Fastmail
Ad-free, privacy-respecting email hosting with custom domains
At a glance
Professionals wanting private, ad-free email with a custom domain
Our take
Fastmail is a straightforward pitch: pay a fair subscription for email hosting, and in exchange get no ads, no data mining, and genuinely good spam filtering and search. We think it’s a strong choice for professionals and small businesses who want custom domain email without the complexity or lock-in of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. It lacks the AI features and broader app ecosystem (Docs, Sheets, Meet) that come bundled with Google or Microsoft plans, so it’s a pure email-and-calendar tool rather than a full productivity suite. Masked email aliases are a genuinely useful privacy feature most competitors don’t offer.
Key features
- ✓Custom domain email hosting
- ✓Masked email aliases for privacy
- ✓Fast, powerful search
- ✓Shared calendars and contacts
- ✓Full IMAP/SMTP access, no lock-in
What we like
- ✓No ads or data mining, ever
- ✓Excellent spam filtering and search
- ✓Genuinely portable, no vendor lock-in
- ✓Good value for families and small teams
What could be better
- ✗No free tier
- ✗Lacks broader productivity suite (docs, video calls)
- ✗Smaller brand recognition than Gmail/Outlook
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