Just a quick reminder to those looking for web services alternatives based in EU - there’s a quite an easy way of self-hosting it all by yourself and remain fairly independent of any 3rd party decisions to monetize, move or shut down services, or use your private data:

  • The cheapest EU & Co based Virtual Private Server (VPS). Could cost you up to 5 bob/month.
  • Linux OS of your choice (I’d personally recommend Debian since CentOS is now gone and its alternatives for servers are not well established yet). Free.
  • ISPConfig hosting control panel. Free and somewhere EU based as I understand it. I’ve been using it on and off for about 15 years.
  • Your own domain name. Try to avoid *.zip one for your email server… Let’s say that will set you back by up to 20 bob/year.
  • A step by step tutorial on how to set it all up. Encryption, spam filter, antivirus, email fetching and webmail all come free!
  • (Optional) You probably will need to ask your VPS provider to open certain email ports for you.

That’s it - you have your own little hosting set up, which you can use for your websites as well! And whatever else more advanced you may want to try in the future! Add a couple of your friends and relatives with their own domain names into it - and you may even be in profit!