So, as the topic says, I'm going to set up a self hosted email service for myself, family and friends. I know that this one is a controversial topic around here, but trust me when I say I know what I'm getting into. I've had a small hosting business for years and I've had my share of issues with microsoft and others, I know how to set things up and keep them running and so on.
However, on the business side we used both commercial solution and a dirt-cheap service with just IMAPS/SMTPS and webmail with roundcube. Commercial one (Kerio Connect, neat piece of software, check it out if you need one) is something I don't want to pay for anymore (even if their pricing is pretty decent, it's still money out from my pocket).
I know for sure I can rely to bog-standard postfix+dovecot+spamassassin -combo, and it will work just fine for plain email. However, I'd really like to have calendar and contacts in the mix as well and as I've only worked with commercial solution for the last few years I'm not up to speed on what the newest toys can offer.
I'm not that strict on anything, but the thing needs to run on linux and it must have the most basic standards supported, like messages stored on maildir-format (simplifies migration to other platform if things change), support for sieve (or other commonly supported protocol) and contacts/calendar need to work with pretty much anything (android, ios, linux, windows, mac...) without extra software on client end (*DAV excluded, those are fine in my books). And obviously the thing needs to work with imaps, smtps, dkim and other necessities, but that should be implied anyways.
I know that things like zimbra, sogo and iredmail exist, but as mentioned, it's been a while since I've played with things like that, so what are your recommendations for setup like this today?
I've been using mailcow for about a year and i am very satisfied, it checks all your boxes and is easy to configure and deploy over docker.
Just beat me to it...
The one thing that they don't have yet last I updated, though they've been working on it for a while, is a prod ready LDAP/SSO connection. I had the dev branch working with Keycloak, but never got plain LDAP to function.
@ShellMonkey I use the Generic OIDC option, havent tried LDAP.
I tend to keep things simple so if I can it's easier to not set up the separate auth middleware when there's already an AD comparable system in place.
Another option I've used before is called Neth Server, but that's more one of those SOHO all-in-one systems rather than a dedicated mail box.
https://community.nethserver.org/
Mailcow-dockerized is bulletproof. Never had a problem with it and has been rock solid.
Another container-based alternative in that space is Mailu.
Second this. Mailcow very easy to setup, though the docs could use improvement. This might have changed already.
That said, I found it easier to pay for a domain and email service where they worry about reputation and random microsoft blacklists.
Yeah, Microsoft are the worst. Even after doing all the proof of work (reverse DNS, DKIM, SPF, …) and registering for their spam prevention postmaster tools equivalent, I still found myself randomly blocked for delivery sometimes.
3 years and counting here, I host my own company email and a couple of clients, 120 email accounts and only had one issue with a compromised account, limit each domain to 100 sended emails and I can catch spam emails with enough time before my vps provider notice anything
I also use Mailcow with three domains (one business). No problems with it from day one. Updates run regularly and smoothly like clockwork. I am happy to recommend it to others.
If they ever support non-Docker systems again, I might be curious. Right now, I couldn't even use that.