Anyone knows mykolab.com ? - Page 2

zinneken · 27 Aug 2013, 04:21 AM

thanks for the heads-up! If my calculation is right, a single generic @mykolab.ch email address (so without using your own domain) still comes in at a hefty 54CHF/year. Adding 12/year for using your own domain and adding whatever it is you pay for your domain registration ... For one lonely email address.

Lite on the service but hefty on the money I feel. Compared to similar services, it seems like mykolab cashes in on people's fears for privacy more then delivering an honest service for an honest price.

Just my 2cents.

greve · 27 Aug 2013, 06:59 PM

@zinneken I start to wonder. Is this just trying to trash-talk a competitor?

The background for the pricing is explained in the FAQ and this article.

And yes, sustainability does not come free.

Many providers use the software we built, such as Roundcube, to provide price-dumped services. We naturally have a higher overhead because we pay the people who develop it. And we have to deal with the cost of running this on our own hardware, rather than just re-packaging other cloud offers on virtualized infrastructures, which compromises any claim to security.

zinneken · 27 Aug 2013, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greve

@zinneken I start to wonder. Is this just trying to trash-talk a competitor?

I'm not in the email business, nor affiliated with any email service provider. I just use email and am very much interested in it as all here on these forums. It's a pity companies, like mykolab, see objective criticism as trash-talk. What happened with the freedom of speech and opinion?

Quote:

Originally Posted by greve

And yes, sustainability does not come free.

No one asks for a free service when looking at mykolab. You seem to have a problem with someone highlighting that your service for onlyonemailbox@notmyowndomain.tld is among the most expensive to be found?

Quote:

Originally Posted by greve

Many providers use the software we built, such as Roundcube, to provide price-dumped services.

I like roundcube! I don't think it came from mykolab though? If it did, then why do you license it cheap? Also seems you were "saved" by roundcube and in return "contributed" to it becoming great:
http://roundcubeinbox.wordpress.com/...e-kolab-story/

I appreciate your frustration in someone pointing at your weaknesses, but don't take it out at the messenger.

ioneja · 28 Aug 2013, 12:07 AM

@greve -- please don't be so sensitive and accuse people of trash-talking! You run the risk of people in this forum thinking you might be over-sensitive, which might seep into your product or service. Especially in this forum. What he said was reasonable, and he raised a valid concern about pricing, which is indeed on the higher side. He used the term "I feel" which is code word for OPINION. So please, as a representative of your company, may I humbly and respectfully suggest you focus on his FACTS, not his opinions.

And BTW, this forum is the single best forum on email issues I have ever seen, anywhere, ever. If someone actually is trash-talking, which is extremely rare, then let the moderators deal with it. They are even-handed and fair. That's one of the reasons why this forum is so good.

---

@zinneken I don't have a problem with what you said, and I certainly didn't think you were a competitor trying to trash-talk.

Note that I have not tried MyKolab yet, but I am planning on it soon.

Re: their price, it's a free market and they obviously charge what they want. They've obviously calculated that their price works for them, and they're still in business, so clearly someone is paying them those prices.

However, you bring up a very important point, that their price is on the high side of email providers.

But then again, how high is it really? Since I'm very interested in this topic, here's my math, please correct if I'm wrong:

For one "lite" account I'm reading that it is currently $5.41 US per month plus a domain group manager account for $1.12 US per month... so $6.53 US per month, or $78.36 US per year. (Note for the record they do have volume discounts for people who need tons of accounts.)

Now, let's compare that to *some* of their competitors... all which I have paid for in the past or currently pay for except Runbox, which I am still evaluating.

Luxsci is a high-end US-based competitor, and if you just go for *one* email account on their premium servers, with your own domain name, you'll pay about $15.00 per month, or $180 per year! Now, that's very misleading, since you get tons of features (groupware type features too) and can add additional email accounts for $1.00 per month, that use the same storage space, etc... and they have discounts too, non-premium hosting options, etc... but ultimately and technically, for ONE single premium account, it's $180 per year! It compares more closely to MyKolab's standard account, but you get the point. Also keep in mind that Luxsci develops their own software too, so they compare on that side too.

