Ask HN: Google Apps vs. Fastmail

11 points by dillonraphael 9 years ago | 14 comments

I'm trying to decide between Google Apps for work and Fastmail. I have 3 person team. What do you guys recommend?

jakebasile 9 years ago |

If it's for company use I'd say go with Google. The main drawback to Apps accounts are being unable to use Google's newest toys as they come out (or sometimes ever). The upside is best of breed spam protection, great email tools, and one of the best online office suites available. And for $5/month per person it's well worth it to pay the money and forget about it.

I have tried Fastmail in the past for personal usage and was happy with it. I wish I'd have stayed with them for that particular use case, but alas.

tuananh 9 years ago | |

hmm it's 2.5$ for me now. it's been like this for at least a year.

chrisked 9 years ago |

What are your requirements? I use both services and thinking to completely migrate to fastmail. They have an amazing support and all functionality I need in terms of email and calendar. Also I have some accounts which only get used occasionally. You can then pick a smaller account for less money than google apps for work. Additionally I like that they don't use my data like google does.

Happy to have a chat and explain my use case. Don't have the time now to do an in-depth comparison.

dillonraphael 9 years ago | |

Honestly just need email, calendar and contacts. How is the spam filter with fastmail? When I google I see bad things.

chrisked 9 years ago | | |

Contacts work great too. Regarding spam you can actually configure it quite nicely.

Have a look here : https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/stopspam.html

cdvonstinkpot 9 years ago | | |

I've been with FastMail over a decade, & have never had any problems with the spam filter not working right.

jtietema 9 years ago | | |

I use fastmail for a couple of years now and have problems with spam at all.

Socketubs 9 years ago |

Fastmail android app is buggy and slow. Because of a bad app architecture (Corona, etc...).

Fastmail have CardDav + CalDav endpoints but android still not support these protocols.

I'm using Fastmail everyday and I advice you that if you are an android everyday user, to go to Gmail.

ruigomes 9 years ago | |

FWIW I've been using Fastmail's iOS app for a long time and it's quite snappy and I can't recall running into any bugs.

_RPM 9 years ago | |

The fastmail mobile app is a complete joke. Is so slow and so buggy. There now pushing their marketing towards business clients.

mobiuscog 9 years ago |

Just bear in mind that a 'Google Apps for work' account, is never useable for Google Play family, or music (I think).

Basically, ensure everyone realises that their google 'account', even though it seems to include everything, isn't theirs and is never changeable to a personal one.

I have one, purely for using a custom domain from a few years back, and now find that my 'Google everything' account is completely useless for some things and I have to create a brand new personal account - everything in the play store, or wallet or anything else is wasted.

I'd go with Fastmail and keep it outside of the Google 'everything'.

dahdum 9 years ago |

Google Apps - chances are good you'll need to use Google accounts at some point anyway (GA, Adwords, shared drive, etc..) or it makes it easier if you do (SSO).

wirddin 9 years ago |

Why not try out Zoho? I haven't tried out their whole suite, but their Mail works well. They have a free plan(forever) with a limit of 25 email accounts.

internaut 9 years ago |

Fastmail.