I have long been a person with domain names and hosting, who is interested in iCloud mail custom domains so I could offload the hosting (which I don’t really need any more) and $ Save $.
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A given file can have multiple labels but can exist in only one folder.
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I don’t see Hover Webmail mentioned. It has worked well for me for many years and their support is great. I pull it down into Apple Mail on my Mac or use the web interface when I’m out and about.
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Fastmail is OK, but comes up short on search and customer support.
@dustinknopoff JMAP sounds cool and all but I for one cannot see the practical benefits of JMAP. Is there any practical benefits of JMAP over IMAP for average users?
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When I’m selecting any new service the first thing I consider is security. Do I trust this company to keep my username, password, name & address, and possibly my credit card data safe? In this case I trust Apple, Fastmail, and Google equally.
Next, does this email service have all the features I need? In my case Apple does not and Google does. I’ve never used Fastmail but from all reports it is an excellent service.
What about privacy? Based on their policy statements, neither Apple, Fastmail , or Google sells information about me to third parties. Apple advertises Apple products on Apple services to Apple users. And Google sells targeted ads that they present to people who use Google services. But they keep what they know about me to themselves. Otherwise advertisers would not need to buy ads from Google.
Do they keep my emails private? Nope, how could they? They only have one copy of my messages. There are multiple other copies of all my messages in servers, personal computers, phones, and tablets, etc. around the world.
So, why do I use Gmail & Google Workspace? Google’s server side rules are excellent as is their spam filter. Their contact list and calendar sync well with Mac & IOS Contacts and Calendar and their IOS mail and calendar apps are reliable and have all the features I need. And their price for Google Workspace is competitive.
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I stand corrected then.
Well, JMAP was introduced only a little over two years ago, so it still has a long way to go in my opinion.
Loved your writeup — you pretty much captured why I’m still on Google Workspace for my custom domain. It just works extremely well, and has superior spam filtering. And I’ve never had a problem with my Google-originated e-mails getting through to my work account like Fastmail.
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This. Google has the best spam filtering one can get.
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You should only really care about JMAP vs IMAP if you’re planning on creating an email client.
I’m a Fastmail customer, but the biggest problem I find is that other services don’t hook into them.
Often 3rd party apps will support Gmail / M365 / iCloud, and despite Fastmail being compliant with open standards of CalDAV/IMAP, these other service don’t program for that.
So I am stuck on a standards-compliant island named Fastmail.
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Gmail receives about 1.8 billion unique visitors a month, Fastmail receives around 2.6 million. If you were a 3rd party app developer which would you spend your time and money to support?
It’s not a matter of who’s best, it’s who has the greatest following.
There are a few subtle but important features that pulled me back to Gmail after my stint with Hey. I had considered Fastmail and several others as well, but ultimately they all fell short because they couldn’t overcome Gmail’s ubiquity and these details:
- Native snoozing
- Native Send Later, Undo Send
- Peerless search and spam filtering
Taken together, these things really improve my experience of email and the latter in particular saves me having to even think about involving another service like Sanebox or even bothering with labels and folders. I can’t think of a single occasion where I wasn’t able to find an email in my Gmail history via search so why would I make more work for myself with labels and rules and folders?
As for ubiquity, I enjoy knowing that if a new email client emerges, I’ll almost certainly be able to try it out in case it does a better job than the native Gmail app for my needs. And in the meantime, the native app allows me to access those features without having to involve another third party and their servers or on-device processing to replicate the same functionality (snooze, send later, etc.)
It was a step backward in terms of privacy, sure, but as Wayne said, “email privacy” is a bit of a one-sided concept.
Anyway, I love the idea of making a current version of this chart so I just wanted to bring up a few of those additional quality-of-life features that Gmail/Google Workspace offers that make a difference for me.
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I’ve added an unused, but hoped to be used, domain to iCloud Custom Domains and it’s been simply good. My main reason for wanting to use my iCloud email is because when you setup a new machine or device the mail setup is part of iCloud setup, and I’m one of those guys who likes to start with fresh installs every year or so.
The only implementation detail I haven’t been able to figure out yet is that I added the domain for my iCloud family but I’m guessing that because they aren’t running the beta, even the beta.icloud.com doesn’t give them access to my domain yet?
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Thanks for all the thoughts, folks. Updated the table… and we’re quickly running into the limits of Discourse’s ability to display tables, heh.
There are some open questions and, of course, debate and offer suggestions or additions as you see fit.
A few replies:
@jec0047’s got it. Functionally it seems insignificant, but the difference leads to some weird behaviours in email clients. Non-“label”-supporting email apps seem to handle a lack of labels by copying messages into two different folders at the same time. I don’t quite understand the nuances here.
However, I hate the idea of moving threads into folders. Labelling is great because it’s lossless. If you only have folders, the only way to categorize a message is to move it or copy it, and that is a scary thing to me: either the message is no longer where it once was or you have redundant messages.
This is a great point. I’ve never once considered using Namecheap-hosted domains’ email features, although I suppose I could. I’m not sure what my hesitation is, but it’s there.
Thanks to this comment and @karlnyhus’s, though, I’ve added a column for IMAP-based mailboxes from hosting providers.
Like @anon41602260 said, though, that costs money. Just like the Google Workspaces subscription I currently use. If I could switch to iCloud Mail, which I’m already effectively paying for, I’d save ~$8/month.
Are there differences between these providers’ support for calendars and contacts? Is there any way Fastmail handles contacts and calendars differently from iCloud or Google’s offerings…?
I know Gmail doesn’t allow serverside filtering of contacts by contact groups, for instance.
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Welcome. Keep in mind that it can take a up to 72 hours for MX record changes to update through the system.
@ryanjamurphy Gmail has excellent real time customer support through their Chat which is better than any other service on the table. It cost $20 a year (can be shared with up to 5 other family members) and is part of the Google One program that gives you extra storage, photo editing features and importantly customer service.
And HEY does have Labels 
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Other hey ? marks answered:
- Support is human–responses within minutes to hours are typical (probably equal to Fastmail)
- Has spam filtering; it’s okay
- Sent email recognized as spam could be another Seems Fine?(?)
- No send later
I really like this thread.
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Very good table and useful discussion… I am a FastMail user and have frequent problems with false positives from their Spam filtering. This includes messages from my bank, Marriott, and United Airlines simply not being delivered… I write to them they investigate and sometimes they find the messages other times they don’t. I have had to resort to having these messages sent to both Gmail and Fastmail and invariably the Gmail always shows up, not so with he Fastmail messages. I am so frustrated I am considering moving to ProtonMail. Any Reason you didn’t consider ProtonMail in your comparison?
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I’d be happy to add it, of course. I don’t know anything about it at the moment but perhaps others can share its strengths and weaknesses?