Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence • Hacker News Board

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#101

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:02 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #98

andris9 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yeah, I forgot my pitch. The link is https://emailengine.app - EmailEngine acts as a mail client, basically the same way Thunderbird runs on desktop, or the iPhone Mail on the phone, but instead of a GUI it has REST API and instead of desktop notifications it sends JSON webhooks. And instead of a single email account, it can manage thousands of accounts.

How does it compare to eg Nylas? I was looking into that for an email app I wanted to make, but they were enterprise only it seems. I also found your business but I didn't want to self host just to try it out.

I've written an overview about the differences between Nylas and EmailEngine here: https://docs.emailengine.app/emailengine-vs-nylas/

TL;DR Nylas is hosted service that does way more than just emails. Also, it syncs all emails on monitored accounts to their DB, so when you make an API request, it hits their DB. EmailEngine is self-hosted and runs directly against the mail servers, so when you run an API request, the request ends up in the mail server. Both approaches have their pros and cons. Other than that, there aren't any other good solutions than building everything yourself by using any IMAP library.

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#102

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:12 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #100

andris9 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compliance issues are a real concern. For example, I have some customers who switched from Nylas to EmailEngine because Nylas closed their Canada DC, even though EmailEngine is an inferior product. I'm not really worried about copycats, as it's a niche and complex project. There are literally hundreds of email RFCs, some as long as a book, and you would need to have at least an overview of these. You can already use…

Who are your main customer segments? I ask because I'm implementing Microsoft, Google and Apple email support for my app and Microsoft and Google have an API now, while Apple is still a pain. Beyond that, for custom email providers, I'm not sure who else is major enough to implement for. I guess I'm asking, couldn't your customer do something like I'm doing, to cover 80% of the use cases by using the Microsoft and Go…

Most EmailEngine customers are smaller SaaS services like niche CRM providers etc. EmailEngine can also work with Gmail and MS365, as they support IMAP in addition to their proprietary APIs. So you get quite a large coverage by using EmailEngine out of the box (all smaller providers + most Gmail/MS365 accounts). Additionally, in some cases going with IMAP is the only way - for Gmail email API access, you need a very expensive security assessment that you might also fail for various reasons, like when your use case is not allowed by Google's terms. In comparison, there are no conditions for using app-password-based IMAP for Gmail. EmailEngine does not work with email accounts where their organization has disabled IMAP/SMTP access entirely (common with on-prem Exchange servers, a lot of MS365 accounts, etc.)

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#103

Post by satvikpendem » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:13 AM UTC

andris9 wrote: post #101

satvikpendem wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to eg Nylas? I was looking into that for an email app I wanted to make, but they were enterprise only it seems. I also found your business but I didn't want to self host just to try it out.

I've written an overview about the differences between Nylas and EmailEngine here: https://docs.emailengine.app/emailengine-vs-nylas/ TL;DR Nylas is hosted service that does way more than just emails. Also, it syncs all emails on monitored accounts to their DB, so when you make an API request, it hits their DB. EmailEngine is self-hosted and runs directly against the mail servers, so when you run an API request, the…

I appreciate the answer. I believe Nylas also has a self hostable option, just to let you, as when I was doing my research they mentioned that many secure industries like finance or healthcare wouldn't allow storage of emails on Nylas' database, so they allow self hosting. Of course, that is probably much more expensive than yours. Thanks for your last sentence as well, it clears up a bit more about the business, I asked in another thread but was just curious what types of customers need to integrate with email providers, as I'm making an email client so it's core functionality, but I assume most other industries simply use APIs from Gmail or whatever, rather than raw IMAP these days.

Edit, looks like you've answered in the other thread, thanks.

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#104

Post by satvikpendem » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:18 AM UTC

andris9 wrote: post #102

satvikpendem wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are your main customer segments? I ask because I'm implementing Microsoft, Google and Apple email support for my app and Microsoft and Google have an API now, while Apple is still a pain. Beyond that, for custom email providers, I'm not sure who else is major enough to implement for. I guess I'm asking, couldn't your customer do something like I'm doing, to cover 80% of the use cases by using the Microsoft and Go…

Most EmailEngine customers are smaller SaaS services like niche CRM providers etc. EmailEngine can also work with Gmail and MS365, as they support IMAP in addition to their proprietary APIs. So you get quite a large coverage by using EmailEngine out of the box (all smaller providers + most Gmail/MS365 accounts). Additionally, in some cases going with IMAP is the only way - for Gmail email API access, you need a very…

Makes sense, I saw the security assessment stuff for Gmail which I suppose I'll have to contend with as well, haha. I'll take another look into EmailEngine then. How do you charge, per connected user (and how much, generally)? Is it a monthly usage based subscription if so?

Edit, I just took a look at your FAQ and saw the price was 695 Euros a month. It is strange to not put this pricing on a prominent pricing tab I believe, rather than making me click a link in the FAQ to figure it out. Any reason why it's set up like that?