FastMail could be brought up in this discussion -- they have 1GB accounts starting at $20 per year, enhanced at $40 per year and premier at $120 per year. They "pay for their own development" and contribute to the OSS movement too. So in many ways they compare.

Runbox starts at $20, then $35, $50, and $80.

And frankly, if you want to compare to other "pro" services, including the "big companies," then Google Apps for Business is $50 per year, and Office 365 for Business starts at $60 per year and goes way up to their Enterprise E3 account which is $240 per year!

So how expensive does MyKolab really look in comparison to these other services? Not that expensive to be honest. Right in line with a more premium, professional offering.

So in all fairness, their price seems competitive to that group of services. Of course, dependent on the exact features, etc... let's not get into storage space, etc... there are more variables than storage space here. You just have to obviously decide if the benefits or drawbacks of their whole product offering is worth it to you, personally.

Again, I haven't tried MyKolab yet, but I am not put off by their price. Yes, it is on the higher side, so when I try them out, I will DEFINITELY be expecting a higher quality experience and service/support. I will include them in higher-end offerings to decide if I would stick with them.

And frankly, bravo to them for stepping in and providing a service that they claim is more secure. I can't vouch for them, but I'm happy to see service providers stepping up and offering more private services! Bravo to them for supporting the OSS movement too.

EDIT 2: Removed my "latte" comparison. On second thought, it sounded kind of dumb. Apologies to those who read it.

curvefan · 28 Aug 2013, 06:01 AM

I'm a little confused.

I read comments on this site about people wanting to be able to trust their email provider with their personal email messages.

Trust? Really? Do you seriously believe that you can trust any of the providers out there, no matter what they charge?

I believe this. If you send any emails from, and to any provider, that a certain three letter agency can and will get access to them if they wish, so what's the point in spending a bunch of money for secure email?

I don't get it? Even if you and the recipient use encryption, don't you really think that the encryption can and will be broken by same three letter agency?

If we're just talking about company secrets, I would think any of the free or very cheap providers would do just fine.

Or, you could chuck it all and just send post cards.

Also, I believe some of the wealthier members on here should start a fund so that us less fortunate can benefit from the services of Luxsci and now Mykolab.

I won't mention any names, but you wealthy know who you are. Wink wink................................

ioneja · 28 Aug 2013, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curvefan

I'm a little confused.

I read comments on this site about people wanting to be able to trust their email provider with their personal email messages.

Trust? Really? Do you seriously believe that you can trust any of the providers out there, no matter what they charge?

Privacy comes in degrees. It's not black or white. I wish there was 100% privacy, but you're right, in that sense, there isn't total privacy. If some government really, really wants to get your email, they will probably get it, one way or another, period. That's not truly preventable without a huge amount of effort on your part, and even then, it's probably not 100% preventable if they are really determined to get it.

After all, we're talking $5-10 per month. No way that can solve this whole issue completely.

But for some people, it's not all about whether or not a government can get what they want... some just want "better" or "good enough" or "pretty good" privacy. Some just want a provider that doesn't take US tax dollars to facilitate the invasion of privacy, if recent news reports are accurate.

This type of user often just wants their content respected by the service provider and not turned into a profile for ads. They don't want someone peering over their shoulder. They want to trust their provider to keep things as secure and private as is *legally* possible. And some just want it in a jurisdiction where such privacy is better protected.

For some people, it's really about paying for a *little* more peace of mind. To them, even just that's worth $5-10 per month.

But you're right that once it gets out of that jurisdiction/network, then it will be subject to different scrutiny, and you have to be comfortable with that fact of life.

So the question is what level of privacy are you willing to accept? If you want truly 100% privacy, you're right, you shouldn't use email at all. But comparing Gmail, for example, to something like MyKolab is night and day.

