Email options with a personal domain name?

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Email options with a personal domain name?

SilentOne

290 posts

Ultimate Geek

#237849 20-Jun-2018 18:20

Hi all,

I'm after some insights from GZ'rs who utilize their own personal domains for email.

I currently use a parked domain that offers an email forwarding service with emails landing in iCloud & Gmail.
It's free, easy, very rarely changes and is managed by my domain name registrar.

The drive for change is that I want to use Cloudflare for a personal web service hosted from home. As soon as I change my name servers to Cloudflare to do that, I'll break my email forwarding.

As far as I can tell, I have the below options, but am happy to hear more!

Use a forwarding service like MailGun:
Migrate Name servers to Cloudflare
Create the MX records in Cloudflare to point to Mailgun
Set forwarders in Mailgun to current email hosting providers (iCloud/Gmail)

Pros:

Free

No changes required on end devices (Mobiles mostly)

Cons:

Possibly less privacy than registrar provider

iCloud/Gmail can "read" emails as well

No new "features" (e.g. From address doesn't currently domain as iCloud doesn't allow it)

Use a email hosting service (Fastmail, net24 etc)
  Migrate Name servers to Cloudflare
  Create the MX records in Cloudflare to point to mail host
  Host mailboxes on hosting service + possibly still use forwarders

Pros:

One less system the emails travel through, so possibly more privacy

From address correctly matches domain

Cons:

Extra cost

Re-config of end devices (minimal)

Potentially less spam protection based on hosting provider

Potentially less integration/features as free email hosting from iCloud / GMail (calendars etc)

I'm excluding hosting my own mail server at home, deeming it too much hassle for security patching, mail scrubbing, uptime etc.

I'm also excluding O365 initially as they also don't allow using your own domain (unless you move to a higher tier plan)

Thoughts, experiences and recommendations (architecture or providers) most welcome!

dfnt

1514 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2041290 20-Jun-2018 18:29

I use Cloudflare for DNS and GSuite for business for all my domains

Minimal cost with gsuite consdiering what you get

michaelmurfy

meow
13275 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2041315 20-Jun-2018 19:46

I'm using GSuite also. It is very good. Does everything you need and has very good spam filtering also.

Edit: Fastmail (https://www.fastmail.com/) is quite good also.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by subscribing.
Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2041317 20-Jun-2018 19:55

I've used FastMail for years, they're cheaper than Google and I'm happy with them. Google is good. M365 I find the admin interface confusing, but I haven't used it much. Don't bother hosting your own email, not worth the hassle.

SilentOne

290 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2041334 20-Jun-2018 20:38

Cheers for the responses, sounds like hosted mail is the consensus so far.
Agree on the O365 console complexities, am glad I’m mot thenonly one that thought so!
Will look into FastMail & GSuite - both appear to be similarly priced now, starting at $5 USD to host your own domain.

Cheers!

lxsw20

3558 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2041354 20-Jun-2018 21:04

I use G Suite personally.

There is an O365 Exchange only plan which im pretty sure will let you use your own domain.

timmmay

20591 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2041364 20-Jun-2018 21:21

Ah, I'm using a Fastmail legacy plan. If they put their prices up to the same as Google I'd switch to Google, or maybe Zoho which is cheaper and reputable.

SilentOne

290 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2041366 20-Jun-2018 21:29

lxsw20:
I use G Suite personally.

There is an O365 Exchange only plan which im pretty sure will let you use your own domain.

Cheers lxsw20 - another vote gor GSuite :)
Did look at that Exchange plan a while back too, worth another look now that you’ve mentioned it.

timmmay:
Ah, I'm using a Fastmail legacy plan. If they put their prices up to the same as Google I'd switch to Google, or maybe Zoho which is cheaper and reputable.

Ah that explains the pricing, cheers for the confirmation.
Haven’t heard great things about Zoho’s spam filters, happy to be proven wrong of course!

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

mdf

3523 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2041429 20-Jun-2018 22:26

I use gSuite, office365 and protonmail with several domain names. All have pros and cons.

Google Suite is usually pretty awesome, but there are a few differences between gSuite and gMail accounts that I find annoying. Google home differences are my current bugbear.

O365 has some great features and an increasing number of MS apps. But it's almost too rich and complex.

ProtonMail only offers email (no calendar) but does that we'll and a very big focus on privacy.

reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2041455 21-Jun-2018 07:33

Im so glad Im on a google legacy plan, which is free. $5 a user per month Is not at all cheap for a home domain. That would be cost me $40 a month for personal emails....

amanzi

Amanzi
1302 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2041735 21-Jun-2018 14:45

reven:

Im so glad Im on a google legacy plan, which is free. $5 a user per month Is not at all cheap for a home domain. That would be cost me $40 a month for personal emails....

Same. I have two legacy Google Apps accounts that I use for various domains. Every now and again I'll get annoyed by something in Google Apps and look around for alternatives, but am then reminded how much value I'm getting out of these free accounts.

I really wish that Outlook.com supported custom domains. I'm already paying an annual fee to Microsoft for Office 365 Home which includes premium features for Outlook.com (50GB mailbox and better security) but still no custom domain support...