Mail Server: Self host or purchase

BlackCube

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Was wondering what's the consideration with self-hosting of mail server if I have a domain vs purchasing mail hosting for companies.

I mean I understand some basic differences.

There's quite a bit of stuff to configure and setup for mail server, and including handling of blacklist, SSL, spam, virus scanning.
Purchasing is no brainer, just get and ready to use.

Cost wise there's a difference. Since it's a VPS (like Linode, Digital Ocean), you can host one with 5USD per month (with unlimited user) for example VS like 5 user per month (see https://www.exabytes.sg/web-hosting/email-hosting).

What other things to consider or know about?

P.S: damn, mod help me to move to the software clinic. Didn't know I was in programmers den when I create it.
 
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davidktw

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Was wondering what's the consideration with self-hosting of mail server if I have a domain vs purchasing mail hosting for companies.

I mean I understand some basic differences.

There's quite a bit of stuff to configure and setup for mail server, and including handling of blacklist, SSL, spam, virus scanning.
Purchasing is no brainer, just get and ready to use.

Cost wise there's a difference. Since it's a VPS (like Linode, Digital Ocean), you can host one with 5USD per month (with unlimited user) for example VS like 5 user per month (see https://www.exabytes.sg/web-hosting/email-hosting).

What other things to consider or know about?

P.S: damn, mod help me to move to the software clinic. Didn't know I was in programmers den when I create it.


I have designed, implemented and operated on a past antivirus/antispam mail product in the past, managing more than 50 domains at its peak with a couple of spam magnet.

Bandwidth is your greatest concern. spamming may be a problem, but isn't your worse nightmare, at most just extra junk mails for your clients. But when you are hosting for your client, or your domain is a spam magnet, you get tons of spam mails coming in to choke up your bandwidth. Blacklist works only to a certain extend.

Well there is a good reason why years back telcos are doing away with hosting email solution. They are basically operationally expensive but not profitable. If you are just trying to do for fun, I say go ahead. If you value your time for better things than managing a mail system, this is something I will encourage you to outsource it to vendors. I have my own domain and I let Google App does it for me :)
 
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szeli

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a nightmare to manage. consider carefully...
 

u0206397

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On a related note, for those cPanel shared hosting, it provides email accounts too. The email server comes with cPanel or it is just a front end to some mail server already installed on the CentOS or RHEL box?
 

BlackCube

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I have designed, implemented and operated on a past antivirus/antispam mail product in the past, managing more than 50 domains at its peak with a couple of spam magnet.

Bandwidth is your greatest concern. spamming may be a problem, but isn't your worse nightmare, at most just extra junk mails for your clients. But when you are hosting for your client, or your domain is a spam magnet, you get tons of spam mails coming in to choke up your bandwidth. Blacklist works only to a certain extend.

Well there is a good reason why years back telcos are doing away with hosting email solution. They are basically operationally expensive but not profitable. If you are just trying to do for fun, I say go ahead. If you value your time for better things than managing a mail system, this is something I will encourage you to outsource it to vendors. I have my own domain and I let Google App does it for me
:)

Thanks. I have also consider Google app but it's more expensive than the one I have mentioned. Google is 10usd per user per month right?

It's not really for client. It's for ownself. Requires a couple of emails address. Not gonna host for other people. It's also kind of for fun as well. Thinking of whether to try out, or just purchase as is. Hence wanting to see other people pov.
 

davidktw

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Thanks. I have also consider Google app but it's more expensive than the one I have mentioned. Google is 10usd per user per month right?

It's not really for client. It's for ownself. Requires a couple of emails address. Not gonna host for other people. It's also kind of for fun as well. Thinking of whether to try out, or just purchase as is. Hence wanting to see other people pov.

Google App is minimally USD5/user/month. Pay $ in return of your time. If you intend to use your email outside of just personal correspondence, it will be picked up by crawlers. Then it will be a target for spamming. The choice is yours. If it's for business, it's fine. Personal usage I don't recommend it unless it's just for knowledge. Remember the spam is across the whole domain, not just your email. You may still have to deal with bounce mail attacks. Meaning sending smtp server send an email with a return email that is some other servers'. Your email server will normally give a bounce mail, the bounce mail end up attacking another mail server. There is quite a fair bit of interesting stuffs in the email world actually.
 
