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Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

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Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#71

Post by fy20 »

troydavis wrote: post #3

This question comes up a couple times every month. FastMail always comes up as a recommendation, so if you search comments for FastMail, you’ll find every past thread (and relatively few false positives): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru... Example from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128198

How does FastMail handle tags? I tried Zoho but it's pretty terrible compared to how Gmail works. What I'd like is:

1) To be able to assign tags based on rules

2) To be able to view those tags in IMAP clients (Gmail exposes labels as IMAP folders)

3) To be able to Archive mail so they are no longer in the Inbox, but so the tag remains (in Gmail, 'Inbox' is just a tag that is removed when you Archive mail)

Zoho fails because:

1) Tags aren't anywhere near a first class citizen. You need to hover over an icon to see what tags are assigned to an email.

2) There's no way to search Archived mail (yes really) and it's not available over IMAP

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#73

Post by sgloutnikov »

mdasen wrote: post #22

Google Takeout will export all your mail in mbox format which is easily handled by mail programs like Apple Mail and Thunderbird and should let you sync everything to a new service (if that service won't let you transfer it themselves). I'm using iCloud+ from Apple. It's cheap at $1/mo for 50GB of space and lets me have my custom domains. $3/mo will get you family sharing and 200GB of space (if you want multiple acco…

Here is a workaround for Microsoft 365 to not host your domain with GoDaddy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/ft15pk/use_perso...

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#74

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

I have no idea what Google Workspace provides, but here's my review of Fastmail:

- The web interface is good, the Android app is good. Relatively fast and straightforward to use. Pretty good reliability aside from the occasional DDoS.

- The calendar is functional but kinda lame. I don't think I've ever noticed before an event happens, and trying to open new events has poor UX. Typical Calendar features work fine.

- Haven't really used Contacts but they're all there from my phone.

- There's a Notes feature which I find mostly useless since it doesn't really sync with anything (though supposedly it can work with Apple Notes' proprietary format?).

- They give you dedicated file storage and transfer quota just to serve files on the web (unrelated to mail quotas). It's accessible via normal browser and via WebDAV client. I guess it's handy, I've used it once, but pulling attachments out of emails is almost the same. If you had to send someone a large file and couldn't send it via e-mail, there you go.

- They have all the mail features that I've used in Gmail. They have some "team" features, I suppose they're helpful if you have multiple users.

- You can connect your Google, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, and other accounts in Fastmail so you can actually pull mail from all those places. You can even send e-mail through each of those providers too. So this is pretty cool for consolidating accounts.

- They have their own e-mail masking service, and partnered with 1Password so the masked e-mails have matching credentials in your 1Password account.

- The people running it are using really old tech and don't chase after the latest shiny thing, which I appreciate. Everything they do seems sensible. These aren't tech bros gobbling up VC money to become a Unicorn. And they don't seem to use any trackers or ads at all. The only 3rd party domains I see are from Sentry (for debugging app issues).

- My gripes: the Android app doesn't cache mail or calendar, the Calendar is clunky and notifications don't grab my attention, their new UI in beta will probably become more cramped soon.

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#75

Post by captn3m0 »

Kerrick wrote: post #9

I've been using Migadu ever since switching away from Google Apps, and I've been happy with their service and pricing.

Been using Migadu for half a decade now. Only catch is that there isn't a contact/calendar service. I've been told it's in in the works multiple times over the years, and I'll welcome it when it does release, but it might be a dealbreaker for some workplaces.

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#76

Post by mszcz »

guerrilla wrote: post #63
vmoore wrote: post #57

I'm confused by all the branding. Google change the names to things every week. Is it Google Docs, or Google One, or Google Workspace, or GSuite? They need to stop this.

Google Workspace is just your own instances of their services running on their servers for you. You manage it as your own domain and it has all the services you get with a with GMail account, including Google Docs. It was called G Suite before. I don't know what Google One is. [edit: "Google One replaced the paid services of Google Drive." Apparently Workspaces is for businesses and Google One is for consumers. It se…

This is odd. When "migrating" from G-Suite to Workspaces a couple of days ago I got the option to continue as not-a-company. I migrated a company account but still have a personal account with a domain to migrate. I'm sensing problems ahead...

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#77

Post by croutonwagon »

In their Q&A they have a link to a google form where they say they will email you alternative options after April 1.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217#faq

May be worth the wait and just sign the form. Worst case, you still upgrade. But it seems like they may offer some super restricted free version for personal use.

I’ll probably just upgrade at this point. I wish protonmail supported contact syncing. That’s the main issue, that and our dakboard.

>What if I use G Suite legacy free edition for personal use and don't want to upgrade to a Google Workspace subscription?

>Upgrading to a Google Workspace subscription is a seamless transition for all customers currently on the G Suite legacy free edition. However, we understand some customers may not use their G Suite legacy free edition for business and may be interested in other options. If you have 10 or fewer users in your group and do not use your G Suite legacy free edition for business, please sign in to your administrator account to provide more information.

>Sign in to an administrator account (doesn't end in gmail.com).

>Note that even if you decide you don't want to upgrade to Google Workspace, you'll still retain access to additional Google services and paid content purchased though non-Google Workspace services made with your legacy edition account (such as movies purchased on Google Play). Learn more above.

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#78

Post by goingindi »

Regarding migadu, which I am now looking at, what verification have you who’ve selected it done for this statement “ Your emails are your own business. We have no interest in them. We do not access1, analyse2, scan or share any user data.” from their site?

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#79

Post by SmellTheGlove »

mdasen wrote: post #22

Google Takeout will export all your mail in mbox format which is easily handled by mail programs like Apple Mail and Thunderbird and should let you sync everything to a new service (if that service won't let you transfer it themselves). I'm using iCloud+ from Apple. It's cheap at $1/mo for 50GB of space and lets me have my custom domains. $3/mo will get you family sharing and 200GB of space (if you want multiple acco…

Oh wow I had no idea I could use a custom domain with iCloud, and I'm already paying for the 2TB tier and family sharing. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Best hosted alternative to Google Workspace for email?

#80

Post by guerrilla »

mszcz wrote: post #76
guerrilla wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Workspace is just your own instances of their services running on their servers for you. You manage it as your own domain and it has all the services you get with a with GMail account, including Google Docs. It was called G Suite before. I don't know what Google One is. [edit: "Google One replaced the paid services of Google Drive." Apparently Workspaces is for businesses and Google One is for consumers. It se…

This is odd. When "migrating" from G-Suite to Workspaces a couple of days ago I got the option to continue as not-a-company. I migrated a company account but still have a personal account with a domain to migrate. I'm sensing problems ahead...

I don't know honestly. I tried asking about exactly this on Community but they just wanted to gaslight me about it being a valid question and then deleted the thread to hide the evidence of that embarrassment. I did a Google Takeout and moved all my stuff to Proton and whatnot.
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