As for your ":wealthier" comment, maybe we're all just spoiled by the free services out there... the problem is, that those "free" services have to generate revenue for the business owners, so they have to come up with some financial model that makes sense to pay for all that equipment and hard work that goes into it... and thus we have ad-filled email services that *by default* cannot be really trusted with your privacy since they have to make money off you some how.

So how much is all that expertise and equipment worth? If you do the math... it gets expensive to run really good servers on really good networks with all the security and features and uptime, etc., that we all want.

And $5-10 per month is not that much money in the context of other things most serious computer users pay for on a daily basis, which probably fits the profile of most people who visit this forum.

curvefan · 28 Aug 2013, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioneja

Privacy comes in degrees. It's not black or white. I wish there was 100% privacy, but you're right, in that sense, there isn't total privacy. If some government really, really wants to get your email, they will probably get it, one way or another, period. That's not truly preventable without a huge amount of effort on your part, and even then, it's probably not 100% preventable if they are really determined to get it.

After all, we're talking $5-10 per month. No way that can solve this whole issue completely.

But for some people, it's not all about whether or not a government can get what they want... some just want "better" or "good enough" or "pretty good" privacy. Some just want a provider that doesn't take US tax dollars to facilitate the invasion of privacy, if recent news reports are accurate.

This type of user often just wants their content respected by the service provider and not turned into a profile for ads. They don't want someone peering over their shoulder. They want to trust their provider to keep things as secure and private as is *legally* possible. And some just want it in a jurisdiction where such privacy is better protected.

For some people, it's really about paying for a *little* more peace of mind. To them, even just that's worth $5-10 per month.

But you're right that once it gets out of that jurisdiction/network, then it will be subject to different scrutiny, and you have to be comfortable with that fact of life.

So the question is what level of privacy are you willing to accept? If you want truly 100% privacy, you're right, you shouldn't use email at all. But comparing Gmail, for example, to something like MyKolab is night and day.

As for your ":wealthier" comment, maybe we're all just spoiled by the free services out there... the problem is, that those "free" services have to generate revenue for the business owners, so they have to come up with some financial model that makes sense to pay for all that equipment and hard work that goes into it... and thus we have ad-filled email services that *by default* cannot be really trusted with your privacy since they have to make money off you some how.

So how much is all that expertise and equipment worth? If you do the math... it gets expensive to run really good servers on really good networks with all the security and features and uptime, etc., that we all want.

And $5-10 per month is not that much money in the context of other things most serious computer users pay for on a daily basis, which probably fits the profile of most people who visit this forum.

With all due respect ioneja, $5.00 to $10.00 per month is a little pricey when it comes to email.

At least for me.

If you are comfortable spending that much per month for "peace of mind", more power to ya.

Security and privacy when it comes to email is a misnomer.

No such thing.

So, if you're happy spending that much per month for a misnomer, I'm happy for you.

I don't think I'll be spending that much though.

My "peace of mind" is a lot cheaper.

greve · 28 Aug 2013, 06:43 PM

@Zinneken It's hard to know much about you, though, isn't it?

All I have to go by is the claim there had been an unanswered request for more information which you posted into this forum. As a result we checked the systems. Since Drupal saves all form requests for safekeeping we could find several in the period you said you launched your request, but all of them have been answered. So unless all systems failed for exactly your contact request and your contact request only, something does not add up.

Also, the tone of the messages has at times been openly hostile, re-iterating already answered question in a more aggressive tone at times, and when no response in kind was given ended up with a "it's too expensive and provides no value" claim.

As far as pricing is concerned, MyKolab.com is in the medium range of comparable offers in Switzerland, and as far as services provided it is in the upper range. No other service can offer the same unique properties which I highlighted in my first responses.

So that claim is evidently not based in fact.

