alt Hacker NewsInteresting that self-hosting isn't on his list. It hits every one of his checkboxes and only costs you an old Linux server collecting dust at home (or at most, a $5/mo VPS), which you can also use to host other things.
It's never been easier to self-host, but it feels like, in general, when faced with "I want to do X with a computer," people are more and more reaching for paid, hosted services rather than DIY anymore.
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Self hosting is a massive PITA and time burner.
I self hosted my email domains for 15+ years. Finally got fed up with the constant trickle of the maintenance and got a service for everything.
Not quite happy with that as they don't even do SRS (implying they do), but i guess I'll just migrate elsewhere.
The upside is I've got more time for myself and have less CVEs to worry about.
Self hosted apps migration in progress; I guess I'll leave media, book and file server only, off the internet, and that's it.
I've been self-hosting (using a server at home) using MailInABox ( https://mailinabox.email ) for around 5 years.
I've been very happy with it. I have a perfectly normal email service, over which I have full control. MailInABox handles all the necessary DKIM etc. I had minor hassles, when I first started, with sending to google and microsoft, but these were reasonably easily managed by following microsoft's advice. (And I have a good ISP.)
The only hassle is that, because MailInABox uses greylisting, initial account-validation emails are sometimes delayed. But because I have control of the service, I can whitelist anything important :)
I've tried this approach, but I found that most email providers aggressively filter out all incoming messages that don't come from validated sources. No matter what I tried deliverability of emails remained very spotty. I did configure DKIM, DMARC, SPIF, etc as suggested. But minimal improvements. Eventually ended up going with AWS SES.
I self-host email, and it's mostly working. However the problems others have outlined are real: The stack is complicated, even for an expert to set up and keep running. And deliverability can sometimes be a problem, especially to Google who are obviously plotting to monopolise email.
I’ve actually tried before to self host on my VPS as well as my homelab that I use for various services. I honestly just didn’t trust the stability of my own services enough for something as important as email. As a project I definitely want to try again in the future.
I haven't spent any real amount of time looking into this, but from the basic research I did perform, I found that well-written guides that aren't grossly out of date are hard to find.
Also, my understanding is that Google, Outlook and other major email services have been implementing as many roadblocks for self-hosted setups as possible to the point where it's a constant battle and difficult to keep up with.
The problem with self hosting is getting through google, microsoft, etc spam filters.
Isnt email blacklisting/actually getting mails to inbox infamously hard? I otherwise think the rest of the stack is indeed solved, but its probably cheaper to pay Amazon SES or whatever for getting your emails to an inbox reliably
So, there are two main reasons people avoid trying to self-host email, plus a third you only find once you start digging:
1. Deliverability: "the email mafia will flag your emails as spam"
2. Complexity: "configuring and maintaining a mail stack is a technical nightmare".
3. Network blocks: VPS providers and residential ISPs frequently block outbound mail ports (like port 25) entirely or in their terms of use.
I decided we should try self-hosting because some issues with their reliability cost us very expensive problems. The experience was frustrating anyway, as the weird restrictions on providers caused our setup to be quite bad on some regards -- most notably being forced to use the provider UI to manage some things, which took time and is a non-transferable useless skill, not having users for things that should have had one, etc.
MailCow made the technical setup trivial, blowing objection #2 out. For #3, we could not rely on stable electricity/internet, so we just spun it up on a reliable VPS provider after a small research. As for the biggest fear, the IP reputation and deliverability mafia (#1), it is easily solved by routing outbound mail through a simple SMTP relay like SMTP2GO. You pay based purely on sending volume rather than a flat service fee, and their free tier completely covers small setups. And how much time did it take? Less than half a day, before AI could do everything for you.
Most paid services charge absurd per-user or per-domain fees for basic features that do not cost them anything. After 2 years of bad service on paid providers followed by 2 years of flawless self-hosting, there is absolutely no going back.