Every European email provider reviewed
Hanover, Germany
Founded 2011
Free (1GB) / from about €3/month
Free tier
Best for: Privacy-focused individuals who want affordable end-to-end encryption
Tuta encrypts more of the mailbox than anything else in this category, and charges the least for it. Where most encrypted providers leave metadata in the clear, Tuta encrypts subject lines and the built-in calendar and contacts as well as message bodies. The Revolutionary plan at around €3 per month covers 20GB, unlimited search, multiple calendars, custom domains and aliases, which makes Tuta the cheapest genuine end-to-end encrypted mailbox on the market rather than the cheapest mailbox that claims encryption.
Tuta GmbH is based in Hanover and hosts in Germany, under a data protection framework shaped by the country's own history with state surveillance. Tuta has gone past compliance and challenged German surveillance legislation in court, which is a different signal from a privacy policy.
The clients are open source. The cost of the architecture is compatibility: Tuta supports no IMAP, POP3 or SMTP at all, so its own web, desktop and mobile apps are the only way in, and interoperating with PGP users happens through password-protected messages rather than native PGP.
What Tuta does well
- Encrypts subject lines, calendar and contacts, not just message bodies
- Cheapest genuine end-to-end encryption at around €3/month
- Open source, German company, German hosting
- Has litigated against surveillance legislation rather than only complying
- 1GB free tier, more generous than Proton's
Where Tuta falls short
- No IMAP, POP3 or SMTP — Tuta's own apps only
- No native PGP, so cross-provider encryption uses password-protected messages
- Full-text search across all mail requires a paid plan
- No third-party email client, on any platform
Standout feature. Encrypted subject lines and calendar: Tuta is the only provider here that closes the metadata gap most encrypted mailboxes leave open.
Berlin, Germany
Founded 2009
€1/month flat rate
No free tier; anonymous payment accepted
Best for: Privacy-conscious users who want an anonymous, green mailbox for €1
Posteo is the most single-minded product in this category, and one of the cheapest. One price, €1 per month, one plan, no tiers to reason about, no advertising and no tracking.
Posteo accepts anonymous payment, which means an account can exist without a payment trail tying it to a person — a genuinely rare property, and the reason Posteo appears on shortlists that otherwise contain only encrypted providers, and the thing that still sets it apart from mail.de's PureMail tier a cent cheaper. IMAP and SMTP work with any client, PGP is supported, and a calendar and contacts come with the account.
Posteo e.K. has operated from Berlin since 2009 and runs on 100% green energy in German data centres, with sustainability treated as a founding principle rather than a marketing line.
The constraint is deliberate and absolute: Posteo does not support custom domains, so every account lives on posteo.de or a regional variant. Base storage is 2GB with more available cheaply. The web interface is functional rather than modern and there is no mobile app, because Posteo expects you to use a standard mail client over IMAP.
What Posteo does well
- €1/month flat, with no tiers or upsells
- Anonymous payment accepted, so an account need not be tied to an identity
- 100% green energy in German data centres
- IMAP, SMTP and PGP work with any client
- No advertising, no tracking, no content scanning
Where Posteo falls short
- No custom domains at all — every address is on posteo.de
- 2GB base storage is modest
- Web interface is dated and there is no mobile app
- No zero-access encryption; Posteo holds mail it could be compelled to produce
Standout feature. Anonymous payment: Posteo is the only provider in this category where the account itself can exist without a payment record connecting it to a named person.
Berlin, Germany
Founded 2014
From about €1/month (Light) to €9/month (Business)
30-day trial
Best for: Users who want a full productivity suite with standard email protocols
Mailbox.org replaces Google Workspace rather than Gmail, and does it without abandoning standard protocols. Alongside the mailbox, Mailbox.org includes an office suite, calendar, contacts, cloud storage and video conferencing, all reachable over IMAP and SMTP from any client rather than locked into a proprietary app. PGP encryption is supported, including an encrypted mailbox option, so the security is available without being mandatory in the way Tuta's is.