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#105

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:20 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #99

philsnow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a bullet point about compliance / hosting concerns. I'm curious, do you have any idea how many of your customers care about that? Do you have any concern that a customer is going to look under the covers and re-implement your product? I would guess the overwhelming majority of customers are going to be happy to just consume the API and go about their own business, but some products attract copycats, and hand…

If you're worried about copying the code, I could see having the self hosted artifact be compiled or otherwise obfuscated would probably deter most people who wanted to reverse engineer it, since it would take significantly more time and effort to open up a compiled app than something just made in JS for example. If you're worried about copying the API design, well, the implementation is the hard part, not necessaril…

EmailEngine has all the code public [1], even though it is not open-source but is source-available. Some core parts I even published under the MIT license, like the IMAP client library I built from scratch to serve the special requirements EmailEngine has for IMAP access [2]

My thinking has always been that those who try to hack the license validation stuff and replace the missing build pipeline were never going to be my customers in the first place, so every second I would spend on them is a wasted effort.

[1] https://github.com/postalsys/emailengine [2] https://imapflow.com/

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#106

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:26 AM UTC

andris9 wrote: post #102

satvikpendem wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are your main customer segments? I ask because I'm implementing Microsoft, Google and Apple email support for my app and Microsoft and Google have an API now, while Apple is still a pain. Beyond that, for custom email providers, I'm not sure who else is major enough to implement for. I guess I'm asking, couldn't your customer do something like I'm doing, to cover 80% of the use cases by using the Microsoft and Go…

Most EmailEngine customers are smaller SaaS services like niche CRM providers etc. EmailEngine can also work with Gmail and MS365, as they support IMAP in addition to their proprietary APIs. So you get quite a large coverage by using EmailEngine out of the box (all smaller providers + most Gmail/MS365 accounts). Additionally, in some cases going with IMAP is the only way - for Gmail email API access, you need a very…

There's a fixed yearly subscription fee https://postalsys.com/plans

There are no limits on how many EmailEngine instances you can run or how many email accounts you connect. So, I don't differentiate between customers at all. I have single-person startups and large enterprises paying the exact same amount. Maybe not be the wisest option potential-revenue-wise, but this approach has worked well for me so far.

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#107

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:31 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #104

andris9 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most EmailEngine customers are smaller SaaS services like niche CRM providers etc. EmailEngine can also work with Gmail and MS365, as they support IMAP in addition to their proprietary APIs. So you get quite a large coverage by using EmailEngine out of the box (all smaller providers + most Gmail/MS365 accounts). Additionally, in some cases going with IMAP is the only way - for Gmail email API access, you need a very…

Makes sense, I saw the security assessment stuff for Gmail which I suppose I'll have to contend with as well, haha. I'll take another look into EmailEngine then. How do you charge, per connected user (and how much, generally)? Is it a monthly usage based subscription if so? Edit, I just took a look at your FAQ and saw the price was 695 Euros a month. It is strange to not put this pricing on a prominent pricing tab I…

My main customer base is smaller SaaS services (less than 10 people), and this is the price that works for them or what they would expect - if they compare the costs of building in-house vs buying EmailEngine. Very small companies (single-person ones) and very large ones (one of my customers is a major bank in Europe) are exceptions that I do not target directly, but if they decide to become paying customers, then I don't object and gladly take their money.

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#108

Post by satvikpendem » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

andris9 wrote: post #107

satvikpendem wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, I saw the security assessment stuff for Gmail which I suppose I'll have to contend with as well, haha. I'll take another look into EmailEngine then. How do you charge, per connected user (and how much, generally)? Is it a monthly usage based subscription if so? Edit, I just took a look at your FAQ and saw the price was 695 Euros a month. It is strange to not put this pricing on a prominent pricing tab I…

My main customer base is smaller SaaS services (less than 10 people), and this is the price that works for them or what they would expect - if they compare the costs of building in-house vs buying EmailEngine. Very small companies (single-person ones) and very large ones (one of my customers is a major bank in Europe) are exceptions that I do not target directly, but if they decide to become paying customers, then I…

The price is fine, I'm more so talking about not having a pricing section on the main website and instead being on another website domain.

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#109

Post by andris9 » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 10:30 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #108

andris9 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main customer base is smaller SaaS services (less than 10 people), and this is the price that works for them or what they would expect - if they compare the costs of building in-house vs buying EmailEngine. Very small companies (single-person ones) and very large ones (one of my customers is a major bank in Europe) are exceptions that I do not target directly, but if they decide to become paying customers, then I…

The price is fine, I'm more so talking about not having a pricing section on the main website and instead being on another website domain.

Well, yeah, there is no good reason tbh, I kind of haven’t just thought about this

Re: Mike Perham, Creator of Sidekiq: From Employment to Independence

#110

Post by rektide » Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

jack_riminton wrote: post #30

rektide wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the JS community, this is sadly the level of snark we expect. It doesn't have to be like this. Your community tried to be better once. Have you forgotten? https://jasonfleetwoodboldt.com/courses/stepping-up-rails/ma...

The other thing I like about the ruby community is the sense of humour

At others expense tbough? Is this the form of merriment we want? Gl;hf.