> People will suggest running your own mail server, and if you have the time and energy then definitely do that.
As a learning experience, sure, but most people are not prepared for what running a 24/7 mail service requires of them.
First of all, a static, non-residential IP is likely needed. The big players will flat out refuse receiption if your IP is registered as residential, so that rules out hosting it from your home despite having gigabit internet.
You also need SPF, DMARC and DKIM working, or major players will also flat out refuse reception.
On top of that, you need to implement the infrastructure to actually host a server 24/7, including patching and backups, as well as monitoring it for unauthorized access.
Despite all of the above, you may still find yourself on a spam/block list, and removing yourself from these can also turn into a large task.
Part of the irony of Gmail having outages is that Google and other "large players" have fought long and hard for a decade to make it harder to host your own mail server. It has been done in the name of fighting spam, but i doubt any of them minded it making it harder to run your own.
So yeah, build your own mail server as a learning experience. Then move the domain to someone dedicated to running it.
I purchased a lifetime subscription (limited promo offer) with mxroute.com. 10GB mail storage, unlimited domains and accounts (limited by space only), as well as a Nextcloud instance for all your users.
Service and uptime has been nothing but exceptional. Customer support is actually reachable. The only downside is that the spam filter (SpamAssassin IIRC) is not as highly trained as the GMail one, so more spam comes through.
I think the barriers are overstated a bit. I have email on my own server, part of the stuff I run on a dedicated server. Granted, it costs money, but I'm using the server for more than email anyway. That takes care of the IP address, and since the server's with a data hosting company, they take care of the network infrastructure, hardware maintenance and such.
Downtime hasn't been a major issue - senders will retry sending email, usually multiple times over several days. I've been able to have downtime of 24-48 hours without losing any messages.
A SPF record is just another easy to create DNS entry. If you know how to manage DNS, setting up SPF is a matter of minutes. DKIM is just slightly more complicated, with an extra key generation step. Sites like mxtoolbox.com can help you validate records.
The biggest problem I think I have with my own server is security. I do patch the machine regularly, but of course I don't have the same kind of security that Google or another big player would. On the other hand, I suspect I might have a smaller attack surface and better security than plenty of small websites.
> First of all, a static, non-residential IP is likely needed.
If you want to directly send mail that's true. But if you send mail through a smarthost, like your isp's smtp server, you can easily receive mail on a dynamic, residential ip.
> implement the infrastructure to actually host a server 24/7,
email is really tolerant of downtime. You can be down for hours without losing mail. The sending servers will retry for a while.
> I purchased a lifetime subscription (limited promo offer) with mxroute.com.
At the risk of stating the obvious, note that 'lifetime' refers to the lifetime of the company, not the customer. Which underscores the risk of buying lifetime subscriptions.
And as much as I like the idea of avoiding recurring costs (I have a 'lifetime' Plex pass), it seems to me that these can't be sustainable for the company on the long term.
I’m aware it’s the company’s lifetime (unless my expiration date comes up first), and I act accordingly with nightly backups of all mail.
It’s really no different than Google, where a single bad comment somewhere in their vast eco system can end up getting your account banned.
In my case I try to stay as far away from Google as I can with my everyday services. I’m also well aware that chances are extremely high that any email I send will make its way to Googles servers.
The “easy” solution would be to self host, and I do that to some extent, but as I work with system administration I really don’t want/need another day job. I’m actively looking for relatively secure, privacy aware and affordable cloud solutions for everyday use. I wrote affordable because nothing is free.
As a learning experience, sure, but most people are not prepared for what running a 24/7 mail service requires of them.
First of all, a static, non-residential IP is likely needed. The big players will flat out refuse receiption if your IP is registered as residential, so that rules out hosting it from your home despite having gigabit internet.
You also need SPF, DMARC and DKIM working, or major players will also flat out refuse reception.
On top of that, you need to implement the infrastructure to actually host a server 24/7, including patching and backups, as well as monitoring it for unauthorized access.
Despite all of the above, you may still find yourself on a spam/block list, and removing yourself from these can also turn into a large task.
Part of the irony of Gmail having outages is that Google and other "large players" have fought long and hard for a decade to make it harder to host your own mail server. It has been done in the name of fighting spam, but i doubt any of them minded it making it harder to run your own.
So yeah, build your own mail server as a learning experience. Then move the domain to someone dedicated to running it.
I purchased a lifetime subscription (limited promo offer) with mxroute.com. 10GB mail storage, unlimited domains and accounts (limited by space only), as well as a Nextcloud instance for all your users. Service and uptime has been nothing but exceptional. Customer support is actually reachable. The only downside is that the spam filter (SpamAssassin IIRC) is not as highly trained as the GMail one, so more spam comes through.