One of the things I don’t really want to self host is a mail server, especially for outbound mail. Currently I’m using a Gmail account, but I want to change that.
What do you all use for things like notifications sent through smtp?
I’m leaning towards AWS SES since it’s cheap, but I know there are some other options like mailgun and sendgrid.
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I’m also on gmail. Haven’t had any issues with it, no real desire to change.
I am using PostmarkApp. It works for me and I don’t have to worry about outbound messages.
Mailjet is working great for me.
I don’t think I’ve looked at mailjet yet, thanks! The free plan looks better than sendgrid’s free plan so far
This is a weird one. I have my instance in a vps that blocks smtp and all it’s alternative and secure ports. Is there anyway for me to get smtp out of here? Id have to fiddle with Lemmy’s functions. I imagine an API or something. Anyone have experience with this?
Does your vps provider block outbound smtp to port 465/587? Usually providers only block port 25 outbound so that the vps can’t send mail directly to a server (and can’t host incoming mail). I haven’t seen many providers block smtp altogether.
If that’s the case though, services like sendgrid do offer http apis. I’m not sure if there’s any sort of smtp-to-http relay bridge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is one. Otherwise Lemmy would have to support the specific api to send e-mails through.
Had issues at scale with Mailgun, moved to Sendinblue (now Brevo) and all sorted. Mailgun’s support might as well be non-existent, took them nearly two weeks to address my issue, at which point I’d already jumped ship.
Another vote for smtp2go - free plan allows up to 1000 emails per month.
Mailgun
MXroute. First, because Jar is stupid (hope someone will get the reference). Second, because they are awesome and cheap at the same time. You can go from full-fledged hosting with them to using them as relay, and for pizza money for a year.
Are you using mxroute only for outbound (notifications/etc) mail, or are you using it for all of your incoming e-mail too?
In some cases outbound only, in other cases inbound, too, with redirect somewhere else.
I set up a smtp relay with gsuite for outgoing mail but don’t think it is ideal; it is tied to my user. It was just expedient rather than preferred.
Totally looking forward to the answers here.
That’s pretty much my concern as well. Most of my notifications (lemmy/etc) get sent from a gsuite account or a fastmail account. I don’t really want any automated e-mails being tied to my personal accounts like that.
With my one user gsuite I setup a secondary domain in it so lemmy sends from no-reply@lemmy.gregw.us, not my main address, but lemmy still authenticates using my main address.
I pay a mail provider $7/year to host all of my hobby / private mail.
Which mail provider do you use?
I’m using Mailgun, but there are other providers offering similar services as well. Main reason is because it’s free for the volume I send :)
If you want free options, I often use MailEnable and hMailServer in lab environments. Also a free Azure developer trial includes some M365 licenses, and it pretty much always auto-renews every 90 days (I’ve had a few tenants going for YEARS now)
Oh man, I have enough bad memories from MailEnable :D
That’s a good tip about the 365 license though, I didn’t know it could renew for free. I might try it just to learn more about azure.
I also thought about using AWE SES, but I decided not to use it, since I was “sandboxed”(See more here).
I decided to use MXRoute, which have worked great for me so far. It is more expensive(50$ per year), than purelymail and Migadu, but for me reliabillity is very important, so I don’t mind paying a bit extra for it.
$50/yr isn’t too terrible if it’s good. Do you use it only for outgoing notification type e-mails or do you use it as your main email too?
I’m using mailgun and have had zero issues with it. Hard to beat since it’s free.
I might be missing something, but isn’t mailgun only free for the first month? It looked like their cheapest plan is $35/mo after the 30day trial.
You know I think you’re right. I might be grandfathered into an old plan. I’ve been using mailgun for over 3 years
