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Comment by readingnews | Hacker News Reader

>you're basically under constant probing

So is fastmail, so is everyone. I have been running my own mail server since 1999. Never hacked, and I completely control RBLs/updates/whitelist/greylist...its great.

Of course, I suppose being a sysadmin and liking it helps.

I agree with OP, however, having your own domain and email can be rewarding.

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But fastmail has the benefit of scale, that you will never have. And the cost of your time, if you don't inherently enjoy it, is too much.

I dumped everything to move to Google and I am happy with the results. With the deprecation of the free Google Worspaces - I'm open to switching to Fastmail.... But nothing will make me move to self hosted.

I'm just a software engineer and I don't want to waste my time.

If it is just for yourself or family or a few friends then scale really isnt an issue. But yeah I agree - running a mail server can be a pain. It can also be easy. But that is the trade off with any SaaS - do you want to outsource and pay someone else to do it or do it yourself?

I definitely am making my money's worth with my Fastmail subscription. Just over $100 for 3 years? I could work 3 hours and recoup that.

Not a chance I could get away with < 3 hours of mail server setup and maintenance over the course of 3 years.

That is so true.

The mail server can run for 25 years. And it doesn't require any maintenance. And you don't have to trust anyone else to keep your data safe.

are you suggesting that it is advisable to run an operating system and mail server from 1997 in 2022

Yeah, but when it's Fastmail it's a whole team's worth of somebody elses' problem. :p

Hosted my own for 17 years, moved a little over a year ago. There's nothing I want they don't have for $50 a year, and while that's more than I was paying for the VPS, it's been enough of a load off my mind and my calendar to still be amply worth my while.

edit: $50 a year is certainly not more than I was paying for the VPS...

> never hacked

That you know of

If you've got a mail server (ie Postfix) and you get p0wnd you'll know - your mail volume will be through the roof, IO spikes, the works.

Or, not. “Have I been hacked?” is a known unknown.

My mail server had a user with a weak password on it (my sister's account from 20 years ago, actually.) It got hacked and started sending out spam for about 3 days straight. The upstream ISP eventually called me to complain.

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