tl;dr - I’ve been happy using Fastmail as an email host for a year.

Back in 2015, I decided to take real action about de-Google-ifying my life and moved from Gmail to using a self-hosted email server. Setup and migration were a pain (re-living clumsy experiences with mail hosting from my youth), but it ended up being acceptable for the moderate amount of personal email I would send and receive. Not being fond of the available webmail interfaces, I settled on a workflow based around mutt and OfflineIMAP, with notmuch for search and threading

This infrastructure and workflow was mostly adequate for day-to-day use. Keeping the entire mailbox (and archive) synced to my local workstation was a bit heavy, but seemed like the only simple solution for cataloging and searching my mail like I’d grown accustomed to in Gmail. It did, however, grow to be more and more of a worry. Between occasional network outages (it was hosted in a basement on “only” business-class cable) and the looming spectre of software maintenance (I’d set it up “by hand”, without automation), I decided after four years that I should leave it to the professionals.

Going back to Gmail wasn’t an option, as my reasons for leaving (privacy and their growing monopoly on the direction of email and the web) still stood. I needed to find an email hosting service. I’d heard good things from co-workers about Fastmail, and between some of their technical publicity and moderate pricing, I was interested enough to take the plunge.

The Good

First and foremost, Fastmail has been reliable. So far, I’ve never gone to use the webmail interface and found it unavailable. Mail destined to my account appears to arrive in a timely manner. This is table-stakes for a mail host, so I’m glad it has not warranted a second thought.

Mail deliverability can be a concern for those who have stepped outside the Big Email cartel. It’s not uncommon to hear about cases where totally legitimate email ends up in the recipient’s Spam folder for no discernible reason. On top of normal mechanisms like SPF and DKIM, big email providers reportedly keep secret databases of IP address reputation to influence these filtering decisions. Fortunately, Fastmail seems to run an adequately tight ship, so I’ve not struggled reaching the inboxes of Gmail-using friends and peers.

Fastmail’s work on JMAP is one of the first things that put them on my radar. With IMAP seemingly stagnant, JMAP is a refreshing take on bringing functionality and API ergonomics to the field of email. I hope it’s able to gain more traction in the mail software ecosystem so its luxuries can be enjoyed by those outside the Gmail fortress.

The Just-OK

Having grown accustomed to the keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, which I later copied (at least the important bits) into my Mutt configuration, I was pleased to see a similar set of shortcuts in the Fastmail web UI. The only conflict which seems to trip me up when switching between personal mail and work Gmail is message-move vs. thread-mute (respectively, bound to m). That said, there are operations like filtering by unread which aren’t yet accessible via the shortcuts like they are in Gmail. A help popover bound to ? like it is in Gmail (and Gerrit!) would also be a welcomed usability enhancement.

The folder selection interface on their web UI also seems to fall a little short when compared to its Gmail counterpart. As an email pack-rat, I make heavy use of a folder (or previously label) hierarchy. The Gmail folder-picker used effective fuzzy-matching so I’d only need to enter a prefix or two of the path components to find the appropriate match. The Fastmail picker matches much more strictly. Worst of all, it only matches against the last component of the path, rather than considering each space-separated term independently to find better choices.

Hopes for the Future

For domains with a small number (1) of users, the permissions system is a bit bothersome. I would appreciate the ability to separate the administrative capabilities (billing, ability to delete an account) from normal usage. Absent documentation I’ve missed, the only way to do so presently is to pay for an entire additional account. Doubling the cost for that isolation is a bit steep, considering the usage needs (nil) of the second “admin” account.

Related to account permissions is the issue of cross-account resources. Soon after I’d migrated to Fastmail, my partner was enthralled with it and made her own exodus from Gmail. Naturally we each run our own separate accounts and domains. Sharing calendar resources between them would be nice, but that only seems possible within a billable account. I can appreciate the complexity such a feature would introduce, especially from a security standpoint, but it’s still a convenience we miss.

Speaking of the calendar, compared to email, its web UI is rather “clunky”. Importing events via an ICS file, for example, can only take place through the “Settings” UI, rather than directly in the calendar. It’s surely preferable for calendaring to take a back seat to email, but one hopes there might be further iteration in the works.

None of these issues are deal-breakers, or come even close to souring me on the service. It’s easy to imagine how it would be difficult to make the business case for improving them compared with other efforts. All the same, I can hope for change one day.

Conclusion

I’ve been happy with Fastmail as an email host. Their expressed company values should hopefully keep them on this positive course.

Disclaimer: I’m a normal paying customer and did not receive any compensation for writing this.