this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2026
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Best email providers and Proton replacement? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by vas@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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What do you folks use instead of Proton and Google? Ideally I'm looking for:

  • Non-profit.
  • European-based if possible.
  • Paid is fine.
  • Low-risk. E.g. unlikely to disappear, unlikely to go bankrupt.

My reason to want non-profit is that it's the best way to align mine and the provider's incentives, I think. I'd consider for-profit as well, but it's best if it's a non-profit.

So far I like disroot a lot. But they are principled about being unpaid, so if the financial ends don't meet each other my emails will be in trouble. I'm donating to them, but I have my worries. I'm willing to pay a little if I know that my money will go for a quality service, for expansion of coverage (new users) and for open-source technologies.

Proton and their founder Andy are just a piece of sh*t in terms of upper management, so that's not worth discussing.

Posteo seems adequate. Tuta feels similar to Posteo with a bit more push for fanciness. Is there something similar but non-profit?

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[–] taco_shale032@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 days ago (3 children)

mailbox.org is noteworthy too, but I don’t think I know any non-profit ones unfortunately.

[–] vas@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

Thank you for your response! This was one of two main contenders for me. What I've found about mailbox is that they have medium-strength stance on open-source (using, but not using only this). They likely support inbound encryption with a user-provided PGP key ("PGP-encrypted inbox" https://mailbox.org/en/prices/#compare-all-features--2). They are reasonably priced and upgradable with some additional payment to have VoIP support.

The other main contender for me was posteo, and after thinking and reading over the last 2 days, I've decided to go with them. In particular, I've liked:

  • Very good docs, saying what exactly they do. I could read all the details I wanted to know.
  • Strong stance on open-source: "our product offering exclusively uses open source software and free protocols, for security reasons. We only use Javascript which has open source code."
  • Sustainability, e.g. they only use permanent contracts for employees. (And many other points that resonated with me.)
  • They don't have calling support, but I consider it even better actually, because I want my emails to be very reliable, cheap and de-coupled from the rest of things. Calling I can honestly self-host just fine, since I don't have to worry much if stuff breaks or changes (as opposed to email, which would better be stable for me).

Again I actually value having read about mailbox as well - it's a very good alternative!

[–] MaddestMax@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

This. Very happy mailbox.org user.

[–] freddo@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Amazing service. They had a price increase recently I think. They never bother me and the service works great so no complaints.

[–] milbyte11@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

price increase and yet still the cheapest i've seen for what they're offering.