Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365? [LWN.net]

Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365?

Posted Apr 2, 2025 22:29 UTC (Wed) by alx.manpages (subscriber, #145117)
Parent article: Thunderbird plans "Thundermail" email and other services

I went from Thunderbird to mutt(1) a few years ago (and later to neomutt(1), due to <https://neomutt.org/feature/cli-crypto>).

I think the kind of user that uses (or these days, rather used) Mozilla software is the kind of user that wouldn't use Google or Microsoft services/software for mail or browsers. If Mozilla is loosing users, it seems obvious to me that it's precisely due to it following the trend of those services and software that Mozilla users don't want in the first place.

I'm still waiting for Debian to replace Firefox from the repository with some fork due to the DFSG violations.

to post comments

Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365?

Posted Apr 4, 2025 1:43 UTC (Fri) by Forge (guest, #176831) [Link] (4 responses)

I think I'm probably the target market here. I never really dug the idea of running my own mail server, but I liked to have all my email available to all my devices, and in the early aughts, Google was the way to go, with "unlimited lifetime email storage" (that didn't last). Now that Google has slowly raised the temperature of the water until I'm paying >100$/year just to store my two decades of email, I'm willing to look for something less expensive that can do a similar job, with less tithing to the "new" 'be evil a little' version of Google.

If Mozilla wants to deliver on that, I'm willing to hear them out and test the waters.

I really don't like supporting Google anymore. I'm supporting Apple because they're the Least Worst neighbor, and my household is entirely Linux, Apple or not under my direct control. Come with me, Mozilla, and take my money. All I ask is what I already have, and without Google or MS involved.

Gmail mail server alternatives

Posted Apr 4, 2025 9:26 UTC (Fri) by alx.manpages (subscriber, #145117) [Link]

I used Gmail as the mail server for a very long time for similar reasons. I used Thunderbird for the MUA, but Gmail was a reasonable server.

However, I recently discovered a small company, Migadu, that provides a mail server, and the prices are quite reasonable: <https://migadu.com/>. Their customer support is excellent; I met a few bugs in their software, and they fixed them in hours of my report. And they also answered any doubts I had. Now I've been using Migadu for a year or so, and I can only say I'm very happy.

I learned from them because of <https://korg.docs.kernel.org/linuxdev.html>.

Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365?

Posted Apr 8, 2025 0:58 UTC (Tue) by tamasrepus (subscriber, #33205) [Link] (1 responses)

> Now that Google has slowly raised the temperature of the water until I'm paying >100$/year just to store my two decades of email, I'm willing to look for something less expensive that can do a similar job, with less tithing to the "new" 'be evil a little' version of Google.

I offer another way to think about how you spend your money — why would you pay more to Google over MZLA or another smaller company?

If you're looking best value for your dollar, you cannot beat the scale Google operates and the prices they offer, unless you are another company the size of Google. If you want alternatives from smaller companies more aligned with your interests, you should expect them to cost the same if not _more_. Someone has to pay for it!

Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365?

Posted Apr 8, 2025 2:05 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

The problem is that email and groupware are only a small part of the Google Workspace product. So you're also paying for Google Drive, Google Docs, Gemini, and tons of other stuff that you might not even need.

Does Thunderbird really loose users to Gmail or Office365?

Posted Apr 8, 2025 12:43 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

I know this is not an option for everyone, but I self-host my email. It costs me a bit more than $100/year, but that's OK because I use the same infrastructure for many other things.

My email infrastructure consists of:

A KVM instance hosted in Montreal by OVH that acts as my MX host and email filter. I pay around $7.85/month or $94.20 per year for this.
A Raspberry Pi 4 with a couple of 6TB USB drives as my actual mail server where all the mail is stored. This was probably close to $400 in fixed costs plus about $15/year in electricity.
A similarly-configured Raspberry Pi 4 at my sister's place which is my offsite backup with similar electricity consumption.

My recurring costs are thus about $124/year but I have full control, full ownership of my data, and no realistic storage limits... I have email going back to 1989. My Pi 4 also runs other services such as Radicale for my calendar and contacts, Asterisk for my phone system, etc.

Another consideration for me, being located in Canada, is to minimize my dependency on US-based companies. Given the geopolitical situation, it's simply too great a risk for me to have my email stored or accessed by a US-based company.