And I suggest you read that blog entry again. Roundcube 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0... all were based to the largest extent on our work. After the initial author already thought stopping working on it altogether when I last met him.

So how you can try to construe that into "us having been saved *by* Roundcube" is also a rather peculiar viewpoint.

In any case. If Open Source, Open Standards, the larger social picture, security and privacy all mean nothing to you, then MyKolab.com is evidently the wrong service for you.

Which is fine.

zinneken · 28 Aug 2013, 07:26 PM

@ ioneja

Some great points you make! Seeing your comparison (we should have more of those!) I thought I'd shine in on the "lite" aspect of things. My original comments came from a personal observation that the "privacy" marketing was being heavily charged, for a "basic" service most end users actually use. I'm not talking or comparing pro.

A single "lite" email address would cost (I round off upwards):
Luxsci doesn't seem to offer without domain, 90 per year with domain
fastmail is 15 per year without or with a domain
runbox is 20 per year without domain, 35 per year with domain
tuffmail is 24 per year, same price without or with domain
eumx is free per year without domain, 12 per year with domain
Polaris is 12 per year without or with domain
neomailbox is 50 per year without or with domain
mykolab is 64 per year without domain, 77 per year with domain (used CHF-UDSD exchange of today, rounding off to nearest upper whole unit as a credit card would process currency exchange margins anyway)

Comparing apples and pears? Personally I don't think so when we're talking a comparison of "lite" end-user services for a single personal email or a family personal email account.

Looking internationally, mykolab appears the most expensive "lite" service by a long shot (luxsci can't really be called lite, can it?).

Looking at the local service offering in Switzerland, one could argue that mykolab is in the regular pricings compared to swissmail (iway), DFI, and many others. But, there is also more competitive pricing to be found for local Swiss secure, privacy conscious services. For example as neomailbox.

I'm sure one could add many other services to the comparison. It is possibly complex doing a full blown comparison, but us being all email junkies, maybe EMD could set up a comparison page?

@ mykolab, marketing wise I can see many people going for the "privacy" statement (especially these days), while not realising they're buying a service expensively (for all the reasons you have, it is a free market after all) compared to other offerings. If providing a "lite" service is too costly for you compared to the lite services offered by others, maybe you should only service companies as you seem to have a pretty well established business clientele?

Disclosure: I have used fastmail, runbox, tuffmail, eumx, polaris. I am very fond of tuffmail but no longer use it at this very moment, I use eumx, am no longer using and neutral (not in favour or against) runbox and fastmail, and have had bad experiences with polaris where many people have been very happy with them. I have not used the services of the others mentioned in this post.

petergh · 28 Aug 2013, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinneken

fastmail is 20 per year without domain, 40 per year with domain

I know it's not clear from the website at all, but you can actually host your own domain(s) with a Family account which is $15/year for 200 MB storage.

zinneken · 28 Aug 2013, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greve

@Zinneken It's hard to know much about you, though, isn't it?

Only seeing your post now, took some time to compare services and typing up the previous one.

Yes, like many on here I like ... privacy? I'm not selling any services, so my identity doesn't matter.

Personally, I'm not too worried about not getting a reply to my form submission as you replied amply here. Though I do understand you're concerned to have missed a message. I tried to give you as much information as possible about the date. And no, you'll not find it under my pseudonym zinneken

I'm sad you feel "harshed" by me trying to put things in perspective. I know I can have a pretty explicit pen when putting things in contrast/perspective. Nothing personal though.

ioneja · 28 Aug 2013, 11:45 PM

@ curvefan - I understand - we may just value things a little differently. Having said that, I want to be clear that I'm not trying to justify or defend MyKolab other than their right to set the price as they wish of course -- I have not yet used them, but I will eventually be giving them a try to see how good they are. All I'm saying is that if their marketing claims are true (and I certainly can't vouch for them), then for some people $5-10 per month would be worth it. We all have our priorities and value systems, of course! For me, this is a business expense - but if this were just for personal email, I'd probably agree with you that $5-10 is a little harder to justify when compared to similar services.

