风哥出于职业习惯，对Email行业保持高度关注，手头持有各种Email帐号数百个，是EMD论坛的高级会员。论坛成员petergh列举了一些Email hosting提供商，包括其优势和劣势。这些的确是行业内知名服务商，风哥也或多或少都打过交道。比如Gmail、Hotmail、Fastmail、PolarisMail、Tuffmail、Eumx这几家，我是或曾经是他们的客户。除了这几家外，还有俄罗斯的Mail.ru和Yandex.ru的服务也是相当不错的，本博也先后介绍过。
所谓Email hosting就是使用自有域名来管理电邮服务，比如wind.postno.de这个域，可以使用任何一家的电邮托管服务，创建类似于[email protected]的域名邮箱。petergh提供的列表如下：
Service providers I’ve trialled so far:
- Gmail
- Pros
- Excellent, keyboard-accessible web interface.
- Excellent uptime record
- Cons
- No human support unless you pay $50 per user. Paid support is not worth paying for (I’ve had several tickets handled by them in a less than satisfactory manner)
- Slow, quirky, non-standard IMAP access
- Their privacy policy
- Pros
- Fastmail
- Pros
- Run by a bunch of genuinely good guys originally, with deep technical insight
- Fast, RFC-compliant IMAP
- Excellent uptime record, even in the face of recent glitches
- Cons
- Purchased by Opera last year, which means they’re now part of a big company
- Support is… not the best in my experience
- Pros
- Hotmail/Outlook.com
- Pros
- Webmail interface very accessible with keyboard shortcuts, even in non-IE browsers
- Cons
- Only accessible with an MUA that speaks ActiveSync (Outlook or Windows Live Mail)
- Absolutely no human support
- Pros
- PolarisMail
- Pros
- Friendly, competent support from George_B
- Enhanced accounts support ActiveSync + CalDAV for calendar synchronisation
- Offers a variety of webmail interfaces: RoundCube, AtMail, SquirrelMail, GroupOffice (enhanced only)
- Being actively developed
- Cons
- Webmail interfaces and configuration interfaces can be very confusing at first
- Documentation is lacking
- Pros
- Rackspace
- Pros
- Proprietary webmail interface almost as slick as Gmail, but has less features.
- Mobile Sync
- Webmail interface includes built-in calendar and notes
- Human support available 24/7 by email and phone. Used to be fast, but lately have taken many hours to respond; sometimes no response until asked for a status update several days later. Very unlike previous experiences.
- Cons
- Supporters’ technical knowledge varies wildly; sometimes you get an excellent answer, sometimes a completely useless one
- Bound by corportate policies, no exceptions to anything
- Minimum purchase is 5 accounts ($10)
- Pros
- Rollernet
- Pros
- Friendly and technically competent support from the owner (SethM here on the forums)
- Rollernet has built and operates their own data center; if something’s broken they’ll know how to fix it ASAP
- Advanced account manager that lets you adjust almost everything under the sun
- Lets you inspect the incoming/outgoing message log (very handy when someone asks you what happened to a certain message)
- Under active development, and their blog is updated frequently
- Cons
- A bit slow for me (Rollernet is in Nevada, U.S.A.)
- Pros
- Tuffmail
- Pros
- A very reliable provider historically
- Advanced account manager that lets you adjust almost everything under the sun (but not incoming/outgoing mail logs like Rollernet)
- Cons
- No adctive development for years, literally, and the website looks exactly like it did in 2005 or so. Derek still answers support requests, though, so it’s still alive and kicking despite appearances
- Pros
- LuxSci
- Pros
- Uptime record on par with Tuffmail, if not better, at least according to posts here on the forum
- Very fast and technically knowledgeable support personnel. I’ve interacted with more than a few support people in the last couple of months, but LuxSci takes the cake overall. In the words of ioneja: “Ridiculously professional.”
- Cons
- Their web interface has become a wee bit prettier with the latest design improvements, but to my eyes it’s still the ugliest proprietary webmail interface I know
- Pros
- Redpin
- Pros
- In business since 2002
- The owner, Mike, an systems admin with 10+ years of experience, is very quick to fix issues at most hours of the day, very accomodating to feature requests, and is available via email as well as phone
- The server I’m on is in Dusseldorf, Germany, and so IMAP is very fast (ping times < 28 ms)
- Cons
- Disk space is expensive; comes with 200 MB for $3/month, which many will probably find insufficient
- Pros
- EUMX
- Pros
- Friendly and fast human support from Rolf and Tamas
- Cheap: $16/yr for one account, volume discounts available
- Blazingly fast IMAP access from here (the server is in Hungary, I believe)
- Excellent uptime, according to posts on this forum
- SSH/SFTP access to one’s account, making for easily scripted backups
- Cons
- Stale website like Tuffmail
- Ugly web site with truly weird elements on it, e.g., a public photo gallery?!
- Forum is available, but closed for signups and will be replaced with a CMS shortly, supposedly
- Pros
- NEW! Nethosted.co.uk
- Pros
- Extremely fast IMAP from here (they’re in the UK)
- cPanel makes it easy to adjust many settings pertaining to email, including SPF and DKIM which are also supported
- True 24×7 support by Andrew, Darryl, and Bret. These guys are there for you, literally every minute of the day, every day of the year. You get helpful replies from one of them within a matter of minutes no matter when you need help. Outstanding.
- Cons
- Not a specialised mail service provider, but primarily a webhosting company. They do provide a very good email service for a webhosting company, but it’s still not their primary service, and it shows
- Expensive, unless you cough up enough money to buy a 2-year subscription
- Only their top-level email plan allows more than one domain (a major drawback to me)
- Pros
A note on pros/cons: These are just the things I remember off the top of my head from trying out the service. By no means are they to be construed as a definite list of the good and bad things in a service provider. Also, do feel to disagree with my pros and cons and discuss them below.