What are the best e-mail providers out there?

I'm happy with Proton

I've been using Proton Mail for a while, it's been good for me.

Is the free tier truly free? The saying, “if a product is free, you are the product” comes to mind.
- It's covered by paying users. I'm one and happy to have my subscription cover Anyone who wants a free, private email address.
- It is, they can’t access anything it’s all encrypted and truly private to you. My only problem with the free tier is that there’s a signature at the bottom saying it was sent with proton mail, which isn’t even a big deal you just have to remember to remove it every time you send something. That and the 1 gig storage limit fills up quicker than you’d think.
- As far as I can tell, yes. I signed up for the free tier before paying for the service, and the worst I ever got was a banner here or there advertising their paid service. Proton encrypts all your data with your password, so they literally can't access it even if they wanted to. The only info they have on you are things like when you logged in and your IP address (and I believe they've turned that info over to law enforcement when required, like any legitimate company would have to do), but their servers are in Switzerland where there are better privacy laws.
- I used their free email for years with no issues
I went to the trouble of creating a custom domain and pay for that service and I have no problems with it. I subscribed at the level that gives me the VPN which works very well and blocks most ads and trackers.

After a Tuta vs Proton comparison, I went for the first because of their use of renewables, and I’ve been there for over a year now after fully ungoogling. Their search kind of sucks, but I feel they focus on creating a safe service with neat features, so I’m staying. I also combine it with SimpleLogin. Awesome service!

I've used Mailbox.org for years as a service that replaces most of my Google services at once. I know you just asked for email and Mailbox is worth checking out.

+1 for mailbox, have had their 1€ tier for a year now, definitely worth it. Works great with ThunderBird and K-9 Mail.
I can vouch for Mailbox, too.

It's also easy to get it set up on third part email clients.

I've been using Posteo for a while now. They have the most sane privacy policy out there. They also support IMAP and POP3 ootb for external email clients, unlike some other email providers (e.g. Protonmail).

I also use Posteo, one thing to note though is that Posteo doesn't (and probably won't any time soon) support custom domains. If that doesn't bother you, it's a great choice.

The other alternative I found during my research, which doesn't have that limitation, is mailbox.org.

Fastmail. Proton is too limited and has terrible search

I’ve been with Fastmail for a year and it’s always been a very positive experience. Good support. If I had to pick a weak link, I think the spam filtering could be better.
- I've not actually had any I don't think, although one thing which is marked as spam... Isn't. I don't seem to be able to prevent that one email going there, it's irregular though.

Purelymail

This

I've been impressed with Fastmail. I also use Tuta, which is pretty cool (but I barely use it).

I switched from Tuta to Fastmail. Tuta was mostly fine, but being restricted to only their client was really annoying. I can use Fastmail with Thunderbird/FairEmail/etc just fine.

I get what Tuta is trying to do with encrypted email, but IMO they're better off joining up with Fastmail on better specs that allow for the things they want to do, instead of limiting what email clients you can use.
- The inability to use my own client was the deciding factor of why I did not go with Tuta when I was email shopping. They've got good features and a fair price but that one decision is a serious turn-off imo.
I've been pretty happy with Tuta. I just have a free account, but it does seem like it has pretty good features and phenomenal security.

I roll my own. Postfix, dovecot, spamassasin and dmarc friends. Easy to setup? No. But takes about an hour/year of my time to maintain once the ball is going.

do you happen to have done guide in place, or some docker compose I can look at?
- The best option is https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver
  
  I've tried them all, and this one I super-easy in comparison. Great documentation and just some ENV variables and you're done. Happy to share my compose file with you if you want.
  
  I use it with my Active Directory hosted with https://github.com/Fmstrat/samba-domain for users, but it has many different user options.
- mailcow is by far the easiest way to self host email: https://docs.mailcow.email/getstarted/install/#initialize-mailcow
  
  Be aware that it's significantly easier to host on smaller trusted hosting providers. Hosting this on cloud providers like DigitalOcean is almost impossible without getting blacklisted.
- I don't, but I could probably come up with one next weekend.

I've had nothing but positive experiences with Posteo. Their features list is very good for the pittance they charge per month.

I agree. I also use Posteo. Their privacy policy and website seem to be one of the most sane ones. They also allow you to use external email clients.
im just overwhelmed by the endless flood of minor services that leach "a dollar here.. a dollar there". add them all up and they drain you dry.
skip some and you lose essential coverage. "just $2 more a month.. i swear bro! "
- Posteo isn't a monthly charge to your credit card. It uses a credits that you can top up whenever you feel like it. I usually put in a year's worth of credits in advance which costs me around $17CAD.

Obligatory Eylenburg link https://eylenburg.github.io/cloud_comparison.htm

I've been paying for Tuta for a couple years, and like it. I have my gmail forward to it just in case, but these days have basically completely switched, and barely ever get any legit emails forwarded from my gmail anymore.

I would like to have an email, please

Addling a vote for Fastmail. It’s great, priced right, privacy centric, has wicked 1Passwold integration (including disposable email addresses) and nerdy features for those who want them.

Personally I use Hey but that’s because imma snob.

I’ve come to the end of my patience with hotmail/live, my email is out there on a list so I get tens of spam mails a day and they almost never correctly identify them, but any new service I sign up to and it goes straight to spam.

Proton mail seems expensive for a single offering and the bundle has too many unnecessary things I don’t need. Also the lack of protocol support means you are restricted on clients you can use.

I’m pleased you posted this as I’m going to give all these a try too, but I’m becoming a pessimist and I’m thinking as soon as I’ve fully switched they will put up the price. Your personal email is becoming one of the hardest things to change.

My top priority is the ability to have individual addresses for each service I use going to a single inbox, that way if my email is leaked by a company, I can just nuke that alias, and I’ll know who leaked it. May be a good feature for you too?

Register your own domain! Pick a paid email service that supports it and then you never have trouble moving to a new provider again.

If you get an email provider that does a catchall then you can just make up emails on the spot and any email to any address on your domain will pop into your inbox.

I get simplelogin with Proton and I love that too, generate new email addresses that can't be tied to you but all go to your one inbox.

BTW your concerns with Proton are valid and it can be annoying not being able to use an alternate app for mobile.
- What is the most privacy focussed way to register a domain these days?
  
  last time I did it was about 20 years ago and they pretty much just put your home address and telephone number in a Whois lookup.

I've always heard fastmail as the go-to for personal domain email hosting. They're the go-to for almost everyone I know who doesn't just setup forwarding to Gmail.

OVH has email hosting. I mostly use them for other services but I've had positive experiences with them.

https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/emails/

I have good experience with Soverin.net