'd have to log out and log in again to see both email accounts, same as I do now. The advantage would be reliability, and it's cheaper than gmail.

The main reason I'm moving is for better spam protection, but nicer web mail would be nice as well. Any comments on these aspects of Zoho/Rackspace? Gmail I already know works well.

Rackspace has very good spam filtering. If you have a look at their info page on it they actually tell you exactly what they do to filter out spam.

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#833484 10-Jun-2013 12:24

Yeah I read that, it does sound good in theory. They're relatively cheap too.

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#833815 10-Jun-2013 22:55

Have used Google Mail for a long time now, and can count downtime on one hand. It has high uptime, good spam and virus check and its fairly easy to manage.

Would not go with any other mail service.

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#833847 11-Jun-2013 00:54

have you considered using Office 365 for your hosted email? There is a 99.9% uptime sla, you can use your custom domains, you get 25GB mailbox with anti-spam. Most smartphones and tablets will connect and sync email from Office 365 also, using ActiveSync.

if you want email only, its $4/month. If you want email, skydrive pro, public website and the latest Office Desktop Apps (Word, Outlook, Excel, Publisher etc) then you can get all that for $15/month or $150/year.

The office 365 plans all come with both web and phone support 24/7.

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#833848 11-Jun-2013 00:57

Regs: have you considered using Office 365 for your hosted email?

What would you say are the pro and cons Google Apps vs Office 365?

timmmay

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#833884 11-Jun-2013 07:38

I did consider Microsoft, mentioned above. Basically: problems and poor documentation.

I use the email service via IMAP at home and on my tablet, and via the web interface quite regularly at work and when I'm overseas.

Gmail:
- Stays logged and easy to open extra tabs to show different accounts on my work machine.
- Trusted, reliable, proven, I already use it for my @gmail address
- $100/year

Rackspace:
- Good name, trusted, though no experience with it
- Interface not quite as good, but fine
- Need to log into each account separately (not really a problem)
- $48/year

I guess it's down to cost then.

jarledb

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#833887 11-Jun-2013 07:48

Google Apps is 50 USD per year for 1 account.

timmmay

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#833892 11-Jun-2013 07:54

jarledb: Google Apps is 50 USD per year for 1 account.

I have 20 domains, though I'd probably only host two at gmail. My understanding is I'd need to create two users/mailboxes in order to keep the email separate and have the web mail reply to address/signature correct and distinct for the two accounts. Do you know a better way?

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#834017 11-Jun-2013 10:36

timmmay: I have 20 domains, though I'd probably only host two at gmail. My understanding is I'd need to create two users/mailboxes in order to keep the email separate and have the web mail reply to address/signature correct and distinct for the two accounts. Do you know a better way?

So the Rackspace price is for multiple domains?

I have multiple domains on my Google Apps account. They work as pure aliases, so an account with "name1" as the account name, will be able to receive email to that address on domain1.tld, domain2.tld etc.

So yeah, nah. You are right. You won't be able to get the setup you want without shelling out for two email accounts.

....although, it is still possible to get free accounts with one mailbox limit, apparently
http://techwalls.com/register-free-google-apps-standard-account-single-user/
.

timmmay

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#834022 11-Jun-2013 10:43

Rackspace is $24 per user account per year. Each user account can be associated with multiple domains, and you can have multiple email addresses, but I'd have to remember to set the correct from address and all my email would be mixed together. It's cheap enough I'd just have two accounts.

Given I do most of my email by IMAP/SMTP the primary advantage of gmail, being logged into multiple accounts at once, probably isn't enough to make me spend twice as much on it. Rackspace may be the best option right now - and it does provide full calendaring as well.

timmmay

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#834355 11-Jun-2013 17:53

I went to give Rackspace a go, but there's a minimum of 5 mailboxes. That makes it $10/month, $120 per year. Given Google is $100/year for two accounts that makes them slightly more expensive, but I can put more accounts on.

FastMail.fm looks interesting. Good reputation, good technology, now owned by Opera but it's a specialist email hosting firm. At $15/year for 250MB of storage $30/year for 1.5GB of storage I may give them a go - especially since I don't keep much email on IMAP, I tend to copy it off to my PC regularly and keep it in Thunderbird.

Which makes me think... I wonder if Thunderbird is a good way to archive my email...

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