All I wanted was a custom domain email

Jacob had owned the domain jacobg.co for over two years, but he struggled to find an affordable solution for a custom email address. He experimented with Cloudflare's email routing and self-hosted options, but both had drawbacks. Cloudflare's Email Routing could forward incoming mail but struggled with sending, while self-hosted solutions required complex setup and maintenance.

After some digging, Jacob discovered Mailflare, an open-source project built around Cloudflare. It provided a self-hosted email inbox with Cloudflare for receiving and Resend for delivering messages. While Mailflare's open-source nature and compatibility with his existing infrastructure were appealing, it proved difficult to manage the sending side reliably.

Purelymail emerged as a more straightforward and cost-effective alternative. For around $10 a year, Jacob could access SMTP and IMAP services with unlimited addresses and privacy-focused security. The service offered standard email protocols, making it compatible with popular email clients like Apple Mail. However, Jacob ultimately chose Foundermail, a solution that met all his requirements: custom domain support, multiple email addresses, SMTP/IMAP access, verified sending, and a reasonable price point.

Foundermail integrated seamlessly with Cloudflare, enabling Jacob to configure SMTP and IMAP credentials in his Apple Mail app. The setup was remarkably simple, and he could now use [email protected] like any other email account. Messages arrived promptly, and sending worked without issues. The user interface was modern and efficient, and the limited user base contributed to faster response times and reduced latency.

Although there was a minor inconvenience requiring a special request to send emails to new addresses, the overall experience with Foundermail was satisfactory. It provided the custom email setup Jacob had been searching for without the complexity and expense of more extensive solutions like Google Workspace. While there were still aspects of custom email that felt intricate, such as email delivery, DNS records, and reputation management, Foundermail simplified the process significantly.

For now, Jacob plans to continue using Foundermail, confident that it would remain effective until a compelling alternative emerged.