Mailbox.org is operated by Heinlein Support GmbH in Berlin, a company with deep roots in the German mail-server community, and hosts in green-energy-powered German data centres. That places it under German data protection law with intra-EEA processing rather than an adequacy decision. Pricing runs from around €1 per month for the Light plan to €9 for Business, and a 30-day trial covers evaluation. The Light plan is genuinely light on storage, and video conferencing sits on the highest tier.
What Mailbox.org does well
- Office suite, storage, calendar and video conferencing alongside the mailbox
- Full IMAP and SMTP support with any client
- PGP encryption including an encrypted mailbox option
- German company, German green-energy data centres, intra-EEA processing
- Entry plan from around €1/month
Where Mailbox.org falls short
- Web interface less polished than Proton Mail or Gmail
- Light plan storage is very limited
- Video conferencing only on the highest tier
- PGP and external client setup have a real learning curve
Standout feature. A Workspace-scale suite over plain IMAP: Mailbox.org is the only provider here that offers office, storage and conferencing without asking you to give up your own mail client.
Geneva, Switzerland
Founded 2014
Free (500MB) / from about €4.99/month
Free tier
Best for: Privacy-conscious individuals and businesses leaving Gmail
Proton Mail is the most complete privacy proposition in this category because the privacy is architectural rather than contractual.
Proton Mail applies zero-access encryption to data at rest: mail arriving from a non-Proton sender, which cannot be end-to-end encrypted in transit, is encrypted with your public key the moment it reaches Proton's servers. Only you hold the private key. The content mining that Gmail performs for advertising and model training is not forbidden at Proton by policy — it is technically impossible, which is a materially stronger claim.
Proton AG is based in Geneva and operates data centres in Switzerland and Germany. Switzerland sits outside the EU and outside the Five, Nine and Fourteen Eyes arrangements, so a request for user data requires a Swiss court order — and even then the contents are unreadable.
Proton's clients are open source and independently audited. Beyond mail, the account covers Proton Calendar, Proton Drive and Proton VPN on paid plans, which makes it an ecosystem rather than a mailbox. The free plan gives 500MB and one address; paid plans start around €4.99 per month.
What Proton Mail does well
- Zero-access encryption makes reading your mail technically impossible for Proton
- Swiss jurisdiction, outside the EU and the Eyes alliances
- Open-source clients with published independent audits
- Calendar, Drive and VPN in the same account
- Direct Gmail import including folders and labels
Where Proton Mail falls short
- IMAP only through Proton Mail Bridge, and not on mobile
- Free tier is 500MB against Gmail's 15GB
- Search runs locally, so it is slower and less complete than server-side search
- Swiss adequacy decision rather than intra-EEA processing
Standout feature. Zero-access encryption on inbound mail: Proton Mail encrypts messages from outside senders on arrival, so even mail that was never encrypted in transit is unreadable to Proton once it lands.
The Hague, Netherlands
Founded 2014
From €5/month billed annually
Free trial, no free tier
Best for: Privacy-conscious users who want easy PGP and unlimited aliases
StartMail solves the problem that makes leaving Gmail painful: your address ends up everywhere. StartMail offers unlimited aliases, so every service gets its own address and the one that starts receiving spam is deleted rather than filtered.
Combined with custom domain support and full IMAP and SMTP access, that makes StartMail the strongest compartmentalisation tool in this category. PGP encryption is built into the interface rather than left as an exercise, which is what makes it usable by people who would never configure a key manually.
StartMail is operated by Startpage B.V. in The Hague — the company behind the Startpage private search engine — and hosts in the Netherlands, which means EU establishment and intra-EEA processing.
Pricing is €5 per month billed annually for 10GB, unlimited aliases, custom domains and every encryption feature, and there is deliberately no free tier: every user is a paying customer, which aligns the company with its users rather than with an advertiser. StartMail is not open source, so its implementation cannot be independently audited by the community.
What StartMail does well
- Unlimited aliases, so every service can get a disposable address
- PGP built into the interface rather than left to the user
- Custom domains plus full IMAP and SMTP
- Dutch company, EU jurisdiction, intra-EEA processing
- No free tier, so the business model is subscriptions and nothing else
Where StartMail falls short
- Not open source, so the implementation cannot be independently verified
- 10GB storage is restrictive for a large archive
- No free tier to test with before paying
- No zero-access encryption; StartMail holds mail it could be compelled to produce
Standout feature. Unlimited aliases: StartMail is the only provider here where you never have to give a real address to a service again, which is what actually keeps a new mailbox clean.
