I currently host my own Email server at home and have done for over 20 years. I’m thinking about replacing the home based server with a hosted solution out there – but I don’t want to lose some of the functionality I have today.
Generally, the requirements are pretty standard – so a short list:
- Send SMTP Outbound through port 25 or 587
- SMTP Auth
- TLS support
- IMAPS mailbox
- Up to 6 users
- Ability to integrate with 3rd party Email Security Provider
So, it turns out that locating all this information is really hard. I’m going to publish with lots of gaps or unknown answers. I’m happy to take contributions if you know about providers and their capabilities.
| Outbound | Inbound | |||||||||||||
| Service | Info | SMTP Send | SMTP Auth | STARTTLS | Outbound IP | DKIM Signing | 3rd Party Outbound Relay | SPF Validation | DKIM Validation | DMARC Policy Enforcement | 3rd Party In Relay* | IMAPS / POP3 mailbox | Mail Storage | Aliases |
| Hetzner Webmail | https://docs.hetzner.com/konsoleh/account-management/email/webmail-faq/ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ✅ | ❌ | ? | ? | ? | POP3 | Unlimited | ||
| Fastmail | https://www.fastmail.com/ | ✅ Port 465 TLS/SSL | ? | ? | ? | ? | ❌ | ? | ? | ? | ❌ | ✅ IMAPS imap.fastmail.com | ||
| Zoho Mail | https://www.zoho.com/mail/ https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html (free up to 5 users) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ||||||||||
* 3rd Party In Relay – In order to support this – the service must trust a ‘Man in the middle’ Security service to do SPF/DKIM/DMARC policy enforcement, and crucially not perform SPF/DKIM/DMARC checking on incoming email.