Which e-mail server? (Windows)

[Moonchild]

We're currently using a tried-and-tested e-mail solution on Windows. The OS will remain the same, but to be able to extend this with IPv6 capabilities, our current solution will be too expensive to maintain (An upgrade to IPv6 capable version will cost $860).

I've looked around for other Windows solutions that have a good level of UI for configuration and monitoring, and come up with the ones listed that are free for our use.
Does anyone have recommendations, or specific feedback?

[deckard]

My suggestion among those is HMailServer.
You asked not to suggest CLI mail servers or *nix (I would have given a different answer).
That's all folks.

[Moonchild]

You asked not to suggest CLI mail servers or *nix (I would have given a different answer).

*nix/CLI mail servers are simply too much a PITA to set up securely and monitor traffic through.

[JustOff]

Among the proposed options my vote is for hMailServer, but I personally always used Exim+Dovecot@*nix and my ass was completely safe.

[deckard]

Moonchild, when you say PITA you mean a "Pain In The A..." ehm a major annoyance, don't you?
I appreciate Exim+Dovecot@*nix, but, by the way, I could and would have proposed, if allowed to, Citadel/UX, but I don't know whether it may meet up your needs, maybe I am completely wrong.

[Moonchild]

Moonchild, when you say PITA you mean a "Pain In The A..." ehm a major annoyance, don't you?

Pain in the arse, yes.

Exim+Dovecot@*nix

There's a difference between running a personal mail delivery solution and something that runs multiple domains, redirects, plenty of aliases, and has a few gateways to keep in mind, let alone content filtering and anti-spam.

Having to SSH in, edit some config file without guidance, save, restart, check if I didn't make a typo -- for each reconfiguration is not an acceptable solution.
Not to mention that especially monitoring mail flow through such a system in real time is next to impossible.

Citadel/UX

Groupware, not an MTA. Absolutely not what I need.

[Moonchild]

Looking into hMailServer, if I want to get a decent complement of features, it'll have to be split between Windows (MTA) and Linux (webmail) on 2 different machines, because running something like roundcube on a Windows box is a headache due to system requirements (httpd/php/mysql). While possible, of course, it's going to be cumbersome.

[PhilK]

I didn't see a final notice on the thread, did you ever make a decision on this?

If not, my $0.0002:


I've done an Axigen install (on *nix) and keep meaning to do more testing on it but haven't gotten around to it yet. I get a pretty good impression of the product and company tho in general. I don't know hmailserver.

Did you eliminate these already?

https://www.imailserver.com/products/wi ... ail-server

http://www.mailenable.com/mailenable-mail-server.asp

https://www.smartertools.com/smartermai ... ail-server

[Moonchild]

Did you eliminate these already?

Imailserver: ipswitch has a lot of hidden costs and it's more expensive than our paid-for option.
MailEnable: was part of our lineup
Smartermail: not really a match. More of a collaboration platform than a robust MTA.

[PhilK]

Couple others I didn't see on your list

Merak/IceWarp:
My dealing with their product a few years ago led me to not want to deal with it ever again. All sorts of weird issues, inconsistent behaviour, etc.

Stalker Communigate Pro:
Very robust and ported to a bazillion platforms but I don't think there is much in the way of realtime dashboard traffic monitoring things. And pricy'ish, I think there is a free version but as I recall it watermarks message footers or something.

[CharmCityCrab]

Why run a mail server at all?

If you've got 10 or fewer people (As option four implies), wouldn't the time, money, and resources that would go into maintaining, paying for, and devoting computing power to an internal mail server be more productive devoted to the core product(s) Moonchild Productions works on?

The alternative I am thinking of is consumer grade email- i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, etc..

Some companies might be concerned about corporate espionage and such, especially with a lot of consumer grade email being owned by or having ties to competing browsers, but since Pale Moon doesn't seem to be something people are in for monetary project, and is entirely open-source, so what if someone learns something about your code or advance planning? Would Pale Moon object, if, say, Mozilla said one day "You know, those Pale Moon guys have a really good idea here, let's implement it ourselves"? I have a feeling that you guys wouldn't object, because you seem really committed to open-source software and wanting the most users to have access to the best browsing experience for their use case. And, of course, many browsers like Google Chrome really have nothing in common with Pale Moon whatsoever code wise, and it seems like basic code-independent ideas are discussed fairly openly in advance of implementation- so I'm not sure there are trade secrets to steal.

And, of course, there are plenty of small email providers without obvious ties to competing software.

I guess the @palemoon.org email addresses add a sort of official stamp when communicating with outside people, like Netflix or whomever, but some consumer email servers will actually let you use your own domain name with their servers for a small monthly fee- and it would only be strictly "necessary" for the people who are communicating outside the project in an official capacity with other projects and companies to have that domain name, not the lower level volunteers.