Brussels, Belgium
Founded 1999
Free (500MB) / from about €2.50/month
Free tier
Best for: Users wanting secure email with an integrated productivity suite
Mailfence has been doing this longer than almost anyone, and the product shows the accumulated scope.
Alongside OpenPGP end-to-end encryption, Mailfence includes digital signatures — which prove who sent a message rather than only hiding its contents — plus calendar, contacts, documents and shared group features. Password-protected messages cover correspondents who do not use PGP, and IMAP, SMTP and POP support means any client works. Free tier at 500MB, paid plans from around €2.50 per month with 5GB, a custom domain and 10 aliases.
Mailfence is operated by ContactOffice Group SA from Belgium and hosts in Belgium, which places it inside the EU with intra-EEA processing. The company has been running privacy-focused collaboration since 1999, a quarter century of continuity in a category where several competitors are much younger. Mailfence is not open source, and the interface is functional rather than polished — the trade for a feature set broader than most providers at this price.
What Mailfence does well
- OpenPGP encryption plus digital signatures for sender verification
- Calendar, contacts, documents and group features included
- IMAP, SMTP and POP support with any client
- Belgian company, EU jurisdiction, Belgian data centres
- Operating since 1999, with a free tier and €2.50 entry pricing
Where Mailfence falls short
- Not open source
- Interface is functional rather than modern
- No zero-access encryption; PGP protects only what you encrypt
- Free tier at 500MB is for evaluation only
Standout feature. Digital signatures alongside encryption: Mailfence is the only provider here that lets a recipient verify who actually sent a message, not just that nobody else could read it.
Oslo, Norway
Founded 1999
From €19.95/year
30-day trial
Best for: Environmentally conscious users who want Norwegian jurisdiction
Runbox is the sustainability answer in this category, and it documents the claim rather than asserting it. Runbox runs its servers entirely on renewable Norwegian hydroelectric power, and extends the commitment to infrastructure efficiency and responsible hardware use. The feature set is generous for the price: 100 aliases, custom domains, PGP support, calendar and migration tooling, from €19.95 per year for the Micro account. Runbox 7, the modern webmail, is open source.
Runbox Solutions AS is based in Oslo and hosts in Norway. Norway is in the EEA, so the GDPR applies in full, and Norwegian constitutional law protects privacy explicitly; Runbox responds only to valid Norwegian court orders and publishes information about the requests it receives.
Unlike the United States or the United Kingdom, Norway has no mechanism for secret orders or national security letters. The limitation to weigh is that Runbox has no built-in end-to-end encryption, so Runbox can technically access mail — Norwegian law is the protection, not mathematics.
What Runbox does well
- 100% renewable hydroelectric power, documented rather than claimed
- 100 aliases and custom domains from a low yearly price
- Norwegian jurisdiction with no secret orders or national security letters
- Runbox 7 webmail is open source, with published transparency reporting
- Migration tooling for moving an existing archive in
Where Runbox falls short
- No built-in end-to-end encryption; Runbox can technically read stored mail
- Interface still trails Gmail and Fastmail on polish
- Micro account storage of 1GB is small
- Norwegian, so EEA rather than EU for procurement rules that distinguish them
Standout feature. Hydroelectric hosting: Runbox is the only provider in this category whose entire infrastructure runs on renewable power it can point to by source.
Zurich, Switzerland
Founded 2010
From CHF 4.41/month
Trial available
Best for: Teams and individuals replacing Google Workspace entirely
Kolab Now is the fullest Google Workspace replacement in this category. Email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, files and video conferencing run on Kolab Groupware, an open-source stack, with standard protocols for compatibility and ActiveSync so mobile devices sync natively rather than through a proprietary app. PGP encryption is supported as an option. Migration tooling handles moving off Google Workspace, which is the step most teams stall on.
