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Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

kkinder.com

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Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#21

Post by masnick »

vertis wrote: post #13

I recently switched from Gmail to Fastmail.fm for much the same reasons as the OP. Fastmail.fm managed to migrate 30k emails without so much as a sweat. I still haven't worked out what I'm going to do about Google Reader :(

I also recently did the Gmail -> Fastmail switch. I had some trouble with the automated import, but I found a Perl script that did the trick: https://gist.github.com/masnick/5239278#file-gmail_to_fastma...

So far I've loved Fastmail. It's great having a real human respond to a support ticket, usually within a few hours!

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#25

Post by wiredfool »

kenkinder wrote: post #10
wiredfool wrote: post #3

I'm wondering if there's a twilio based replacement for google voice. It's got most of the building blocks.

I had been thinking of that, though Twilio's pricing would probably be prohibitive. They actually charge more than my cell provider for minutes. But everything you'd need is right in the API.

Yeah, it wouldn't work with free, since even their (whatever) -> client is 1/4 c/ minute.

My concern isn't really about the money, though the free calls through voice are nice. It's that Google voice has my number now (as a gizmo refugee), and that + a voip provider + cell provider could be condensed down to twilio on the desktop and wifi, and maybe cell data on a tablet, or prepaid cell as a backup.

The $1/month for a number isn't bad, international sms is awesome for my use case.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#26

Post by wiredfool »

rdl wrote: post #17
scott_karana wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of paid replacements for Google Voice, so a Twilio one would fit right in. However, I suspect it's the free aspect that everyone's bemoaning. :-)

I haven't seen a lot of voice to sms services, or SMS forwarding. Getting SMS-enabled voip trunks is hard, or at least was hard the last time I checked (admittedly a few years ago)

Pretty sure that's a twilio api.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#27

Post by eggbrain »

I've been using GMail since its inception, so I figured I'd try the authors first suggestion, FastMail to see how the competition was fairing.

The article mentions that FastMail operates both "free and paid tiers of service", so I figured I'd make a free account and poke around. But I've clicked and searched for five minutes now and found nothing except paid plans with a free trial. Am I missing something?

Also, the article mentions that it "exceeds" the features of Gmail, but where the hell are all the features listed? I see nothing on any of the pages except for features like "Reliability" and "Easy migration" which tell me nothing about how it compares to GMail in features.

If this is an example of the best "alternative" to a Google product then the competition has a LONG way to go.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#28

Post by masnick »

For those interested in replacing the Gmail's built-in voice calling feature, I wrote up instructions for setting up a SIP endpoint: http://www.maxmasnick.com/2013/05/18/replacing-skype/

It's by no means a complete Google Voice replacement (though one could presumably build one with some work using Plivo, the SIP provider I used).

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#29

Post by slg »

masnick wrote: post #18
arunabha wrote: post #15

Fastmail.fm seemed to be good till I read the fine print. For the personal account you have 100 MB email storage, 2 MB file storage Kinda reminds me of the nineties and not in a good way :-)

The $40/year account gives you 10gb of storage. It's comparable with Google Apps, and really $40/year is a totally fair price for something as important as email.

"and really $40/year is a totally fair price for something as important as email."

It isn't about importance, it is about a comparison with its competitors. Drinking water is pretty important, but why pay for $5 worth of bottled water a day when I can pay 5¢ a day for water straight from the tap?

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#30

Post by kenkinder »

wiredfool wrote: post #25
kenkinder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been thinking of that, though Twilio's pricing would probably be prohibitive. They actually charge more than my cell provider for minutes. But everything you'd need is right in the API.

Yeah, it wouldn't work with free, since even their (whatever) -> client is 1/4 c/ minute. My concern isn't really about the money, though the free calls through voice are nice. It's that Google voice has my number now (as a gizmo refugee), and that + a voip provider + cell provider could be condensed down to twilio on the desktop and wifi, and maybe cell data on a tablet, or prepaid cell as a backup. The $1/month for…

I'd be willing to pay something on the order of ~$8/mo for what Google Voice offers, especially if you added better filtering and an API. But I wouldn't pay more than my cell phone bill.
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