Email Hosting options - ZOHO, Exhange Online? Other options?

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shermanp

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#165711 18-Feb-2015 10:39

Hi folks.

So currently I have mine and my family's email hosted on a generic shared hosting platform (cPanel), which I'm paying 12 USD/3months for. I'm thinking it is about time to look at moving to dedicated email hosting of some description. I'm starting to have real issues with spam. SpamAssassin seems to be doing bugger all, and I can't be bothered trying to come up with various filters.

So current setup is 3 email accounts on cPanel. All of us use the same domain, I would like to keep our email addresses, which means whatever I move to needs to support custom domains.

I have Office 356 Student Advantage, and my father has Office 365 Small Business (with his own, separate business domain). I don't think there is a way of adding our personal email to one of these packages, but I could be wrong.

There's the options of Exchange Online, or Google Apps, but at $5/Month per user, they start getting a little expensive for personal email.

There is also ZOHO Email, which seems to have all the features we need in a mail platform, but I do not know a lot about it around reliability, performance etc. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Are there any other options I've missed? I do not particularly want a shared mailbox. I would like to keep the three email addresses separate if possible.

Thank you,
Sherman

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#1241411 18-Feb-2015 10:54

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=148808

FastMail works great, cheaper than Gmail if you get a family plan. Microsoft worth considering.

billgates

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#1241645 18-Feb-2015 13:54

Zoho is good. Know few folks that are on it and no issues. Performance is good as well.

Office 365 Kiosk plan is NZ$2.50/user/month excl GST. Only 2GB mailbox though which for most people is a lot.

http://products.office.com/en-NZ/business/compare-office-365-kiosk-plans

Do whatever you want to do man.

shermanp

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#1241686 18-Feb-2015 14:54

billgates: Zoho is good. Know few folks that are on it and no issues. Performance is good as well.

Office 365 Kiosk plan is NZ$2.50/user/month excl GST. Only 2GB mailbox though which for most people is a lot.

http://products.office.com/en-NZ/business/compare-office-365-kiosk-plans

Do you know if the Kiosk plan offers IMAP and/or desktop Outlook support?

chiefie

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#1241697 18-Feb-2015 15:02

Zoho is free to 10 users.

I was just looking this for a non-profit-organisation that I'm undertaking their IT infrastructure. The club is tight with expenses. Zoho has good review and has 10 users free (and up to 10 extra by referral reward).

I'm most likely to transfer hosting to my own cPanel host and use built-in mail and tune the SpamAssassins a bit better.

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timmmay

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#1241699 18-Feb-2015 15:03

Web hosts are generally the worst email hosts. They supply email as a "tick box" exercise, their servers end up on spam lists more often, and support is not always great. SpamAssassin isn't up to modern spam filtering IMHO.

itxtme

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#1241727 18-Feb-2015 15:28

chiefie: Zoho is free to 10 users.

I was just looking this for a non-profit-organisation that I'm undertaking their IT infrastructure. The club is tight with expenses. Zoho has good review and has 10 users free (and up to 10 extra by referral reward).

I'm most likely to transfer hosting to my own cPanel host and use built-in mail and tune the SpamAssassins a bit better.

Sorry OT but have you considered office 365, its free for non profits

mattwnz

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#1241728 18-Feb-2015 15:29

timmmay: Web hosts are generally the worst email hosts. They supply email as a "tick box" exercise, their servers end up on spam lists more often, and support is not always great. SpamAssassin isn't up to modern spam filtering IMHO.

Unfortionately they can't compete with the likes of gmail and microsoft, as all the email is stored on the same single server that hosts the websites, so there is limited diskspace. Unlike the likes of gmail, which is a dedicated platform. With webhosting email, if they are your average cheap host, and when you get a website that gets hacked and starts sending out spam, and the IPs get blacklisted, then this affects the email. Although I wouldn't paint them all with the same brush, because the best ones will monitor this well, and get on top of spamming before it affects the IP, but they won't be your $10 per month or less budget host. Then there are some hosts that have dedicated email servers, which are seperated from the web hosting servers, which are better, but more expensive. So you get what you pay for.