Kolab Systems AG is based in Zurich and hosts in Switzerland, which sits outside the EU and outside the intelligence-sharing alliances and requires a Swiss court order for any government access; Switzerland's adequacy decision means an EU customer needs no additional transfer mechanism.
Kolab Now does not sell data or show advertising, and runs on subscriptions from CHF 4.41 per month for the Individual plan with 2GB. Storage is modest against Google's, and the interface lacks the polish and the depth of real-time collaborative editing that a team leaving Google Docs will notice.
What Kolab Now does well
- Email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, files and video conferencing in one suite
- Open-source Kolab Groupware foundation
- ActiveSync for native mobile sync plus standard protocols
- Swiss jurisdiction, outside the EU and the Eyes alliances
- Migration tooling for leaving Google Workspace
Where Kolab Now falls short
- Storage is modest compared with Google Workspace
- Real-time collaborative editing is well behind Google Docs
- Interface is functional rather than polished
- Swiss adequacy decision rather than intra-EEA processing
Standout feature. ActiveSync on an open-source groupware stack: Kolab Now is the only provider here where a phone syncs mail, calendar and contacts natively without a proprietary client.
Schachen, Switzerland
Founded 2014
Micro $19/year (5GB) / Mini $90/year or $9/month (30GB) / Standard $290/year or $29/month (100GB) / Maxi $990/year or $99/month (500GB); unlimited domains and mailboxes on every plan
Free trial, no credit card required
Best for: Developers and small teams hosting many domains
Migadu is built for a different customer than most of this category: someone who wants to run email for several domains without paying per mailbox. Every plan, from the $19-a-year Micro tier up to $990-a-year Maxi, allows unlimited domains and unlimited mailboxes, with the tiers only distinguishing storage and message volume. That flips the usual pricing model, where StartMail or Mailfence charge per alias tier, into a flat fee that suits agencies and self-hosters managing many addresses at once.
Migadu-Mail GmbH is a small, bootstrapped Swiss company registered in Schachen, and the founders describe the business as self-funded and profitable without outside investment, a different story from a venture-backed freemium provider. The service speaks full SMTP, IMAP4 and POP3 alongside its own webmail, and supports SIEVE scripting for mail filtering, a feature aimed squarely at technical users rather than a general consumer inbox.
What Migadu does not offer is the privacy architecture this category is otherwise built around: there is no zero-access encryption and no stated PGP integration, and Migadu does not publish which country its data centres sit in beyond noting international security certifications. It is the strongest option here for someone managing a portfolio of domains, and a weaker fit for someone whose priority is Proton- or Tuta-level message confidentiality.
What Migadu does well
- Unlimited domains and mailboxes on every plan, from $19/year
- Flat fee regardless of how many addresses you run
- Full IMAP4, POP3 and SMTP support
- SIEVE scripting for custom mail filtering
- Bootstrapped and self-funded, no outside investors
Where Migadu falls short
- No zero-access encryption or stated PGP support
- Data centre country not disclosed beyond "international certifications"
- Aimed at technical users, not a simplified consumer inbox
- No bundled calendar/office suite like Mailbox.org or Kolab Now
Standout feature. One flat fee, unlimited domains and mailboxes: Migadu prices for how much email infrastructure you run, not how many people use it.
Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, France
Founded 2019
Free: 1GB email + 500MB storage, 5 aliases, ads / Premium: from €1.50/month, 20GB email + 5GB storage, 100 aliases, no ads; storage expandable to 500GB via Premium+
Free tier
Best for: French users who want an ethical, ad-free freemium mailbox
Mailo positions itself as a "100% European" alternative built around handing control of data back to users, rather than a specific encryption claim. The free tier gives 1GB of mail and 500MB of file storage with five aliases and advertising; the Premium tier removes the ads and expands that to 20GB of mail, 5GB of storage and 100 aliases from about €1.50 a month, with Premium+ tiers reaching 500GB for people who need more room.
Mailo SAS is a French company registered with the Créteil trade register, and the service is hosted in France. IMAP and POP access work with Thunderbird, Outlook and mobile clients, and Mailo documents the setup for each in its own help centre, which makes migration from Gmail a standard IMAP job rather than a proprietary export.
