ultramancool wants a desktop email client. Many people strongly prefer to do email on the desktop outside of a Web browser.

(Fellow FastMail user here. They're really great.)

EDIT: Well, I see her/his comment about Webmail albeit as a second choice. It seems the preference is for a desktop client, but I shouldn't assume.

I'm basically okay with Webmail if it's self hosted and supports notifications on many accounts.

If I recall correctly, fastmail cannot be self hosted and I really don't feel like trusting some random service with my personal and business email. Or paying them money for something I currently get for free for that matter.

I understand, but send these guys an email. One of the founders will likely respond to you.

I used to run all my own stuff, but when my children came along, I didn't want to spend all my time chasing issues with servers.

Look the Fastmail guys up. If anyone is doing email correctly, it's Rob, Bron, and the guys at Fastmail. They actually write some of the code for the Cyrus IMAP server, so if you were in doubt as to how talented these guys are, don't fear. I would now NOT trust my email to anyone else. They are that good. Yes, I know, I'm some random guy on the Internet, but I'm an IT guy, which in itself says nothing, but I'm nothing if not extremely picky about my own IT. These guys can fix any issues you may have and probably give you some awesome suggestions. They are approachable, something you will never get from any other company. They are based in Melbourne, Australia, but use NYI here in the US. Worth a call if you value good service and top-notch know-how from guys who know email better than anyone else I'm aware of. They routinely post in the Email Discussions Web site forum.

> They are based in Melbourne, Australia, but use NYI here in the US.

Mhm, 2 of the "Five Eyes" countries. Yeah, you're really selling me on this one.

I'll admit I'm being a bit ridiculously paranoid, but it's cheap paranoia for me, Thunderbird works well as a client and I spend maybe 5 minutes per month doing mail server admin stuff. I'm really not willing to switch to any hosted solution for this.

Just looking for another mail client option if/when Thunderbird goes down hill, not a mail server.

Well, for Webmail, then, I would say Tutanota or ProtonMail, both of which are good.

Have you looked at Mailpile[1]? I haven't used it, but their idea was basically "self-hosted Gmail".

https://www.mailpile.is

Yeah, definitely looks interesting, but the issue I have is again the multi-account issue. Thunderbird has very nice handling of many different email accounts.

How does it compare to, say, Gmail enterprise? Well, apart from the whole Google Apps.

I'm curious because we'll have to migrate to a better email provider in a month or two, and Gmail enterprise seemed to be the best fit for us (price, storage, good iOS app to leverage push notifications, etc).

Google's apps for iOS are subpar compared to its Android counterparts, or even to other iOS apps. I'm a heavy Android user, but on my new iPhone I actually prefer the native email app, because it is simple, effective, more standards complaint than Gmail and has quick swipe actions for both delete and archive, which is all I need.

On push, Google Apps gives you ActiveSync as a protocol, as an alternative to IMAP. But the integration with iOS Mail is weird and I could not use it.

But FastMail on the other hand, in a twisted turn of events supports push through Apple's own APN, getting the same treatment as iCloud: https://blog.fastmail.com/2015/07/17/push-email-now-availabl...

FastMail also has a native app that does push notifications, but it's just the packaged web interacts with push notifications added. This is both good and bad. It's good because the mobile web interface is very decent, compared to Gmail, and this means you always have a decent UI on whatever OS you have. It's bad because it doesn't feel native, but then there's nothing more native than the iOS Mail app.

Google's rendition of IMAP isn't following any standard but their own. Fastmail uses Cyrus IMAP server, which most certainly follows standards.

I've been a Fastmail user for almost 10 years. Never an issue that was not solved in very short order and most professionally. Fastmail offer a modern product with old world service and charm. A win-win.

We use either Postbox, Thunderbird or Apple Mail and all of them should work with Gmail like every most common mail client. So the point about IMAP doesn't have a practical impact for us. Am I missing something? Good to know about their strong reliability though

I would simply add that whilst Google have their fingers in so many different things, Fastmail does one thing very well: email and email-related.