Mail Service Comparison

Key: Y = Yes, N = No, ? = unsure.
Numbers may depend on the units in the left-hand column (look closely at units, e.g., in general = one time, or per month).
Comparison conducted 6/20/2006-7/19/2006 8:14am PST
Features | Mail Svc fastmail.fm tuffmail.com runbox.com dreamhost.com viaverio.com
Plan Name Enhanced Single-User 2048 One Plan Code Monster Signature Pro
Space 2000MB 2048MB 10GB (10240MB) 3000msgs / 60000GB 20000MB
Monthly Transfer Allowance 1000MB 4096MB (soft) 10000MB/mo (2.5GB/wk) 1.5TB  
Extra transfer $8/GB(?); can buy in chunks of .1,.25,.5,1,2,4gb never needed before; ~$4-6/GB No ? ?
Price/year $39.95 $38 $49.95 $15.95/mo(no WEB SSL) $25/mo
IMAP/SSL WITH CA-SIGNED MATCHING CERT mail.messagingengine.com,or www.fastmail.fm (discouraged) (IMAP/TLS port 144) mail.mxes.net secure.runbox.com SSL CERTIFICATE ERROR mail.domain.com  
SMTP/SSL WITH CA-SIGNED MATCHING CERT mail.messagingengine.com smtp.mxes.net secure.runbox.com SSL CERTIFICATE ERROR mail.domain.com  
SMTP AUTH Y Y Y Y  
Send using SMTP, with any From address in e-mail Y Y (except for ebay, paypal, and certain bank domains) ;-) y (but they do not want to advertise) Y  
Webmail: context-sensitive From e-mail Y: can shoose e-mail addr to send from when in particular folder N Y: can choose any From address in any folder ?  
CRAM-MD5 or similar ? N (would require plaintext password storage) N N  
Option to require SSL login N Planned N N  
IMAP ACLs Y, but have to contact support for enablement. Requires multiple accts Planned N N  
IMAP IDLE Y Y N (apparently) Y (apparently)  
Mail Program Cyrus IMAP Cyrus IMAP Courier IMAP (DBMail IMAP in beta) Courier IMAP 3.0.3 UW IMAP
alt SMTP ports 26, 587; all ports under *.proxy.messagingengine.com (but!! Cert mismatch) 443, 465, 587 26, 587 587  
Webmail app perl/custom (no ext. IMAP support, but this is planned) SquirrelMail, Horde/IMP RMM (Runbox Mail Manager) SquirrelMail  
NFS-FREE (does not use NFS for underlying storage) Y Y N N Y
Server location New York, NY, USA (NYI) North Miami, FL (Miami Data Valut) Oslo, Norway (EUnet) Los Angeles(?), CA, USA  
Redundancy Yes, lots (Signup.htm# SignupExpensive) Yes, lots Yes, lots (RAID, backup, MX, app server, network) Probably (see backups & restores)  
Browser Support Many; no js req'd Any stds-compliant browser (IE, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox) Yes [many?] Many  
Cell phone (WAP) and PDA support Y, WAP, send to cellphone via SMS by fwd mail (strip nontext) Y, WAP, graphics-free mobile webmail, notification filter suitable for SMS N  
Remote IMAP poll (snarf another mbx to yours, not necessarily view) Y (but only one-time manual transfer), 20 min, +migration (reports of 3 min ok) Y, 5 min N N?  
Remote POP3 poll (snarf) Y, 20 min 1 hr Y, 5 min Y N?  
Catchall Address Y Y Y ?  
