I'm going to write this assuming you're a non-technical professional, lawyer perhaps, looking for a private email solution that doesn't rely on third parties.
Bottom line: There's no "middle ground", any middle ground you cede is allowing a third party some kind of access. Hosting your own email has become expensive and time-consuming (although IMHO it's still extremely worthwhile, and I do it in spite of what a pain in the ass it is). Be prepared to spend at least $50/mo and at least 6 hours in setup and 1-2 hours a month debugging if you do it personally. Or you can find someone to help (see below). You need your own IP address. You need a dedicated box, not a VPS. And check the IP address in advance to make sure it's clean, and not blacklisted. Tell the datacenter you're going to be doing email and ask them if they're okay with that for a clean IP. Use https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx to test the IP address they're offering you, or IPs in their range. Unlike some people are saying, you should never do this off a VPS if you have an interest in keeping the email secure and functioning for a long time.
My personal go-to would be dedicated hosting in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Isle of Man or Norway. Clean IPs, your own box, start with a clean server. But then you're talking $250/mo or so.
If you don't know how to set it up, there are people who can do it for you. You will need to essentially trust that person with access to all your correspondence, but if they do it properly, no one at the server farm[0] or elsewhere will have access to your correspondence... which puts you in the 0.01% of people on earth whose email isn't read by big tech companies.
[0] -who doesn't physically access the server: Look for ones in cages and ask who has physical access and why.
> Be prepared to spend at least $50/mo and at least 6 hours in setup and 1-2 hours a month debugging if you do it personally. […] Unlike some people are saying, you should never do this off a VPS if you have an interest in keeping the email secure and functioning for a long time.
That’s simply not true in that generality. I run my mail server on a VPS costing ~$7 per month (have been for ~20 years, switching the VPS provider once in that time) and mostly only have to do something when I major-upgrade Debian every 2-3 years. (Security updates are automated.) Some of my friends do the same. For the initial setup I would plan for more than 6 hours, it can certainly take some effort to work through all the details.
> You need a dedicated box, not a VPS. … Unlike some people are saying, you should never do this off a VPS if you have an interest in keeping the email secure and functioning for a long time.
I agree that hosting a mail server directly on a VPS compromises privacy and control. But there’s a better alternative: use VPSes for cheap static IPs, while hosting the server locally on hardware you physically control, using WireGuard tunnels and port forwarding to connect things. Port forward incoming SMTP over WireGuard to your real MX, and use MTA‐STS and DANE so that as many senders as possible will TLS‐encrypt mail they send you. Have your outgoing SMTP server handle DKIM signing, then send it out via WireGuard so it looks like it came from the VPS, while enforcing TLS encryption.
The VPS won’t be able to forge mail from you without your DKIM keys. It won’t be able to read your outgoing mail due to TLS. It won’t be able to read incoming mail that’s TLS encrypted. It will be able to read unencrypted mail, but the big providers that follow MTA‐STS will abort if the VPS attempts to block encrypted connections.
This has the added benefit of reducing your dependence on an external provider (the VPS company) for server setup. If you’re unhappy with a particular provider, just switch to another one. The issues associated with sending email from a brand new IP will be there, but you won’t have to set up complicated infrastructure on the new host, only a few WireGuard tunnels and firewall rules.
That's a cool idea I'd never considered. And it's easy to set up. But then the main thing you're getting out of the VPS is the static IP. The main reason I was advising against VPS's, besides obvious vulnerabilities, was that their IP blocks get banned all the time. If you want to run a mailserver for a long time you need to cultivate that IP address's reputation for years, and you don't want it to be anywhere sketchy.
If you're paying for that, why not just pay for a static IP at home?
> the main thing you're getting out of the VPS is the static IP.
Yes, that and RDNS.
> If you're paying for that, why not just pay for a static IP at home?
That’s a good question. I too hear that mail providers consider IP blocks assigned to VPS providers less trustworthy than others. The reasons I don’t take the ISP/dedicated server route, aside from price, are:
• VPS providers are not tied to my physical location. If I move, I probably can’t take my ISP’s static IP with me (I may even move to somewhere they don’t service). Conversely, if I want to switch away from a local ISP, the selection of alternatives is extremely limited.
• Risk of neighboring IPs reducing the reputation of the block exists with server companies and local ISPs as well. I concede that the problem is probably worse with VPSes, but I hope to mitigate it somewhat by avoiding bottom‐of‐the‐barrel providers and by the fact that my own IP will never be used to spam.
• I’m somewhat worried about the possibility of DDOS, and VPS companies provide a lot of cheap bandwidth, so in case of attack I might be able to salvage the situation with careful firewalling on the VPS.
That all makes sense.
Although in my experience, if you're really being careful about not sending spam, you've got a lot more to worry about from your VPS being blacklisted than your own IP personally.
>> I’m somewhat worried about the possibility of DDOS
The one time I got severely dDoS'd, because I'd let a friend run a tiny static website off my server that attracted that kind of attention, the hosting company I was with shut my account down immediately and asked for $5000 in reparations. I had to backdoor into the server and salvage whatever I could. That was a hardened box in a military grade facility. I don't think a VPS is going to be kind. Push comes to shove, if it's in your house you can pull the cable.
You only need a $2-5/m cheap VPS for your server and have anything as MTA/smarthost for you. Eg: Fastmail, $5/m, just receive with a catch-all address, send through a SMTP with auth (with an app pass).
No bother with SPF, DKIM, PTR, SPAM and all this bullshit. Also you have a breaking glass access to your mail in case your server burst in flames.
Don't want Fastmail? Any other provider would do.
Want to tinker it yourself? Just buy anything anywhere, configure it as a smarthost.
Anecdata: I have a small business of ~15 people use Fastmail in the said configuration. The only difference is what they are on Exchange Server locally. The old one, on premises. They use it for almost 8 years without problems.
To prevent 3rd party access you need to not only host your own email but all recipients of your mail need to be self hosted as well. Unless you are providing everyone you correspond with their own account, 3rd parties will be involved.
No, you just have to be aware of who you're sending to, and encrypt appropriately. I mean obviously if I send to someone @gmail, they're going to know I sent that person an email. But they can't scan my inbox for keywords.
That is a lot of money and surely few can afford it for their email. What are the advantages of it that make it worth the time and effort. Is it security? privacy? or just trying to keep things a bit more decentralised?
Bottom line: There's no "middle ground", any middle ground you cede is allowing a third party some kind of access. Hosting your own email has become expensive and time-consuming (although IMHO it's still extremely worthwhile, and I do it in spite of what a pain in the ass it is). Be prepared to spend at least $50/mo and at least 6 hours in setup and 1-2 hours a month debugging if you do it personally. Or you can find someone to help (see below). You need your own IP address. You need a dedicated box, not a VPS. And check the IP address in advance to make sure it's clean, and not blacklisted. Tell the datacenter you're going to be doing email and ask them if they're okay with that for a clean IP. Use https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx to test the IP address they're offering you, or IPs in their range. Unlike some people are saying, you should never do this off a VPS if you have an interest in keeping the email secure and functioning for a long time.
My personal go-to would be dedicated hosting in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Isle of Man or Norway. Clean IPs, your own box, start with a clean server. But then you're talking $250/mo or so.
If you don't know how to set it up, there are people who can do it for you. You will need to essentially trust that person with access to all your correspondence, but if they do it properly, no one at the server farm[0] or elsewhere will have access to your correspondence... which puts you in the 0.01% of people on earth whose email isn't read by big tech companies.
[0] -who doesn't physically access the server: Look for ones in cages and ask who has physical access and why.