Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate
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One of the basic "mangolassian" rules is to always maintain discrete services.
A few examples:
Your PBX provider should never be your SIP provider
Your domain registrar should never host host your web hosterWith web hosting, you typically get "unlimited free" email accounts. (not really free, but paid as part of your hosting contract).
I like to use Office365 for my email.
How do I "unbundle" my email service & use O365 but avoid paying the $5/mo per email account?
Other solutions are welcome!
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@fateknollogee said in Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate:
One of the basic "mangolassian" rules is to always maintain discrete services.
A few examples:
Your PBX provider should never be your SIP provider
Your domain registrar should never host host your web hosterWith web hosting, you typically get "unlimited free" email accounts. (not really free, but paid as part of your hosting contract).
I like to use Office365 for my email.
How do I "unbundle" my email service & use O365 but avoid paying the $5/mo per email account?
Other solutions are welcome!
You don't and can't. Office 365 email accounts are tied specifically to the service provider. You have no way to migrate your services from Office365 to another service without a massive export and import operation.
This is a weird example, you want Office 365 (presumably for Word, excel, PPT OneDrive) but don't want to use them for email.
The simple answer here is, don't setup your email here at all, and use the other services.
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@fateknollogee said in Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate:
How do I "unbundle" my email service & use O365 but avoid paying the $5/mo per email account?
I feel like these aren't typically what we refer to as bundled services, even though the technically are. You're talking about email service and an office suite (O365, correct?) packaged together.
Though these services are packaged together it doesn't place you in the same extortion scenario as internet/voice/email service (for example), or registrar/email/webhosting would. You can easily use one or the other, or both, for the same price. Both services, though provided together, aren't related and don't rely on each other in any way.
Microsoft can't hold you hostage with office and email bundled together the same way as, say, Comcast could with your voice/internet/email
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While you could have your email service held hostage by Microsoft, this isn't the same as people who opt to use Roadrunner email, because it's included with their Internet service.
If you got the option for Fiber internet, and it was cheaper (and faster) you'd want to go with that over RoadRunner. But you'd have to give up your email account.
That is the kind of hostage scenario generally discussed.
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The question really becomes... how do I find a good email provider.
- O365 and Gmail are $4 - $5
- Zoho is $3
There are some free services, Zoho might still offer a limited free email service.
There are other email players out there, but smaller. And you can run your own. We were tired of O365 and Zoho had their 50% price increase, so we went to Zimbra and are quite happy. Cost is super low. To deal with delivery issues, we use MailGun on the front end to send out.
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@bnrstnr said in Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate:
@fateknollogee said in Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate:
How do I "unbundle" my email service & use O365 but avoid paying the $5/mo per email account?
I feel like these aren't typically what we refer to as bundled services, even though the technically are. You're talking about email service and an office suite (O365, correct?) packaged together.
Agreed, this is not the same kind of bundling we are normally concerned with.
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This is somewhat ridiculous. The entire premise of Microsoft's offering is vendor lock-in.
Of course you are hostage to Microsoft. Of course they will keep integrating their services until it's impossible for you to change providers. And when they raise their prices you will pay. It doesn't make sense to fool yourself into thinking something else.If you want separate discrete services you have to stop using O365 because it's already a bundle of services - even without email.
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@pete-s said in Web hosting + (or not) email: keep separate:
This is somewhat ridiculous. The entire premise of Microsoft's offering is vendor lock-in.
Of course you are hostage to Microsoft. Of course they will keep integrating their services until it's impossible for you to change providers. And when they raise their prices you will pay. It doesn't make sense to fool yourself into thinking something else.If you want separate discrete services you have to stop using O365 because it's already a bundle of services - even without email.
Unless you only want email from them, then it's not too locked in. Just not very good.
