this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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ProtonMail vs Tutamail vs Posteo (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by za_warudo_steve_freiheit@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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I've been subscribed to Proton Unlimited for a little while now and enjoying the services, but I also want to know what made other people choose Tutanota or Posteo over Proton. Was it cost? Transparency/security stuff? Location data is held? I'm exploring a lot of things in the privacy space and seeing what else is out there. Wanted to create this thread as a more recent post people could look at as well.

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[–] flaccid_corn_husk@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 day ago

I stand by the idea that Proton is a great option for most people. Having a convenient option like that is exactly what the average person needs in order to stick with their privacy journey, and I believe that those that don't understand or pay attention to privacy tech are those that need it most.

Having said that I much prefer Tuta. The main reason being that they allow for complete anonymity, and proton doesn't. Tuta allows you to sign up while using Tor, so you don't have to trust that they don't log your IP. They also allow payment through Monero or even by mailing them cash. Users have asked Proton for those features for years but they refuse. That doesn't immediately make them a honeypot, but it does mean that they're just not for me.

Trustless and anonymous systems give me more faith than "we're a good company, you can trust us... at least for now". Like I said Proton is great for people that aren't in the weeds of this stuff and just want easy tech that works, but Tuta seems like the better option for more dedicated privacy enjoyers

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I went with Posteo and have been happy with it. The only meaningful advantage of Tutanova and Proton that I'm aware of is the encryption, but that only works if the person you're communicating with also uses their service, so I figure what's the point? I've also heard of various problems people have had with with both of them. And, at least at the time I checked, you had to use a browser or electron interface to access them though their own UI. With Posteo I added the account to Thunderbird and I access it through SMTP via TB's mechanisms (e.g. auto-checking every X minutes and popping up a system notification when there's a new email) just like with my other email account.

[–] za_warudo_steve_freiheit@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Something that has made Posteo pretty appealing to me so far is how flexible its pricing is. I get to pay for more feature when I need more stuff.

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's also easy to pay for several months ahead at a time, and they don't keep your personal info.

[–] brian@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Big fan of Posteo here too. I’ve always found their customer support very responsive and helpful.

The only drawback for me is that they don’t support custom domains, which I can understand. I’ve yet to wrap my head round how I could use use a Posteo emal address alongside multiple aliases on a custom domain (perhaps using something like addy.io or similar).

[–] za_warudo_steve_freiheit@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

So far the best solution for me has been using SimpleLogin since they're paid plans allow unlimited aliases and custom domains (and also comes with my Proton Unlimited subscription). I know Posteo and Tutanota have their own solutions but SimpleLogin has been more flexible in my experience. Yet to try out Posteo's and Tutanota's solutions.

[–] brian@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I also have a Tuta account which is where I use my custom domain addresses (the number of aliases is unlimited there too, and I have so many!).

From what I’ve read, I’m not sure Posteo has a solution to this issue. I’ve read about a workaround, but also that it might have some issues.

But I do love Posteo for their stance on privacy and use of green energy, and the price is so reasonable. I’m thinking I might just have half a dozen or aliases there: one for mailing lists, one for online ordering, one for non-essential website logins and so on.

[–] za_warudo_steve_freiheit@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Oh didn't notice Tutanota allowed unlimited aliases as well. From what I read OK Posteo's FAQ, Posteo doesn't allow custom domains because it would be personal information and even if you just had the MX record, it'd still be traceable in some way.

I personally create an alias for each account I create using my subdomains but have been thinking about using my custom domain a bit more. Only have my Matrix account using it lol. Was also thinking of splitting up my mailboxes a bit since each service has their own solution, but I'll see if that works for me lol.

[–] ken@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Food for thought: By consistently following a strategy optimizing and picking the optimal product/service based on cost/benefit, you will end up on the same one as everyone else doing the same thing. From a practical perspective this leads to winner-takes-all and centralization. Whoever is the underdog today becomes the Google or Cloudflare of tomorrow and we're back at square one. From a philosophical perspective, did you really make a choice? Or did "the market" (of which you are also part) decide on your behalf? A healthy market needs at least thousands of mail providers, not 5 or 10.

Obviously same thing goes for basing your pick on brand perception, picking the most popular or recommended one, but without the benefit of knowing you'll actually get the better service.

Can free will exist among economically rational participants in a market? There can be some power in knowing you chose whatever you did based on factors other than cost-performance or popularity. Sometimes the optimal choice can be suboptimal.

And why not self-hosting your inbox? Hard to beat from privacy standpoint. It really doesn't have to be as hard as they say. Even if you don't go full homelab right away: Some providers are accommodating and make it easy to gradually or partially self-host by offering open standard protocols. Others make it really tricky and steer you hard into their app ecosystem. So how straightforward it is to use your own local third-party mail client is a good consideration even if you don't intend to self-host anything else anytime soon.

[–] Doorbook@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Tuta doesn't ask for phone number

[–] nachtlicht@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

I went with Tutanota and though I am fine with the service as such, one thing that bugs me is.. Behold... The encryption!

It is pretty safe I guess but limited to other users (of whom I know none) and since they wont let me use pgp as a fallback I am down to preshared passwords. Thats annoying!

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Re: Proton

Proton CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party in a post on X, declaring that “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”

https://x.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/

EDIT: However, he donates to Liberal causes, who knows maybe he was signalling to the Trump admin like 95% of businesses

[–] Jerry@feddit.online 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I knew someone was going to bring this up. So read this:

https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

Small piece from the article:

Under Yen’s leadership, Proton donates a sizeable amount of cash, and the benefactors are easy to find since non-profits must disclose donations. In total, I’ve identified over 30 organizations that received grants from Proton, and you can find a partial list here. Interestingly, they also made a few donations not publicized on that page (one was to a Hong Kong democracy org, which might explain why it was hidden).

Findings:

Not a single organization has ties to Republicans or conservatives.
Many of them are known to be liberal, for example, Access Now and Fight for the Future in the US.
There were at least 10 that also received funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

In my research, I discovered that under Andy’s leadership, Proton has a giving pattern similar to George Soros, one of the Democratic Party’s mega-donors.

Also, look who's getting the next round of financing from Proton: https://proton.me/blog/2025-lifetime-account-charity-fundraiser

He's not a tankie. He's very liberal. There's no evidence he ever supported Republicans, let alone Trump.