I am thinking to migrate from a shared hosting (I have a few websites, some of them with WordPress) to a 2GB RAM droplet, but I am concerned about having to create a mail server.

Any opinion about that?

Thanks! :)

Get an account on mailgun or sendgrid. I assume AWS has a comparable service, but I'm sure their hazy, shady, elusive pricing puts it well over the cost of the other two. Configure a mail server for local delivery, or for dovecot for imap/pop3, and plug in your values for the aforementioned SMTP service you choose.

Operating and securing an SMTP server is a MISERABLE ordeal, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Pay for SMTP as a service. It's cheap, and absolutely worth whatever you pay.

OMG! I had no idea that kind of service exist. I have a few users and I would need about 10 accounts or more that are almost never used, but needs to be there.

I will surely do that. I will learn how to create different accounts and domains on postfix / dovecot and use a SMTP server as these ones.

Thank you SO much, @bahua!

2gb sounds a bit lean for 'some WordPress installations'

@brunofontes trust me it is not worth the struggle and money hosting your own mail server. There are better free alternatives for mailboxes. Try zoho.com. They are great. You only need control over your DNS.

For server generated mails I use sendgrid, but there are other good alternatives.

Just don't host your own mail server.

@Wombat at least go with some integrated, maintained solution, like mailcow. Brings all the self-hosted perks together with good usability and stability. I setup a docker vm just for mailcow, it's really worth it

@Kimmax They have a very low traffic a use just a few plugins, so I believe it should work fine. But I really do not have this kind of experience yet, that's one if the reasons I want to migrate. :)

@Wombat @Kimmax Thanks! I will take a look at them.

I knew zoho, but it is paid, isn't it? As I'm in Rio, the cost in dollar becomes relatively high here, so I am trying to find a cheaper solution.

Thanks!

@brunofontes zoho offers free mail service for the first domain. You can have multiple accounts.

@Wombat oh, let me take a look at it!

@bahua luck me and thanks to you that I didn't tried to create the SMTP server. I am having a hard time to setup the postfix / dovecot / mysql pop3 server.

But I am learning a lot!

Thanks again, everyone!

Just a feedback on this: I migrated everything:

2 WordPress blogs
1 laravel website
1 octoberCms site
1 website made from scratch with php/mysql / Vanilla JS
And created my email server just to receive emails.

It is using almost no resources of my 2GB RAM droplet from DigitalOcean, as these websites has almost no access. 30% of RAM usage.

But after this great experience I am going back to the shared host. Believe or not, websites were slower on the droplet than on the shared host. It was a really good experience that made me like this server side even more.