{"id":769,"date":"2026-07-22T21:47:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/?p=769"},"modified":"2026-07-22T21:47:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:47:54","slug":"roll-your-own-email-hosting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/22\/roll-your-own-email-hosting\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll your own Email Hosting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I spoke about in my longwinded email rant here<\/a>, using free email for private communication is a thing of the past, at least if you (or the person you are communication with) expect any privacy at all. While there are a few reputable email hosts left, that can change at any time – it is time to own your email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, having your own email address has never been easier or more affordable. I’ll go over a few good options available at this time (July 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

“Hosting your own email” can encompass several options – from something slightly more complicated than free email all the way to a full fledged cloud server with email and website. Here are a few options from simple to more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 Proton Mail <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Proton.me<\/a> offers the only free email that I would consider at this time. The Swiss based company is a industry heavyweight when it comes to privacy with over 100 million user accounts, and has always maintained a very strict privacy posture. They offer several products related to privacy, with both free and paid email among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their free service is only available via their webmail interface. Their $50\/year ‘Mail Plus’ package gets you all the bells and whistles, supports email clients (like Thunderbird), and comes with a lot of other privacy focused features (VPN, Password vault, etc.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While not very cheap, this is a premium option for those who want a email address that isn’t compromised. If you are okay with using their website or phone app exclusively, their free tier is worth looking at, but not without limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 Purelymail<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Purelymail.com<\/a> offers barebones email with no frills and no compromises to your privacy. Not without considerations – support is slow, and the creator just sold the company to another guy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is $10 a year. It support POP\/Imap (ie: your own email client, like Thunderbird). And they don’t sell your stuff!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, if ten bucks is all you got to protect your personal stuff, your personal stuff probably isn’t worth that much to anyone so go ahead and keep using hotmail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you want your own domain (me@somecoolname.com), and want cheap, purelymail.com is the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3 Hostinger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hostinger.com<\/a> is my recommendation for anyone that can hold their own with this blog. A full webserver with a robust environment, clean site portal, wordpress and basic html support, along with top level support if you need it. They run great promotions and offer 4+ year packages at very compelling rates. You can host many domains, support unlimited users, and they have excellent training videos on youtube. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been with Hostinger for over 5 years and have been very happy. I host this site along with all of my other sites on Hostinger and run several email accounts as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For basic email with a domain name, it is about $20\/year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[Four years of email and three years of domain + $18 for the domain name’s 4th year = $84 \/ 4yr]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full hosting package that I have comes out to around $50 a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post below if you have a favorite email host or anything to say about the topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

As I spoke about in my longwinded email rant here, using free email for private communication is a thing of the past, at least if you (or the person you are communication with) expect any privacy at all. While there are a few reputable email hosts left, that can change at any time – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-it","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainlessideas.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}