@ zinneken - there are some really good comparison threads, although maybe not in the format or direction you may want to take this specific comparison. May I humbly suggest you add to one of those threads or start a new one with the types of details you want to track/compare, and perhaps keep updating post #1 with data. Those are the types of comparison threads that drew me to this forum in the first place and I very much appreciate the things I've learned here.

As for MyKolab's pricing, I really don't have a problem with it, if their claims are true and they can back it up with great customer service. If so, they are offering something that makes sense at that price, IMO. Luxsci's price, for comparison, is even more expensive for the scenario you listed (and actually more than you listed for premium servers and support), and I currently happily pay for Luxsci premium service, and I can personally tell you, it's worth it if you value top-class customer support. Luxsci's customer service and tech support is so good, it's now the gold standard in my view, as good as or better than any Internet service I have ever used. So for me, the premium is worth it. But I totally understand if it may not be worth it to someone else. Now, if MyKolab comes close to Luxsci's customer support, plus the supposed advantages to offshore privacy, then MyKolab has a reasonable price IMO, even if in other areas they don't match up. Again, your personal needs vs someone else's personal needs.

Not to criticize FastMail by comparison, but I also pay for an account with FastMail and while I have no plans to cancel the plan, their customer service is nowhere near as responsive as Luxsci. However, for the price, I don't expect it to be. Their customer service is "good enough" plus I like the guys running it and some very specific features they have. I like FastMail for what FastMail does best, and don't expect them to provide the super-fast customer support that Luxsci does for that price. It would be financially impossible for them to do so.

Each of these services have different strengths and features, and it's really hard to quantify the "value" proposition of them without taking into account your own personal, unique needs. And yours will be different than mine. So for me, paying far more for Luxsci than I pay for FastMail doesn't change the fact that they are both "right" for the domains, purposes and expectations I have for both of them.

digp · 31 Aug 2013, 06:41 PM

"Looking at the local service offering in Switzerland, one could argue that mykolab is in the regular pricings compared to swissmail (iway), DFI, and many others. But, there is also more competitive pricing to be found for local Swiss secure, privacy conscious services. For example as neomailbox."

Not heard of DFI - what do you make of it? Is there a link?
Swissmail uses Horde and last time I checked seemed expensive and not very generous in its offerings.
Neomailbox?? They too are expensive.

Views welome and if anyone is with any of the above providers please post reviews here. Thanks.

digp · 31 Aug 2013, 07:14 PM

"Please note that MyKolab.com in its basic offering is entirely self-supported. However, you can purchase support tickets and then if you have issues with our MyKolab.com account contact us. If you have support tickets left in your contigent, you will hear from our technical team."

digp · 31 Aug 2013, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinneken

thanks for the heads-up! If my calculation is right, a single generic @mykolab.ch email address (so without using your own domain) still comes in at a hefty 54CHF/year. Adding 12/year for using your own domain and adding whatever it is you pay for your domain registration ... For one lonely email address.

Lite on the service but hefty on the money I feel. Compared to similar services, it seems like mykolab cashes in on people's fears for privacy more then delivering an honest service for an honest price.

Just my 2cents.

Have you tried running a business?

What asillyremark.

