Is Self-Hosted Email Worth It? (My Experience)

Jonah talks about his experience self-hosting email. Do emails from self-hosted servers get marked as spam? Are the risks worth it? Turns out there are pros and cons to DIY email, and better alternatives might be out there. Let's dive in!

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[jimcabezola]

I agree that self-hosting email would provide a LOT of teachable moments! You folks have found out already just HOW monumental this task can be. I think you're all better for it; you have a very informed opinion.
Which...is why we all keep listening and watching! Aloha!

[ChristopherPerrin]

I'd say email is a lost cause. I have hosted email for years and I had everything: DKIM, SPF, DMARC, reverse DNS, TLS, not blocklisted IP, In and Outgoing Spamfilter. I still regularly landed in spam folders. Some bigger providers blocked me completely because I wasn't on their allowlist. Email has been so tainted by spam that you can't really succeed if you host for yourself. You need to create a reputation but you don't have enought volume to do so. I loved the challenge setting it up but I would never self-host my productive email. It's a fight against windmills.

[xdevs]

I agree. I do self-host as well and it works pretty well. Takes some time, sure. But it doesn't get blocked by other providers. Email has been designed to work in a decentralized fashion and if anyone would start blocking for no reason it would be really bad for everyone. Just set up your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, reverse DNS, TLS and everything else that goes with it!

[itsfolf]

The IP addresses you're using matter a lot. One time I had to go through claiming ownership for a subnet on outlook with my hosting provider as the previous owner got it blocked for spam and all messages would get refused.