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You can try our Mailcow (formerly known as fufix) if you want a self hosted solution.
Hello there,
If you want a simple setup, you can try out the iRedMail Free. If you want something a little more advanced, I would suggest Zimbra OpenSource.
Zimbra
+1 on Zimbra. I'm slowly moving my own personal email away from cPanel and onto Zimbra. I've been satisfied thus far. Previous providers I worked for used it and I didn't have an issue. We also put some business customers on Zimbra also.
I think they monitors public auctions.
In theory it is very easy. You just need dovecot, postfix and a way to store the account information (e.g. MySQL or text files)
Zimbra is good but so complicated and resource hungry. Recommended if you are running a dedicated server with lot of RAM. On VPS it cause hign RAM and CPU usage and may be an issue for the provider
I've used Open-Xchange appsuite, but kinda complicated to install, and high in resource usage. Would use mailinabox or mailcow.
Postfix, Dovecot, Amavis, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, OpenDKIM, Sieve, ViMb Admin 3 and AfterLogic Webmail Pro (for EAS, Card- & CalDAV). If AfterLogic is too expensive, you can also take any webmail + zpush (EAS) + Baikal (Card- & CalDAV).
Integrate all that stuff in your mailstack and you should have a really good replacement for Google Apps. Also, if you need a great EAS email app, take a look at Nine (available via the play store), best email app I've ever used.
Even that much is too much. Just installing them is never enough and tweaking, hardening them is a real time consumer. And I have yet tried only Postfix + Dovecot + OpenDKIM + ClamAV + SpamAssassin + Roundcube/Outlook
If you have time and resources, go that way.
If you want a free alternate to Google Apps, there's also Yandex Mail.
I admit that it isn't that simple ~ would take me 2-3 hours (but I have Ansible scripts for that, so <10minutes) to set everything up again, if you're doing it for the first time a lot longer probably.
It's kinda maintenance-free now though, except security updates. Also, you're close to my suggestion:
The only thing you're missing is EAS & Card/CalDAV, otherwise our stacks are similar.
Fucking hell. If it took that much, even I would probably gave up on running my mail servers. People like you overdo it to the point of being ridiculous, then everyone else reading this just rolls their eyes and goes back to some hosted/managed solution because "running a server is too hard". Meanwhile in the real world, I've just installed Postfix + Dovecot a couple of days ago for a new domain, and that's it. It just works. Whatever spam tries to get through, some smtpd_*_restrictions on PTR and HELOs block most of it. The anitivirus problem is handled locally on machines via a realtime scanner (or for machines of those who are a bit smarter, by just not clicking on stupid shit).
Well, if you know an easier way which supports Cal/CardDAV and EAS, show me.
Excluding bloaty CPU&RAM-eating monstrums like Zimbra or Exchange.
I have high needs and standards in regards of mail hosting, that's why I'm doing it that complicated. Really isn't that much though if you take a closer look.
I used to run my own mail this way for many years too, but in the last year or two I was constantly having to adjust it to block spam. I believe this is because I've had the same email address for over a decade and it has just made its way onto a lot of peoples' lists by now. I was also running into issues with my outgoing mail getting flagged as spam; not because I was sending any spam but because some of my "neighbors" in my IP space apparently were. When the entire /22 block I was in got blacklisted and there was nothing I could to do about it, I finally gave up. I moved my business email to Google and my automated messages go out through Mandrill. I haven't had any trouble since. The $5/mo costs much less than the time I was spending trying to keep my mail server in good standing.
I do still keep the mail server running because I still have a couple of customers using it, but I have steadily been scaling it down with the intention of decommissioning it some day. I'd definitely say that unless you have very high requirements for security and you are quite knowledgeable it's a lot more trouble than it's worth to run your own mail server.
RAM is cheap these days. KVM/Xen? Who would run Java on OVZ?
Baikal
nginx, php and sqlite and I think you are good to go (if you dont need automated account creation along with email address creation although it might be easy to add it)
Hosting your own mailserver on a VPS/dedicated server is not really recommended since there are a lot of additional resources required to managing/scaling said service. Not only do you have to spend time configuring the management software, but it really takes a lot of time and effort understanding the fundamentals of email like Postfix/Dovecot (SMTP/IMAP) services and how to troubleshoot them in case of any issues. Unless you're going with a supported and expensive solution like iRedmail Pro/Zimbra Enterprise all the other open source projects don't guarantee an easy, trouble free email experience.
Now there's also the more important aspects of running a mailserver like data protection, offsite backups, redundant backup MX/mailservers to queue messages in case of primary server being offline, quality SMTP relays for guaranteed deliverability, outbound/inbound filtration to fight spam/viruses, etc.
Its also worth noting that a VPS/dedicated server cannot be scaled like a cloud email server; to future proof the solution one must consider a scalable solution both in terms of storage and compute resources.
Cloud email servers are a great way to host all your domains/users (unlike 'per user/mo.' shared email services) and the highly scalable architecture with dedicated compute resources and high performance storage clusters guarantees a future proof mail solution.
I'm going to second this. I've finally consolidated down into a single HA cluster of mail servers, and even maintaining just one of them is kind of a time sink. There's tons of different ways to configure postfix and dovecot, often with poor documentation and hidden pitfalls. It's nice to really understand how mail works, and to be able to run mail on my terms, but if I were only looking for an account or two on my domain, I'd probably just pay the $3 or so a month per account to get service with FastMail or similar providers.
Did you just necro a 14 month old thread to advertise your business?
@mailcheap
Not bad information, not sure why you need to post to a thread with the last post 15 month ago.
I think with growing privacy issues concerning large corporate email providers there's a renewed interest in private email servers; not only does it keep costs down but with robust cloud platforms like OpenStack scalability doesn't have to come w/ a premium price tag
Pavin Joseph.
Getting outgoing mail into non spam yahoo or gmail inbox is way trickier than dmarc SPF and whatever. At least from my experience.
Yes, this is a tricky issue. Starting off with an aged domain with est. email reputation is a plus. But other than that, the SMTP relays themselves must have a good sending history and outbound filtration to maintain reputation; it doesn't hurt to be on some whitelists too. Except Gmail, erstwhile email giants like AOL, Yahoo, etc. also benefit from ReturnPath's certification.
Pavin Joseph.
Necro'd topics ftw!
Anyway, for what it's worth, i just pay @jarland to handle mails when I don't need everything that comes along with the complete G suite for a certain project, but still want a hassle free experience of sending and receiving mails.
Self hosted email is a fun DIY exercise to learn a thing or two about configuring the stack, as long as you're not planning on sending anything critical that needs to hit the recipient's inbox every single time, or hate receiving emails from people you never expected to be contacted by, Nigerian royalty included!
I use a service for my incoming mail, but like to use my own server for outgoing. I haven't had much trouble with people not getting mail. Only a couple of instances with Gmail. Although it bugs me, it's what i would expect from a service that has an interest in keeping everything, such as it's users, in-house.