Posteo email
Hacker ApprovedRanked 11 of 17 email services by recommenders
Cheap, simple email with encrypted address books that people have used for years without trouble. Main caveat: custom domains are not supported.
Cheap, simple email with encrypted address books that people have used for years without trouble. Main caveat: custom domains are not supported.
24 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 10 years
Median of the 4 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Reliable for many years
“I've been over at posteo for about a decade. Couldn't imagine a reason to go back for my personal account.”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left” “they are just great. Been using them for 15 years now or something like that and I never had any problems.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500€/Year)” “have been using posteo.de for the last decade with no problems at all”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “An Update on Leaving Gmail for Fastmail” - Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Deutsche Telekom is violating Net Neutrality”
Cheap compared with alternatives
“it's way cheaper than Fastmail for multiple mailboxes across family members”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “An Update on Leaving Gmail for Fastmail” “It's barebones but cheap and sticks to one things that it does well.”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “Binance-hacker-1029 – $5.6B stolen from Binance” “my 1 EUR per month Posteo provider delivers in seconds”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'” - Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Deutsche Telekom is violating Net Neutrality”
Privacy-focused with simple interface
“I like the UI simplicity of posteo. They still have quite some advanced features like encrypted address books and more”
Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “European Alternatives” “much better alternatives to Gmail in terms of privacy”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message” Little spam and fast delivery
“I use a small local provider (posteo) and have 0 problems with spam.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “AI Is Killing B2B SaaS” “my 1 EUR per month Posteo provider delivers in seconds”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No custom domain support
“Posteo doesn't support custom domains (I've used them and otherwise they are good)”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Fastmail offers EU data region” “Posteo does not allow custom domains, which is an immediate nope from me.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps” “Not being able to use your domain is a pretty massive downside.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500€/Year)”
Other email services people recommend
The four most recommended other email services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fastmail | 388 | 95 | 80% | 13 | 5 yrs90 owners | Approved |
| Gmail | 295 | 797 | 27% | 12 | 20 yrs58 owners | — |
| Proton Mail | 196 | 222 | 47% | 13 | 3 yrs29 owners | — |
| Tuta Mail | 49 | 17 | 74% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Posteo emailThis page | 21 | 3 | 88% | 10 | 10 yrs4 owners | Approved |
What people said
23 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's barebones but cheap and sticks to one things that it does well.”
“Posteo seems like a good option if you don't have your own domain”
“I like the UI simplicity of posteo. They still have quite some advanced features like encrypted address books and more”
“Posteo's "one-time code system" is a fair bit weaker than Privacy Pass”
“it's way cheaper than Fastmail for multiple mailboxes across family members”
“have been using posteo.de for the last decade with no problems at all”
“Posteo doesn't support custom domains (I've used them and otherwise they are good)”
“I've been over at posteo for about a decade. Couldn't imagine a reason to go back for my personal account.”
“much better alternatives to Gmail in terms of privacy”
“I love the combination of Posteo and Bitwarden”
“for me there is little to no lock-in”
“Posteo does not allow custom domains, which is an immediate nope from me.”
“Some good pointers are posteo.de, tutanota, infomaniak”
“was turned off by the recycling of addresses”
“switched there years ago from gmail and never looked back”
“my 1 EUR per month Posteo provider delivers in seconds”
“I use a small local provider (posteo) and have 0 problems with spam.”
“posteo has not given me any trouble with any of my emails at all”
“various good and cheap e-mail providers in EU”
“it turned out to be a nice decision”
“Not being able to use your domain is a pretty massive downside.”
“they are just great. Been using them for 15 years now or something like that and I never had any problems.”
“I have positive experience with both posteo and mailbox.org.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.