Gmail has been for a long time the favourite free email provider, beating yahoo mail, hotmail, outlook.com. Fastmail no longer has a free account, but is a great alternative to gmail if you want to have all your email account in one account. You can have your gmail, yahoo, hotmail and you can also host your own domain with their enhanced account. Google has a paid email service called google apps that has the same great features of free gmail plus you host your own domain.
As I was looking for a solution to have all my emails in one account so I don’t have to with accounts or have many windows open to see all my emails I will compare both of these paid services to see which one is better for your business or personal use. I also prefer to use webmail instead of desktop clients, this is just my preference.
Both of these are great if you want to host your own domain. The only free option to host your own domain for email is zoho.com, the problem is that you can only host one domain. With google and fastmail you can host more than 100 domains with one account, this is a great feature for people like me who have more than 10 websites and need an email for each domain. Both of these email hosting providers are great, following is my gmail vs fastmail comparison.
Google Apps
Google Apps has 2 pricing options, the first is Google Apps for Work at $5 per month/user or $50 per year/user, the 2nd option is Google Apps for Work Plus $10 per month/user or $120 per year/user. The 2nd option has unlimited space or 1 TB if less than 5 users. From these 2 I prefer the 1st option, it is more than enough for my needs, with 30 GB of space included.
Google Apps for Work includes the following features:
- Business name email addresses (name@yourcompany.com)
- Video and voice calls
- Integrated online calendars
- 30GB of online storage for file syncing and sharing
- Online text documents, spreadsheets and slides
- Easy to create project sites
- Security and admin controls
- 24/7 phone and email support
For me the best thing about opening one of this account is that I can have all my email accounts in one account. I import all my yahoo, hotmail plus all my domains which actually are more the 10, so basically I have more than 15 email accounts in one account.
In the following image (click to enlarge) you can see how set up my free trial of Google Apps for Work. You can see in the left side all the emails with different domains I have set up to try it out. It work great, you can send emails from each one of the emails.
With this account you can have up to 600 domains registered, 20 domain aliases and 30 email aliases. All with just one account and for just $50 a year. I know most people would want to have this for free, but where else can you have all this domains for free or even at a lower price.
Well the answer is Fastmail.com. They certainly don’t have it for free but for a lower price. See below my impressions of Fastamil for more information
Gmail Pros
- Multiple domains in one account
- Have all your free emails(Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) in one account
- 30GB of space
- Google Calendar
- Gmail App for smartphones and tablets
- Video and voice calls
- Online documents, sheets and slides
- 24/7 support
- Can set it up with any desktop client of your choice
- Provides 1 month trial
Gmail Cons
- Calendar is not CalDAV
Fastmail
Fastmail has 4 plans, the first 2 are for having your @fastmail.com address. I am interested in the Enhanced plan which is priced at $40 per year and includes 15GB of storage space. The premier plan has a high price ($120 per year) so you may be interested only if you need more space (60GB) for your email.
Following are the features for each plan:
| Lite | Full | Enhanced | Premier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $10 USD per 1 year | $20 USD per 1 year | $25 USD per 6 months; or, $40 USD per 1 year |
$70 USD per 6 months; or, $120 per 1 year |
| Minimum contract | 12Â months | 6Â months | ||
| Mail storage | 250Â MB | 1Â GB | 15Â GB | 60Â GB |
| File storage | 100Â MB | 1Â GB | 5Â GB | 30Â GB |
| Mail access | Web/IMAP/ POP/SMTP |
Web/IMAP/ POP/SMTP |
Web/IMAP/ POP/SMTP |
Web/IMAP/ POP/SMTP |
| Calendar access | Web only | Web only | Web/CalDAV | Web/CalDAV |
| Use your own domain | No | No | 100Â domains; and, 500Â domain aliases |
100Â domains; and, 500Â domain aliases |
| Technical support | Personal | Personal | Priority | Priority |
As you can see, with the enhanced plan and the premier plan you can host your own domains, up to 100 domains and 500 domain aliases.
In the following image (click to enlarge) you can see how I have set up my trial account with fastmail. I have pulled all my free gmail account into fastmail, a little over 3GB of mails, this was done in about 2 hours. I also have some other accounts pulled and have hosted a couple of my domains.
Fastmail Pros
- Lower Price
- Multiple domains in one account
- Have all your free emails(Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) in one account
- Fastmail App for Smartphones and Tablets
- 24/7 support
- Can set it up with any desktop client of your choice
- Calendar sync using CalDAV
- Provides 2 month trial
Fastmail Cons
- No Online Docs, Sheets or Slides
- No Video Calls or Voice Calls
- Only 15GB of space
Conclusion
I decided to go with Google Apps for work because it has double the storage space and more apps included for just $10 more. If you don’t use video calls, voice calls, don’t need much space(lower than 15GB), don’t use google docs, sheets and/or slide, you would be better off with Fastmail. For me it was Google all the way.
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As a user of both Fastmail and Gmail on a daily basis since both first became available I find that this article doesn’t really get to the fundamentals of what I dislike about either. Gmail’s user interface is simply THE PITS and Fastmail’s is incomparably superior. There’s just no comparison. Fastmail integrates with Dropbox which can be used like Gdrive with Gmail. To fault it for not having Docs or Sheets doesn’t make a lot of sense ; it can use any file type supported on the platform it’s used on.
Fastmail’s CardDAV implementation is still in beta and is buggy, but when it’s released it should allow people to have control of their contact information and some assurance that it isn’t being misused. Anyone who cares about privacy, notwithstanding that Fastmail is hosted in the US, prefer Fastmail. Trying syncing your contacts with owncloud with Google. Try getting ANY support from Google.
Then there’s support for different personalities, the ability to associate personalities with folders, the ability to purge folders on a timed basis, to share them across accounts, to share addresses as well as calendars, sieve scripts … Fastmail has a long list of features that Google simply doesn’t have. And next up will be JMAP.
Fastmail’s evolution is frustratingly slow. Users have been waiting for CardDAV forever. It’s already got instant messaging with Jabber built-in. The idea of not having voice included being a shortcoming is a joke. When CardDAV is done one will be able to use any voice solution with a link the contact record — Skype, Hangouts, Facetime or whatever. It also doesn’t support true 2 factor authentication yet. And it’s search capability is not as good as Google’s (surprise! but mostly ok).
For anyone who spends hours a day on email and who wears mutliple hats and uses multiple email profiles with them, Fastmail knocks Gmail into a cocked hat.