I'm just thinking out loud here. I have no objection to anything people might decide to do in this area. If the answer is simply "We want our own mail server, because that's how we prefer it", that's of course perfectly acceptable. This is just an idea- one which I have a feeling was rejected for reasons I'm not aware of early in the process that led to this poll- but sometimes it's worth "stating the obvious" just in case it wasn't. Sometimes in general in life things run on inertia based on a decision that made sense 10 years prior or whatever, and aren't always reconsidered later on.

Some consumer grade mail may have restrictions on business use, but it seems like those are widely ignored by small businesses if so, and since I get the possibly incorrect feeling that Pale Moon largely operates on a non-profit basis (even though Moodchild Productions may not formally be a non-profit company), it may not be considered business use by such policies, or may be exempted from such policies.

[PhilK]

Why run a mail server at all? [...]

The alternative I am thinking of is consumer grade email- i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, etc..

I'm guessing the fact that Moonchild expressed an interest in a dashboard feature where one can monitor realtime usage suggests that just using some generic corporate mail service is not going to meet his objectives.

Also wrt to "free" services: no such thing. If you're not paying for a service like that, you're not the customer, you're the product. And I have a funny feeling he doesn't want to be the product.

Furthermore, since PM as a project has shown a strong backing for user privacy - the usage of a system like that means you are breaching that trust with all of your users because you are no longer in control over what is done with correspondence data. If you are using Google in particular - they will probably retain it until the end of the next millennia and monetize it as much as possible. (Do NOT believe that it will be "anonymized" - even if their intentions are good, in reality there is so much cross-correlation and data-mining going on today that that is pretty much a false promise, if not a downright cynical deception.)

Lastly, when you operate your own server you and you alone are responsible for things like backups and other data management, and know exactly how reliably it is being handled. When you outsource that to someone else all bets are off. You can neither rely on the fact they will keep good backups, nor that they will restore them for you in a timely manner (without gouging you for the "privilege") if there ever arises a need to do so.

[Moonchild]

Why run a mail server at all?

Dude, I've run my own mail server for decades (primarily started that because I moved around too much and had to change ISP often, losing my mail address every time).
I've used a good handful of different domains on it.
I don't want to have to rely on some external party to handle (and store.. and possibly retain unreasonably long) my private mail, nor do I want to give up the freedom of having an unlimited number of addresses to use as I see fit, deciding which spam countermeasures to use and how severe they should be, or training my Bayesian filter with just MY mail, which makes it extremely accurate, just to name a few things.

There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to mail services. You either pay for the service (at which point you may as well run your own on a VPS), they use your mail to profile you (hello Google), or you're dealing with ad-supported mail. I don't even want to begin to explain to you the potential privacy implications of loading third-party ad content on the same page as private communication.
Also, most of these services these days only offer webmail. Webmail is fine in a pinch, but I use a dedicated mail client otherwise.

[CharmCityCrab]

Why run a mail server at all?

Dude, I've run my own mail server for decades (primarily started that because I moved around too much and had to change ISP often, losing my mail address every time).
I've used a good handful of different domains on it.
I don't want to have to rely on some external party to handle (and store.. and possibly retain unreasonably long) my private mail, nor do I want to give up the freedom of having an unlimited number of addresses to use as I see fit, deciding which spam countermeasures to use and how severe they should be, or training my Bayesian filter with just MY mail, which makes it extremely accurate, just to name a few things.

There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to mail services. You either pay for the service (at which point you may as well run your own on a VPS), they use your mail to profile you (hello Google), or you're dealing with ad-supported mail. I don't even want to begin to explain to you the potential privacy implications of loading third-party ad content on the same page as private communication.
Also, most of these services these days only offer webmail. Webmail is fine in a pinch, but I use a dedicated mail client otherwise.

All that makes perfect sense. I would only offer one small update, I suppose, which is that most email services that were traditionally or primary thought of as webmail, now support access via IMAP and POP3 for third-party software like Outlook, Thunderbird, FossaMail, etc.. I think what happened there is the advent of the smartphone where any webmail-centric service that couldn't work with Android or iOS mail programs was going to bleed marketshare desparately. I use Thunderbird with YahooMail and it works fine (Of course, I really should not be using Yahoo Mail for obvious reasons, but...).

However, none of that speaks to any of your other points, which are all smart reasons to run your own mail server. Actually, there's probably a market for some sort of Pale Moon mail that could be made available to the general public if you get enough money and developers to do something like that one day. Just a long-term distant future idea. I think a lot of people don't want to use Gmail or Yahoo Mail, and then are left with options that they find lackluster if they move too far outside that sphere.

[Moonchild]

I'm not going to play professional service provider in addition to being a developer. Too many snags involved in running a mail service for me that would require dedicated time.