28 Aug 2013, 12:07 AM	#19
ioneja Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 713	@greve -- please don't be so sensitive and accuse people of trash-talking! You run the risk of people in this forum thinking you might be over-sensitive, which might seep into your product or service. Especially in this forum. What he said was reasonable, and he raised a valid concern about pricing, which is indeed on the higher side. He used the term "I feel" which is code word for OPINION. So please, as a representative of your company, may I humbly and respectfully suggest you focus on his FACTS, not his opinions. And BTW, this forum is the single best forum on email issues I have ever seen, anywhere, ever. If someone actually is trash-talking, which is extremely rare, then let the moderators deal with it. They are even-handed and fair. That's one of the reasons why this forum is so good. --- @zinneken I don't have a problem with what you said, and I certainly didn't think you were a competitor trying to trash-talk. Note that I have not tried MyKolab yet, but I am planning on it soon. Re: their price, it's a free market and they obviously charge what they want. They've obviously calculated that their price works for them, and they're still in business, so clearly someone is paying them those prices. However, you bring up a very important point, that their price is on the high side of email providers. But then again, how high is it really? Since I'm very interested in this topic, here's my math, please correct if I'm wrong: For one "lite" account I'm reading that it is currently $5.41 US per month plus a domain group manager account for $1.12 US per month... so $6.53 US per month, or $78.36 US per year. (Note for the record they do have volume discounts for people who need tons of accounts.) Now, let's compare that to some of their competitors... all which I have paid for in the past or currently pay for except Runbox, which I am still evaluating. Luxsci is a high-end US-based competitor, and if you just go for one email account on their premium servers, with your own domain name, you'll pay about $15.00 per month, or $180 per year! Now, that's very misleading, since you get tons of features (groupware type features too) and can add additional email accounts for $1.00 per month, that use the same storage space, etc... and they have discounts too, non-premium hosting options, etc... but ultimately and technically, for ONE single premium account, it's $180 per year! It compares more closely to MyKolab's standard account, but you get the point. Also keep in mind that Luxsci develops their own software too, so they compare on that side too. FastMail could be brought up in this discussion -- they have 1GB accounts starting at $20 per year, enhanced at $40 per year and premier at $120 per year. They "pay for their own development" and contribute to the OSS movement too. So in many ways they compare. Runbox starts at $20, then $35, $50, and $80. And frankly, if you want to compare to other "pro" services, including the "big companies," then Google Apps for Business is $50 per year, and Office 365 for Business starts at $60 per year and goes way up to their Enterprise E3 account which is $240 per year! So how expensive does MyKolab really look in comparison to these other services? Not that expensive to be honest. Right in line with a more premium, professional offering. So in all fairness, their price seems competitive to that group of services. Of course, dependent on the exact features, etc... let's not get into storage space, etc... there are more variables than storage space here. You just have to obviously decide if the benefits or drawbacks of their whole product offering is worth it to you, personally. Again, I haven't tried MyKolab yet, but I am not put off by their price. Yes, it is on the higher side, so when I try them out, I will DEFINITELY be expecting a higher quality experience and service/support. I will include them in higher-end offerings to decide if I would stick with them. And frankly, bravo to them for stepping in and providing a service that they claim is more secure. I can't vouch for them, but I'm happy to see service providers stepping up and offering more private services! Bravo to them for supporting the OSS movement too. EDIT 2: Removed my "latte" comparison. On second thought, it sounded kind of dumb. Apologies to those who read it. Last edited by ioneja : 28 Aug 2013 at 01:35 AM.