The trade-off is that Mailo does not offer PGP or any stronger encryption model; it is a conventional hosted mailbox with a European jurisdiction and an ethical positioning, closer to Posteo's simplicity than to StartMail's encryption tooling. For someone who wants a cheap, ad-free, French-hosted inbox with generous aliases, it undercuts most of this list on price; for someone who wants encryption built in, it is not that product.
What Mailo does well
- Ad-free Premium tier from about €1.50/month
- Up to 100 aliases on Premium, 500GB on Premium+
- French company, hosted in France
- Standard IMAP and POP access with documented client setup
- Free tier available to test before paying
Where Mailo falls short
- No PGP or zero-access encryption on offer
- Free tier carries advertising and only 1GB
- Less international name recognition than Posteo or Mailfence
- Interface and apps are less polished than Proton Mail's
Standout feature. Mailo undercuts almost everything else on this list on price while staying a fully French, ad-free mailbox once you're on Premium.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded 2016
From €3.25/month (Standard, billed annually, includes a domain, e.g. a .nl domain at €13/year), plus €10/year per extra mailbox; unlimited aliases
30-day money-back guarantee, no free tier
Best for: Users who want an ad-free, no-scan Dutch mailbox
Soverin's whole pitch is a plain promise: nobody reads your mail and nobody sells it.
The Standard plan bundles a mailbox with a custom domain from about €3.25 a month, includes unlimited aliases on that domain, and syncs calendars and contacts over CalDAV and CardDAV rather than a proprietary app. Soverin states plainly that it never scans messages beyond automated spam filtering and strips the sender's IP address from outgoing headers, a smaller but concrete privacy step most mainstream providers skip.
Soverin B.V. is based in Amsterdam and processes data only in Dutch data centres, which places it under Dutch and EU law without the adequacy-decision question that applies to the Swiss providers here. There is no free tier to test with; instead Soverin offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and billing is annual only, so evaluating it means committing to a year up front rather than a monthly experiment.
The gap against StartMail and the two encrypted providers is PGP: Soverin does not build in native OpenPGP the way StartMail does, so anyone who wants encrypted correspondence has to layer a browser extension on top themselves. What Soverin trades for that is a lower price and a simpler product, with one plan, one price and no upsell ladder.
What Soverin does well
- Unlimited aliases on your own custom domain
- States plainly that it never scans email content
- Dutch data centres only, under EU law
- CalDAV/CardDAV sync works with any calendar app
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Where Soverin falls short
- No native PGP; encryption needs a separate browser extension
- No free tier, annual billing only
- Fewer bundled apps than Mailbox.org or Kolab Now
- Smaller company, with less published security auditing than Proton Mail
Standout feature. Soverin's written promise not to scan mail content, backed by Dutch-only data residency, is close to its whole product in one sentence.
Nordhastedt, Germany
FreeMailZero: free, 500MB, no ads, no support / FreeMail: free, 1GB, ads / PureMail: €0.99/month, 2.5GB / PlusMail: €2.49/month, 5GB / ProMail: €3.99/month, 20GB / PowerMail: €6.49/month, from 40GB
Free tier
Best for: Budget users who still want PGP and S/MIME
mail.de squeezes a full tier ladder into a small price range: a completely free, ad-free FreeMailZero account with 500MB, a free ad-supported FreeMail with 1GB, then four paid tiers from €0.99 to €6.49 a month that scale storage from 2.5GB up to an effectively unlimited 40GB-plus. That is a finer-grained ladder than most competitors here offer, letting a user pick almost exactly the storage and ad tolerance they want.
mail.de GmbH is registered in Nordhastedt, Germany, and states that every tier, including the free ones, supports PGP and S/MIME encryption rather than reserving it for paying customers, unusual generosity for a budget freemail provider. The higher paid tiers add a small environmental angle: mail.de says it plants one to three trees a year per subscription, depending on the plan.
Next to Posteo and Mailfence, mail.de is less well known internationally and publishes less detail about its data centres than Posteo's explicit green-energy claims. It does not offer zero-access encryption, so PGP here works the same way it does at Mailfence: opt-in protection for the messages you choose to encrypt, not a guarantee that mail.de itself cannot read the rest.