Log Logins Y (see Options > Login Log) Planned N N  
Antivirus Y, "Advanced" ClamAV free; Sophos for +$.50/mailbox/month ClamAV NEW  
Antispam SpamAssassin SpamAssassin, Tuffmail, Bayesian Filter, 13 options SpamAssassin; Dspam NEW (SpamAssassin) SpamAssassin
Antispam: Blocklists Y, not yet user conf'able Y Y ~Y (by procmail)  
Antispam: Greylisting Planned Y N (intentionally = no plans) N  
Antispam: Whitelisting Y Y, incl. IP addr, IP CIDR ranges, e-mail addrs, and domains; can bypass SpamAssassin; NOT by Address Book Y Y  
# of domains hosted (I just want ~10 maybe) 50; (consider purchasing new acct, ~.8/domain) unlimited 1 unlimited  
Extra per domain ? $0 $4.95/yr $0  
# of subdomains hosted 10 unlimited 0 unlimited? Or 0 (N/A)  
Extra per subdomain ? $0 N/A $0  
Max mail size (send/recv) 50MB 100MB 30MB 100MB (reported) 40MB 8MB
Use any From address Y Y Y Y  
Plus Addressing (use user+pattern@) Y, to folder Y, to folder Y N (requested)  
Minus Addressing (qmail-style, user-pattern@)  N (but can simulate with rules?) Y, to folder but have to SWITCH from Plus-addr, per-domain setting N (Plus Addressing only) N  
Subdomain
addressing (pattern@ user.service.com)
Y N N N  
# of user mailboxes hosted 1 1 1 unlimited  
Extra per user Buy and use shared accounts under virtual domain (same price as Member+ service) ~$10 $19.95/yr $0  
Number of aliases 200 "personalities in web interface" (hosted doms.); unlimited aliases unlimited ("forwarding e-mail addresses," no aliases per-se) 10 unlimited  
Extra per alias $0 (for aliases) $0 $0.95/yr $0  
Auto Bcc from SMTP (auto save copy to inbox) N Y N N  
Backup frequency Y, daily incremental 20 § replication; daily snapshot Y, daily Y (exact method unclear)  
Backup policy Y, daily incremental. All e-mail?? once a day All e-mail; file storage backup planned once a day, but not junk mail or trash  
Restore policy (cost and ease) within the week: $25, within 24 hrs manual process, ≥ 5min. Depending on how many folders and how much mail $25 (not currently enforced), as soon as possible; $50 for account restore ?  
[Daily?] Delivery reports N Y, daily (opt.) N, but see Forwarding > Rules?? N  
mailing lists (simple distribution lists, or listserv/mailman/ Yahoo! Groups style) N N, "Planned" (bulk mail is against AUP; distribution lists ok) N Y  
Status website/info status.fastmail.fm status.tuffmail.com 1520.runbox.com/blahblah 2 ext. status pages  
LDAP Address Book Planned (distant future; 10000 Address Book available now) Y (LDAP with special LDAP pw, also SyncML--beta) Planned (distant future) (Address book, csv only) N  
WebDAV Y, secure (https://dav. messagingengine.com) N N (suggested feature) Y  
File Storage (secure?) 1GB (FTP-unsecure,WebDav-secure) N (apparently) 1GB (secure over HTTPS) Y, SFTP access  
Extra File Storage (default: one-time-charge) from $3.95/<10MB to $24.95/100MB to $199.95/2GB N/A N Yes (price uncertain)  
Subjective Speed Impressions (from other users) extremely fast pretty fast/extremely fast fast sloooow (esp. with many msgs)  
Subjective Downtime Impressions "Good, but not exceptional," perhaps #1 planned priority ? ? ?  
Subjective Quality and Completeness of Online Support (FAQ, Wiki…) ? Not bad? ? Not bad? ? Not bad? Poor; wiki disorganized  
Subjective Quality and Speed of Live Support THEY DON'T RESPOND TO MY INQUIRIES. "Recent deterioration [sic], 3-4 days" Extremely fast and detailed not very fast, but their responses were very detailed. At least 1 user reports differently (i.e., fast response) Within a couple of days; "they try"  
Web Hosting Provider Y, static HTML only N Planned Y Y
Notes Compare fastmail with DreamHost (forum post)