28 Aug 2013, 07:26 PM	#24
zinneken Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 136	@ ioneja Some great points you make! Seeing your comparison (we should have more of those!) I thought I'd shine in on the "lite" aspect of things. My original comments came from a personal observation that the "privacy" marketing was being heavily charged, for a "basic" service most end users actually use. I'm not talking or comparing pro. A single "lite" email address would cost (I round off upwards): Luxsci doesn't seem to offer without domain, 90 per year with domain fastmail is 15 per year without or with a domain runbox is 20 per year without domain, 35 per year with domain tuffmail is 24 per year, same price without or with domain eumx is free per year without domain, 12 per year with domain Polaris is 12 per year without or with domain neomailbox is 50 per year without or with domain mykolab is 64 per year without domain, 77 per year with domain (used CHF-UDSD exchange of today, rounding off to nearest upper whole unit as a credit card would process currency exchange margins anyway) Comparing apples and pears? Personally I don't think so when we're talking a comparison of "lite" end-user services for a single personal email or a family personal email account. Looking internationally, mykolab appears the most expensive "lite" service by a long shot (luxsci can't really be called lite, can it?). Looking at the local service offering in Switzerland, one could argue that mykolab is in the regular pricings compared to swissmail (iway), DFI, and many others. But, there is also more competitive pricing to be found for local Swiss secure, privacy conscious services. For example as neomailbox. I'm sure one could add many other services to the comparison. It is possibly complex doing a full blown comparison, but us being all email junkies, maybe EMD could set up a comparison page? @ mykolab, marketing wise I can see many people going for the "privacy" statement (especially these days), while not realising they're buying a service expensively (for all the reasons you have, it is a free market after all) compared to other offerings. If providing a "lite" service is too costly for you compared to the lite services offered by others, maybe you should only service companies as you seem to have a pretty well established business clientele? Disclosure: I have used fastmail, runbox, tuffmail, eumx, polaris. I am very fond of tuffmail but no longer use it at this very moment, I use eumx, am no longer using and neutral (not in favour or against) runbox and fastmail, and have had bad experiences with polaris where many people have been very happy with them. I have not used the services of the others mentioned in this post. Last edited by zinneken : 28 Aug 2013 at 07:38 PM. Reason: Corrected "fastmail is 20 per year without domain, 40 per year with domain" thanks to petergh!

28 Aug 2013, 11:45 PM	#27
ioneja Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 713	@ curvefan - I understand - we may just value things a little differently. Having said that, I want to be clear that I'm not trying to justify or defend MyKolab other than their right to set the price as they wish of course -- I have not yet used them, but I will eventually be giving them a try to see how good they are. All I'm saying is that if their marketing claims are true (and I certainly can't vouch for them), then for some people $5-10 per month would be worth it. We all have our priorities and value systems, of course! For me, this is a business expense - but if this were just for personal email, I'd probably agree with you that $5-10 is a little harder to justify when compared to similar services. @ zinneken - there are some really good comparison threads, although maybe not in the format or direction you may want to take this specific comparison. May I humbly suggest you add to one of those threads or start a new one with the types of details you want to track/compare, and perhaps keep updating post #1 with data. Those are the types of comparison threads that drew me to this forum in the first place and I very much appreciate the things I've learned here. As for MyKolab's pricing, I really don't have a problem with it, if their claims are true and they can back it up with great customer service. If so, they are offering something that makes sense at that price, IMO. Luxsci's price, for comparison, is even more expensive for the scenario you listed (and actually more than you listed for premium servers and support), and I currently happily pay for Luxsci premium service, and I can personally tell you, it's worth it if you value top-class customer support. Luxsci's customer service and tech support is so good, it's now the gold standard in my view, as good as or better than any Internet service I have ever used. So for me, the premium is worth it. But I totally understand if it may not be worth it to someone else. Now, if MyKolab comes close to Luxsci's customer support, plus the supposed advantages to offshore privacy, then MyKolab has a reasonable price IMO, even if in other areas they don't match up. Again, your personal needs vs someone else's personal needs. Not to criticize FastMail by comparison, but I also pay for an account with FastMail and while I have no plans to cancel the plan, their customer service is nowhere near as responsive as Luxsci. However, for the price, I don't expect it to be. Their customer service is "good enough" plus I like the guys running it and some very specific features they have. I like FastMail for what FastMail does best, and don't expect them to provide the super-fast customer support that Luxsci does for that price. It would be financially impossible for them to do so. Each of these services have different strengths and features, and it's really hard to quantify the "value" proposition of them without taking into account your own personal, unique needs. And yours will be different than mine. So for me, paying far more for Luxsci than I pay for FastMail doesn't change the fact that they are both "right" for the domains, purposes and expectations I have for both of them. Last edited by ioneja : 28 Aug 2013 at 11:52 PM. Reason: clarity

27 Aug 2013, 04:21 AM	#16
zinneken Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 136	thanks for the heads-up! If my calculation is right, a single generic @mykolab.ch email address (so without using your own domain) still comes in at a hefty 54CHF/year. Adding 12/year for using your own domain and adding whatever it is you pay for your domain registration ... For one lonely email address. Lite on the service but hefty on the money I feel. Compared to similar services, it seems like mykolab cashes in on people's fears for privacy more then delivering an honest service for an honest price. Just my 2cents.

