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Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

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Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#1

Post by shlomo_z »

Hi HN!

I am trying to reduce my dependency on many cloud providers, and Google is my next focus. To start, I'd like to move my personal email address to my own domain.

What is a good provider I can use that will not be too expensive and that I won't need to worry about deliverability? I don't mind being dependent on a cloud platform for this as long as I can easily export my data regularly.

It would also be nice if my AI agent is able to help me manage my inbox (EG delete spam emails and similar).. so if the provider has a good api for it, that's a bonus. However, this is not a hard requirement.

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#4

Post by dlcarrier »

Infomaniak or Proton. They're both Swiss security-focused competitors to the Google office ecosystem. I prefer Infomakiak, because their free tier includes IMAP, which is crucial for accessibility tools, but it is also useful for general API access such as automated tools.

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#5

Post by shlomo_z »

dlcarrier wrote: post #4

Infomaniak or Proton. They're both Swiss security-focused competitors to the Google office ecosystem. I prefer Infomakiak, because their free tier includes IMAP, which is crucial for accessibility tools, but it is also useful for general API access such as automated tools.

I look at both of these, thank you!

However, I've seen reports of Proton engaging in shady business practices recently, EG Price sensitivity testing.

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#6

Post by toomuchtodo »

Fastmail. They offer an MCP server, but keep the AI features out of the product. Data export is available and trivial.

An MCP Server for Fastmail – National Email Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870988 - April 2026 (14 comments)

https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360060590573-Dow...

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#7

Post by shlomo_z »

emn4tor wrote: post #2

Fastmail natively supports JMAP, is pretty cheap ($3-5). I always like selfhosting either at home, or using a cheap VPS - iRedMail, MailCow etc.

Thank you, I will look into FastMail. I have always understood it to be a deliverability nightmare when self hosting email servers, would you agree or disagree with that?

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#8

Post by shlomo_z »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Fastmail. They offer an MCP server, but keep the AI features out of the product. Data export is available and trivial. An MCP Server for Fastmail – National Email Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870988 - April 2026 (14 comments) https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360060590573-Dow...

Thank you for the suggestion. You are the second person to suggest it and I will look into it! On first glance, this may be exactly what I am looking for.

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#9

Post by shlomo_z »

krunck wrote: post #3

ProtonMail. Then you can run ProtonMail Bridge to get a local IMAP and SMTP connection to your ProtonMail account.

Thank you for the suggestion and I will certainly consider it.

That said, recently I've seen reports of Proton engaging in shady business practices recently, EG Price sensitivity testing[1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1vjfiav/why_is_pr...

Re: Ask HN: What email provider do you recommend for personal email?

#10

Post by emn4tor »

shlomo_z wrote: post #7
emn4tor wrote: post #2

Fastmail natively supports JMAP, is pretty cheap ($3-5). I always like selfhosting either at home, or using a cheap VPS - iRedMail, MailCow etc.

Thank you, I will look into FastMail. I have always understood it to be a deliverability nightmare when self hosting email servers, would you agree or disagree with that?

It depends, it can be... But tbh just set up a cronjob (auto repeating task) that refreshes your ssl certificate via certbot and you should be good to go. The initial setup might that a few hours of tinkering, but once you've made it you can easily have a mail server for $1-3. If you really don't wanna fully self host you can buy a Plesk workspace for like 99ct-5$ which allows emails, websites and databases
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