What mail.de does well
- PGP and S/MIME available even on free tiers
- Six tiers from free to effectively unlimited storage
- Paid tiers plant one to three trees a year
- German company and hosting
- Entry paid tier at just €0.99/month
Where mail.de falls short
- No zero-access encryption; PGP is opt-in only
- Less international recognition than Posteo or Mailfence
- Data centre details are less specific than Posteo's
- Free tiers are capped at 500MB–1GB
Standout feature. mail.de builds PGP and S/MIME into every tier, including the free ones, where most budget providers reserve encryption for paying customers.
Montabaur, Germany
Free: 65GB email storage, up to 10 aliases, ads / ProMail: €3.99/month (billed six-monthly), 5GB, ad-free / TopMail: €6.49/month (billed six-monthly), 10GB, ad-free; 1-month free trial on paid plans
1-month free trial on paid plans
Best for: Anyone who wants Gmail-sized free storage from a German company
GMX is the largest mainstream provider in this directory by user base, and its free tier reflects that scale: 65GB of storage, up to 10 aliases, spam filtering and antivirus scanning, all at no cost with advertising. For anyone whose main objection to Gmail is the company rather than the price, GMX is the closest like-for-like swap here, with storage well past what any of the specialist paid providers offer for free.
GMX is operated by 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH, part of United Internet, headquartered in Montabaur, Germany, which places it under German and EU law. An ad-free upgrade, ProMail at €3.99 a month or TopMail at €6.49, removes the advertising and adds more storage, with a one-month free trial to test it before paying.
GMX makes no privacy claims beyond general European data protection standards, offers no PGP or zero-access encryption, and runs on advertising by default, which puts it at the opposite end of this category from Tuta or Proton Mail. It belongs on this list as a legitimate, independently German alternative to Gmail's storage and price point, not as a privacy upgrade over it.
What GMX does well
- 65GB of free storage, more than any paid provider here
- Up to 10 aliases on the free tier
- Built-in spam filter and antivirus scanning
- Ad-free upgrade with a one-month free trial
- Large, established German operator (1&1 Mail & Media)
Where GMX falls short
- No PGP or zero-access encryption
- Free tier carries advertising
- No stated commitment against scanning mail content
- Privacy positioning is far weaker than the rest of this category
Standout feature. GMX offers more free storage than any other provider in this directory, but none of the privacy commitments that define the rest of the category.
Paris, France
Founded 2020
Free: 1GB / paid Murena Workspace storage plans from €1.99/month (20GB) up to €24.99/month (2TB), also billed yearly
Free tier
Best for: People leaving the Google ecosystem entirely, not just Gmail
Murena's email is one piece of a wider de-Googled ecosystem built around /e/OS, the privacy-focused Android alternative, so the mailbox comes bundled with cloud storage, calendar, contacts and file sync rather than standing alone. A free account gives 1GB, and paid Murena Workspace storage runs from about €1.99 a month for 20GB up to €24.99 for 2TB, all usable from any device without needing a Murena phone.
Murena Retail SAS is a French company based in Paris, and Murena states that account data is kept within the EU on servers powered by renewable energy. The mailbox supports IMAP and SMTP over standard ports, so it works in any mail client, and Murena documents Mailvelope integration for people who want PGP encryption in the browser, a similar opt-in model to Mailfence's.
The honest comparison is with Kolab Now rather than the encrypted-mail specialists: both replace a Workspace-style bundle rather than a bare inbox, and neither claims zero-access encryption. Murena's differentiator is the wider ecosystem tie to a de-Googled phone, which matters if that is part of the goal, and matters less if the mailbox is all that is wanted.
