I too have been using MAIB running on a DO VPS for about 2-1/2 years now.
It's a bit of a learning curve to get it up and running and then deal with being blocked by some of the bigger email service providers like AOL, Hotmail & Yahoo, but once you've gone through those hoops it's really much better than outsourcing it.
I'm running my mail server on a $20 a month DO VPS and have about 25 email accounts, 30 email aliases, and around 15 domain names being handled by it.
The built-in DNS server has really been a plus for me. I use the MAIB IP address first on my home and office routers DNS configurations so I don't have to wait for new domain names or changes to DNS records to propagate to test my changes and additions.
Downtime hasn't been a issue for me. DO has been pretty great at keeping things running on their end and the MAIB users forum has been there for me when I needed help debugging an issue.
DO specifically states that running a mail server on their platform is not recommended. This is because it has been abused by spammers and that is why some email providers block IP addresses coming from DO.
My experience is that you have to contact those providers that block you and go through the process of what's needed to get cleared on each of them. That can take some time so it's not a seamless or quick and easy alternative but once you've done that it's a much better way to handle both email chores and users and DNS records for all of your domain names.
It's a bit of a learning curve to get it up and running and then deal with being blocked by some of the bigger email service providers like AOL, Hotmail & Yahoo, but once you've gone through those hoops it's really much better than outsourcing it.
I'm running my mail server on a $20 a month DO VPS and have about 25 email accounts, 30 email aliases, and around 15 domain names being handled by it.
The built-in DNS server has really been a plus for me. I use the MAIB IP address first on my home and office routers DNS configurations so I don't have to wait for new domain names or changes to DNS records to propagate to test my changes and additions.
Downtime hasn't been a issue for me. DO has been pretty great at keeping things running on their end and the MAIB users forum has been there for me when I needed help debugging an issue.
DO specifically states that running a mail server on their platform is not recommended. This is because it has been abused by spammers and that is why some email providers block IP addresses coming from DO.
My experience is that you have to contact those providers that block you and go through the process of what's needed to get cleared on each of them. That can take some time so it's not a seamless or quick and easy alternative but once you've done that it's a much better way to handle both email chores and users and DNS records for all of your domain names.