Who pays for email these days? I do, and so should you. Here's why Fastmail is worth every penny.
Fastest, slickest web interface currently available
Their web/mobile interface isn't some sparkly new node.js "framework of the week". It's as if they took HTML and JS and ripped all the fat off. It screams optimization.
If Fastmail is running slow, the first thing I do is check my router and internet connection. It's so reliable and snappy that I just assume something is wrong on my end. Everything about their interface feels great and thought out. The only complaint I had -that their mobile interface had a few display quirks- has been voided by the release of their native iOS app (which is just a wrapper for their fantastic JS framework).
I'm their customer, not the advertisers
I pay $40 a year for Fastmail. That's $3.33 a month for something I use every day, multiple times an hour. Because I pay for this product, I get:
- Customer service oriented towards my happiness
- No ads
- A company focused on me, the customer, instead of advertisers
- Features targeting users, not advertisers
I cannot stress this enough: pay for what you use. I love that I pay Fastmail to handle my email. I enjoy knowing their engineers are making money, improving the app I thoroughly enjoy using. When you don't pay for software, you create a void that must be filled by either selling your data or catering a product to advertisers. Even if you are indifferent, it still creates an environment where engineers are potentially assigned to features that appease advertisers over users.
Nice advanced features
Although Google let me do tricks like someemail+somethinghere@gmail.com, Fastmail let's me take it one step farther. Now I can create special rules like `company@subcategory.domain.com`. Fastmail will convert this to: `subcategory+company@domain.com` automatically. I can stack a bunch of filters and rules on top of this and extend it even farther.
Need a simple static website? Redirect a subdomain to a folder and if it sees an index.html file, it treats it like a website.
Nothing is perfect
Even with all these great features, there are still some improvements needed:
- There is currently no way for an image to be uploaded for a contact, although Fastmail does support Gravatar. It leads to a lot of contacts in my email without faces, which feels dated.
- Some paragraph formatting seems a bit off when displayed on the iOS app
Summary
With its clear and concise Privacy Policy, great features and amazing performance, I can't recommend it enough. Fastmail is just fantastic.
Sign up here (disclaimer: referral link)