this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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I need to run my own email server for some of my domains, because the providers that I usually use don't support them (they use Unicode characters, and not everyone supports that yet). I have a small VPS that I run a few Docker containers on, and I'm wanting to try and run an email server on it as well. What containers are good for a low-hassle email setup? I don't need a mailbox webui (ex: roundcube), but it would be nice to have a UI for management. I do need multi-domain support, however.

EDIT: For anyone wondering, I decided to go with Mailu. Stalwart didn't play will with internationalized domains (although it was the only server to support EAI/SMTPUTF8), and Mailcow would have been a bit more difficult for me to change to bind mounts and reconfigure Docker networking with.

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[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 points 5 months ago

To be honest it's mostly FUD. Self host email is perfectly doable provided that:

  • you don't use your home IP
  • you do DNS records correctly
  • you do DKIM & DMARC correctly
  • you don't send spam

What happened to me over the years was having the subnet my ip was is being associated to spammers, and that was a problem. It took several iterations with blacklists and my provider to get it sorted. That's why I recommend using a reputable service provider that take care of spammers in a timely manner.