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chiefie

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#1241735 18-Feb-2015 15:34

itxtme:
chiefie: Zoho is free to 10 users.

I was just looking this for a non-profit-organisation that I'm undertaking their IT infrastructure. The club is tight with expenses. Zoho has good review and has 10 users free (and up to 10 extra by referral reward).

I'm most likely to transfer hosting to my own cPanel host and use built-in mail and tune the SpamAssassins a bit better.

Sorry OT but have you considered office 365, its free for non profits

It's not a charitable non-profit organisation.

Internet is my backyard...

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Please read the Geekzone's FUG

mattwnz

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#1241736 18-Feb-2015 15:35

chiefie:
itxtme:
chiefie: Zoho is free to 10 users.

I was just looking this for a non-profit-organisation that I'm undertaking their IT infrastructure. The club is tight with expenses. Zoho has good review and has 10 users free (and up to 10 extra by referral reward).

I'm most likely to transfer hosting to my own cPanel host and use built-in mail and tune the SpamAssassins a bit better.

Sorry OT but have you considered office 365, its free for non profits

It's not a charitable non-profit organisation.

You mean it is a company that is unprofitable? :) Does it need to be a charity to qualify for 365 free?

chiefie

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#1241737 18-Feb-2015 15:36

mattwnz:
chiefie:
itxtme:
chiefie: Zoho is free to 10 users.

I was just looking this for a non-profit-organisation that I'm undertaking their IT infrastructure. The club is tight with expenses. Zoho has good review and has 10 users free (and up to 10 extra by referral reward).

I'm most likely to transfer hosting to my own cPanel host and use built-in mail and tune the SpamAssassins a bit better.

Sorry OT but have you considered office 365, its free for non profits

It's not a charitable non-profit organisation.

You mean it is a company that is unprofitable? :)

If you must know, it's for a club - Canterbury Sled Dog Club.

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zocster

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#1241740 18-Feb-2015 15:38

surprised no one mentioned yandex. It's not half bad for a free service. And you get 1000 email addresses.

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
www.andy.mobi

chiefie

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#1241741 18-Feb-2015 15:39

zocster: surprised no one mentioned yandex. It's not half bad for a free service. And you get 1000 email addresses.

I have saw that, but something being .RU frighten me a bit.

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zocster

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#1241758 18-Feb-2015 15:46

chiefie:
zocster: surprised no one mentioned yandex. It's not half bad for a free service. And you get 1000 email addresses.

I have saw that, but something being .RU frighten me a bit.

Honestly, it's not half bad. And I posted a link to English signup page

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
www.andy.mobi

chiefie

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#1241767 18-Feb-2015 15:51

zocster:
chiefie:
zocster: surprised no one mentioned yandex. It's not half bad for a free service. And you get 1000 email addresses.

I have saw that, but something being .RU frighten me a bit.

Honestly, it's not half bad. And I posted a link to English signup page

Cheers for the reassurance. I may reconsider.

Internet is my backyard...

«Geekzone blog: Tech 'n Chips Takeaway» «Personal blog: And then...»

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mattwnz

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#1241827 18-Feb-2015 17:29

timmmay: Web hosts are generally the worst email hosts. They supply email as a "tick box" exercise, their servers end up on spam lists more often, and support is not always great. SpamAssassin isn't up to modern spam filtering IMHO.

Actually just come across a NZ provider that is blocking the IP of gmail, as barracuda have blacklisted googles email server, preventing me sending from my gmail account to this NZ providers email server. So not even Googles email is immune to getting blacklisted for spamming. The problem though is that hvae noone to contcat to get that blacklisting fixed, as it is Google responsibility to get off teh blacklist, but finding a way to contact google about it will be like finding a needle in a haystack. This is versus using a paid email provider which has customer support. So that is one thing the OP needs to consider, email support.

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