For me it wasn't really anything to do with the cost, just a token decision to opt out of the google hegemony over email to some degree. Been well over a year at this point and I don't miss gmail at all.
Apple iCloud+ will let you have up to five custom domains, with up to three personalised email addresses per domain for just 0.79p (UK)
If you are just looking for email, that's shockingly good value. You do get iCloud Docs with that too, but that product offering is a bit naff and iOS/iPadOS/macOS only.
If you are using Apple products, it's very good value for money.
On Linux I would just go to icloud.com to access my Apple email, notes, etc. I wish there was an easier solution but iCloud access on Linux sucks.
I can understand the point about Notes being accessible only from a browser, but why isn’t IMAP an option to access email on Linux?
I migrated from Google Workspace when Apple added custom domain support. The email migration itself was simple — I used `imapsync` and followed the instructions below. It's been several months since the move, and I can report that it all "just works".
https://blah.cloud/miscellaneous/migrating-google-workspaces...
Granted we're a bootstrapped business so our economics are important to me. Workspaces was just too expensive for the service provided. Microsoft Office was cheaper back in it's hayday.
> While these directions let you send emails from a custom email alias at your domain, email recipients can still find your personal Gmail address if they inspect the email headers.
To me, this is no replacement for a mailbox on my own domain.