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BlackCube

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Google App is minimally USD5/user/month. Pay $ in return of your time. If you intend to use your email outside of just personal correspondence, it will be picked up by crawlers. Then it will be a target for spamming. The choice is yours. If it's for business, it's fine. Personal usage I don't recommend it unless it's just for knowledge. Remember the spam is across the whole domain, not just your email. You may still have to deal with bounce mail attacks. Meaning sending smtp server send an email with a return email that is some other servers'. Your email server will normally give a bounce mail, the bounce mail end up attacking another mail server. There is quite a fair bit of interesting stuffs in the email world actually.

Yeah. That's part of the consideration as well.
Maintenance is a nightmare for mail server.

Might do once for knowledge though. Getting hands dirty. But still go for paid service for actual usage.

What's the major advantage of Google app over the others ah? If say purely for mail only and for couple of user. Not really gonna be used much at the moment as well. If I go for the exabytes (5 user per month $5) vs Google 5 usd per user per month. I probably go for cheaper one for now, but want to know what's the difference also.

Thanks.
 

davidktw

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Yeah. That's part of the consideration as well.
Maintenance is a nightmare for mail server.

Might do once for knowledge though. Getting hands dirty. But still go for paid service for actual usage.

What's the major advantage of Google app over the others ah? If say purely for mail only and for couple of user. Not really gonna be used much at the moment as well. If I go for the exabytes (5 user per month $5) vs Google 5 usd per user per month. I probably go for cheaper one for now, but want to know what's the difference also.

Thanks.

Didn't really compared with others since for what Google App has to offer, USD5/usr/month, it's a comfortable amount for me. Simple choice moving my previous gmail account into it. I was previously using singnet email, redirecting to google mail all the while. The migration into Google App with my own domain is simple and hassle free. The mails management for Google has all the while been quite a proven record, so it's a straight forward choice for me.
 
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BlackCube

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Didn't really compared with others since for what Google App has to offer, USD5/usr/month, it's a comfortable amount for me. Simple choice moving my previous gmail account into it. I was previously using singnet email, redirecting to google mail all the while. The migration into Google App with my own domain is simple and hassle free. The mails management for Google has all the while been quite a proven record, so it's a straight forward choice for me.

Alright. Thanks.

Yeah. Google has very good track record.
 

u0206397

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For CPanel users using shared hosting, the mail functions (forwarding/hosting) are already provided.

However for users who setup a web server on a VPS to host a web site, do they also tend to use the same VPS to setup a mail server?
 

davidktw

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For CPanel users using shared hosting, the mail functions (forwarding/hosting) are already provided.

However for users who setup a web server on a VPS to host a web site, do they also tend to use the same VPS to setup a mail server?

Depends on how much load you have intend for your system to endure. You don't actually require a SMTP server just to send out email to any domain out there. Just a SMTP client will do. The need for an SMTP server is for robustness and other features that may incorporate with it, such as AV/AS feature, retry and spooling mechanisms or some smart routing depending on how you configure your SMTP server. The SMTP server would play the role of relaying.
 

u0206397

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Depends on how much load you have intend for your system to endure. You don't actually require a SMTP server just to send out email to any domain out there. Just a SMTP client will do. The need for an SMTP server is for robustness and other features that may incorporate with it, such as AV/AS feature, retry and spooling mechanisms or some smart routing depending on how you configure your SMTP server. The SMTP server would play the role of relaying.

I mean for receiving and forwarding emails. CPanel allows users to easily add email addresses and accounts for a custom domain.

To do the same on a VPS, we may need to setup mail server like Dovecot (POP3/IMAP) and sendmail (SMTP) or Postfix (SMTP), spam filtering (SpamAssassin) and virus scanning (ClamAV). Is this correct?

For many small businesses that use a VPS with a Apache/Nginx web server for hosting their web sites, do they do mail hosting themselves or they typically use some hosted solutions?
 

Swiftbladez

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I mean for receiving and forwarding emails. CPanel allows users to easily add email addresses and accounts for a custom domain.

To do the same on a VPS, we may need to setup mail server like Dovecot (POP3/IMAP) and sendmail (SMTP) or Postfix (SMTP), spam filtering (SpamAssassin) and virus scanning (ClamAV). Is this correct?

For many small businesses that use a VPS with a Apache/Nginx web server for hosting their web sites, do they do mail hosting themselves or they typically use some hosted solutions?

hosted. simply not worth the effort and costs is even higher to maintain it yourself.
 

cybertech

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Agreed that Mail Server is not like Setup/Configured/Let it run that's all. Need a lot time to maintain and when a problem surfaced, it could be a nightmare as some mentioned here. I am so happy no longer need to maintain Exchange and some other Mail software programs nowadays :D
 
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