27 Aug 2013, 06:59 PM	#17
greve Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 7 Representative of: MyKolab.com	@zinneken I start to wonder. Is this just trying to trash-talk a competitor? The background for the pricing is explained in the FAQ and this article. And yes, sustainability does not come free. Many providers use the software we built, such as Roundcube, to provide price-dumped services. We naturally have a higher overhead because we pay the people who develop it. And we have to deal with the cost of running this on our own hardware, rather than just re-packaging other cloud offers on virtualized infrastructures, which compromises any claim to security.

28 Aug 2013, 06:01 AM	#20
curvefan Essential Contributor Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 498	I'm a little confused. I read comments on this site about people wanting to be able to trust their email provider with their personal email messages. Trust? Really? Do you seriously believe that you can trust any of the providers out there, no matter what they charge? I believe this. If you send any emails from, and to any provider, that a certain three letter agency can and will get access to them if they wish, so what's the point in spending a bunch of money for secure email? I don't get it? Even if you and the recipient use encryption, don't you really think that the encryption can and will be broken by same three letter agency? If we're just talking about company secrets, I would think any of the free or very cheap providers would do just fine. Or, you could chuck it all and just send post cards. Also, I believe some of the wealthier members on here should start a fund so that us less fortunate can benefit from the services of Luxsci and now Mykolab. I won't mention any names, but you wealthy know who you are. Wink wink................................

28 Aug 2013, 06:43 PM	#23
greve Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 7 Representative of: MyKolab.com	@Zinneken It's hard to know much about you, though, isn't it? All I have to go by is the claim there had been an unanswered request for more information which you posted into this forum. As a result we checked the systems. Since Drupal saves all form requests for safekeeping we could find several in the period you said you launched your request, but all of them have been answered. So unless all systems failed for exactly your contact request and your contact request only, something does not add up. Also, the tone of the messages has at times been openly hostile, re-iterating already answered question in a more aggressive tone at times, and when no response in kind was given ended up with a "it's too expensive and provides no value" claim. As far as pricing is concerned, MyKolab.com is in the medium range of comparable offers in Switzerland, and as far as services provided it is in the upper range. No other service can offer the same unique properties which I highlighted in my first responses. So that claim is evidently not based in fact. And I suggest you read that blog entry again. Roundcube 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0... all were based to the largest extent on our work. After the initial author already thought stopping working on it altogether when I last met him. So how you can try to construe that into "us having been saved by Roundcube" is also a rather peculiar viewpoint. In any case. If Open Source, Open Standards, the larger social picture, security and privacy all mean nothing to you, then MyKolab.com is evidently the wrong service for you. Which is fine.

31 Aug 2013, 06:41 PM	#28
digp Master of the @ Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 1,320	"Looking at the local service offering in Switzerland, one could argue that mykolab is in the regular pricings compared to swissmail (iway), DFI, and many others. But, there is also more competitive pricing to be found for local Swiss secure, privacy conscious services. For example as neomailbox." Not heard of DFI - what do you make of it? Is there a link? Swissmail uses Horde and last time I checked seemed expensive and not very generous in its offerings. Neomailbox?? They too are expensive. Views welome and if anyone is with any of the above providers please post reviews here. Thanks.

31 Aug 2013, 07:14 PM	#29
digp Master of the @ Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 1,320	"Please note that MyKolab.com in its basic offering is entirely self-supported. However, you can purchase support tickets and then if you have issues with our MyKolab.com account contact us. If you have support tickets left in your contigent, you will hear from our technical team."