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Comment by phs318u | Hacker News Reader

For those considering running their own mail server (like me), perhaps a more pertinent dataset is the list of hosters that seem to work without problem (not spam blocked) and those that have proven problematic. If anyone could chime in it would be much appreciated.

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I have been running my mail server on a digitalocean vps without any spam-block issues for about 2 years now.

DigitalOcean no longer allows SMTP, you may be grandfathered in.

I setup my mailinabox instance about 2 months ago without issue.

At all, or by default?

In many cases, additional services (ports) are available on request. This is largely a spam-management (outbound) issue for service providers.

Apparently you need to be a customer for 60+ days of 'stable use' before they'll enable smtp.

DO does get blacklisted on occasion. I've moved my SMTP server elsewhere do to AT&T blocking my emails. They use UCEProtect which will block all DO from time to time.

Hetzner Cloud > 1y OK.

Had to clean up IP from two or so blacklists.

I can second Hetzner. In my case with their dedicated offering, though. Been running mail servers there since at least 2013 with next to no problems.

Google sometimes put mails into the spam folder, though not in recent times. Microsoft tends to block unused IP addresses by default, there's a Wiki page on how to request an unblock: https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Microsoft_Blacklist/en

I sign all my emails using DKIM and have good domain reputation.

I have experienced no ISP-related issues for self-hosted mail on Rackspace, Linode, and Vultr in U.S. DCs.

Note that I've heard Vultr in EU requires trouble ticket to open mail ports.

What about bigger hosts, such as AWS and Google Cloud?

I really don't have any experience with them.

You have to fill in a form to send email from an amazon EIP, but generally delivery from Amazon IPs is poor.

DigitalOcean worked for me once I cleared up some blacklists.

Send mail to mail-tester.com and work from there on SPF/DKIM and blacklists.

OVH works well for me. Since 2 years I guess. I took the smallest VPS.

Amazon workmail.

Amazon WorkMail is a managed email solution (like the ones included in G Suite, Office 365, and Zoho), not a generic server host or a self-hosted email solution. It's also closed source, unlike the open source Mail-in-a-Box.

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