What Murena does well
- Bundled cloud storage, calendar and contacts, not just mail
- IMAP and SMTP support on standard ports, works in any client
- EU data storage on renewable-powered servers
- Mailvelope integration for browser-based PGP
- Usable standalone, without needing a Murena/e/OS phone
Where Murena falls short
- No zero-access encryption
- Exact data centre country not published beyond "within the EU"
- Free tier storage is a modest 1GB
- Best value is tied to buying into the wider /e/OS ecosystem
Standout feature. Murena is the only provider here that pairs a mailbox with an entire de-Googled phone ecosystem, for people leaving more than Gmail.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded 2015
Free, donation-funded: 1GB mailbox (64MB attachment limit); extra storage available in exchange for a donation
Free, donation-funded; no paid tier
Best for: Anyone who wants a free, nonprofit, donation-run mailbox
Disroot is the only nonprofit in this category: a project founded in Amsterdam in 2015 and run by volunteers, funded entirely by donations rather than subscriptions or advertising. The free account gives 1GB of mail with a 64MB attachment limit, and Disroot explicitly states it carries no ads, no tracking and no profiling — the same promise Posteo and Mailfence make, but here without any payment required at all.
The legal entity behind it, Stichting Disroot.org, is a registered Dutch foundation with a Dutch Chamber of Commerce number, and Disroot states that data is processed in a data centre in the Netherlands under the GDPR. IMAP, SMTP and POP all work over standard encrypted ports, so any mail client can connect, and extra mailbox storage is available in exchange for a further donation rather than a fixed subscription price.
The honest limitation is that Disroot is volunteer-run rather than a funded company, so support response times and uptime are not comparable to a paid provider like Posteo or Mailbox.org, and 1GB is tight next to GMX's or Migadu's free storage. For someone who wants a genuinely free, ethically run mailbox and does not need a service-level guarantee, it is the only option in this category built that way.
What Disroot does well
- Completely free, funded by donations, not advertising
- Registered Dutch foundation, Netherlands-only data processing
- No ads, no tracking, no profiling, by explicit policy
- Full IMAP, SMTP and POP support for any mail client
- Calendar and contacts included alongside the mailbox
Where Disroot falls short
- Volunteer-run, with no paid support tier or SLA
- 1GB free storage, tight next to GMX or Migadu
- No PGP or zero-access encryption
- No company behind it to hold accountable the way a subscription does
Standout feature. Disroot is the only mailbox in this directory that is entirely free and nonprofit, run by volunteers on donations rather than any subscription.
Büdelsdorf, Germany
freeMail: free, 1GB email + 2GB cloud, ads / proMail: €3.49/month, 7GB email + 50GB cloud, ad-free / premiumMail: €5.99/month, 12GB email + 100GB cloud, ad-free
Free tier
Best for: Mainstream free German webmail with a security label
freenet Mail is a mainstream ISP freemail product rather than a privacy specialist, and it reads that way: the free tier gives 1GB of mail plus 2GB of bundled cloud storage with advertising, and two ad-free paid tiers, proMail at €3.49 a month and premiumMail at €5.99, raise that to 7GB and 12GB of mail with 50GB and 100GB of cloud storage respectively.
The operator, freenet DLS GmbH, is a subsidiary of freenet AG, a publicly traded German telecoms group headquartered in Büdelsdorf, and the service is a founding member of "E-Mail made in Germany", a German industry standard for encrypted transport and data handling between participating providers. That is a transport-security label, not an end-to-end encryption claim, and it says nothing about what freenet itself can read.
Next to Posteo, Mailfence or Tuta, freenet Mail is not trying to compete on privacy architecture; it is closer to GMX in this list, a large-scale German consumer freemail service with a bigger free tier than most and none of the zero-access or PGP options the specialist providers build around. It earns a place here mainly as a legitimate, German-jurisdiction free alternative to Gmail rather than a privacy upgrade.
What freenet Mail does well
- 1GB free mail plus 2GB free cloud storage
- Ad-free proMail and premiumMail tiers from €3.49/month
- Founding member of "E-Mail made in Germany"
- Backed by freenet AG, a large, established German telecom
- No existing freenet contract required to sign up
Where freenet Mail falls short
- No PGP or zero-access encryption offered
- Advertising on the free tier
- Positioned as mainstream freemail, not a privacy product
- Less transparent about server locations than Posteo
Standout feature. "E-Mail made in Germany" membership gives freenet Mail a transport-security label that most free consumer webmail in this category does not bother to earn.
