self hosting email ends

see also: LLMs · Model Behavior

email ops reliability vendor scale

After self-hosting email for decades, the author decided to stop and move to a provider. The core reason was operational burden and the shrinking viability of going it alone.

I read it as a warning about infrastructure gravity. Reliability is expensive when you are the only on-call.

Core claim

The economics of self-hosting critical infra are getting harder to justify.

Reflective question

Which systems are still worth running yourself?

signals

• Ops burden pushes even experts to managed services.
• Reliability expectations keep rising.
• Email is a hostile surface for solo admins.
• Vendor lock-in becomes a trade for uptime.

my take

This is less about email and more about modern ops realities. Small teams are forced to specialize or outsource, and that changes independence assumptions.

• Cost: Reliability is a hidden tax.
• Trade: Control is swapped for uptime.
• Signal: Infrastructure is consolidating.
• Ops: Burnout is a technical risk factor.

sources

Blog - After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years

https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html Why it matters: First-person account of ops burden and decision drivers.

linkage

linkage tree

• tags
  • #infrastructure
  • #email
  • #ops
• related
  • [[Exchange Server Hacks]]
  • [[Log4Shell and the Ops Tax]]

self hosting email ends