[johannes84]

I am honestly confused what big risks you believe to be connected to running your own email server, and what you think would be a significant IT investment?

For context, I have been running a Debian mailserver (postfix + spamassassin + dovecot) with autoupdates - and occasional major version updates - for family and friends since 2007. Barring the occasional period of being preferentially delivered to the spam folder, I have not experienced any problems. My major benefit: I am sure that if a mail is sent to me, I will receive it.

The system is running on one of the cheapest root servers from Hetzners used server market, and it also runs an odd set of other websites and VMs, so the IT investment is limited. I also consider the administration and update tasks as a form of continuing education in my profession.

[BrandoElFollito]

For family and friends fine.

When you have 30,000 users worldwide is it daunting.

[johannes84]

I agree! Therefore I’d suggest more people should host for family and friends :-)

[imoverclocked]

Except, family and friends isn't the target here. It's large-ish, professional organizations with a lot more surface area and visibility than your family email server. I've run this kind of friends/family setup, but I've also run a small org setup with a lot more visibility. It's definitely two different beasts... and that was a decade ago.

[BrandoElFollito]

It depends what. I self host a lot of services for family and friends - but ony the ones I have complete control over.

If there is a problem with something, I want to have a hope of fixing it (either someone already had the issue, or I can open an issue, or I can try try to fix the code/configuration myself). These are great.

Mail not so much. This can become a continuous struggle to get off blacklists, manage spam, troubleshoot deliveries, ... All these are not dependent on me and if I get into a blacklist or if Google stops to accept my mail I am cooked. This is the reason that after self-hosting email for a few years I got back to having it done by people whose job it is .

[Terretta]

Do you distill your own alcohol as well?

I wonder if those who say they're "honestly confused" why someone would let someone else do undifferentiated heavy lifting for them are not really confused.

[johannes84]

Well, the parent comment was not saying „it’s too much work“, but „it’s risky“!

I can totally understand why someone would not do it because it’s too much work.