Information as of 5 October 2026. You can use Posteo today; you cannot yet use privymail.eu. Later changes by Posteo are not reflected.
This page sets Posteo beside privymail.eu. It is written by a competitor and is not a rating. What is said here about Posteo comes from Posteo's own website and help pages; we have not tested the service technically. The references are listed under "Sources". The comparison shows all services side by side.
In short
Posteo is a mailbox without a domain of your own: with IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, and, by its own account, ad-free and funded solely by its users. Posteo does not offer custom domains and gives its privacy model as the reason. privymail.eu makes your own domain its core and has a free plan alongside.
What Posteo states about itself
According to Posteo:
- Since 2009, paid for by its users. Posteo was established in 2009, by its own account. According to Posteo, the service receives no funding from advertising and is 100% ad-free; its only source of funds is the fees paid by its users.
- Sign-up without personal details. According to Posteo, you do not have to enter any personal information such as your name or address during sign-up.
- Common mail apps, calendar and address book. IMAP, POP3 and SMTP are supported. According to Posteo, calendar entries and contacts can be synchronised with most smartphones, tablets and PCs over CalDAV and CardDAV.
- Encryption you switch on. With crypto mail storage, according to Posteo, the encrypted data is no longer readable by the provider either; it is decrypted only at the moment of access. According to Posteo, crypto mail storage is no substitute for regular end-to-end encryption set up by the sender. According to Posteo, it underwent an external security audit; Posteo's German page dates the audit to November 2014. According to Posteo, calendar and address book can be encrypted as well, and for newly arriving mail Posteo names inbound encryption with S/MIME or OpenPGP.
- Encrypted servers, certified transport. According to Posteo, the hard disks of all Posteo servers are fully encrypted. On its German pages, Posteo also refers to a certification under the BSI technical guideline "Sicherer E-Mail-Transport" (secure email transport).
- Green electricity and open source. By its own account, Posteo is 100% operated with power from Green Planet Energy and exclusively uses open source software and free protocols.
What privymail.eu does differently
- Your own domain as the core. Posteo explains why it does without custom domains: a domain has to be registered to the name and address of a person, while Posteo, by its own account, does not collect any user information such as names or addresses. privymail.eu takes the other route: custom domains are available from the Pro plan, and Domain Autopilot generates the necessary DNS records and keeps checking them. More under Your own domain.
- A free plan. By its own account, Posteo is not free and offers no trial account; if you cancel within the first month, any credit already paid is refunded in full, according to Posteo. With privymail.eu, the Free plan comes with 1 GB of storage, without ads and without tracking. All plans are listed under Pricing.
- A key per account, with nothing to switch on. In the default Compatible mode, every account has its own key pair, with which mail is stored encrypted. The server processes plain text, however, while you are logged in; Compatible is therefore not zero access.
- Sealed as a choice per folder. Folders in Sealed mode are encrypted with OpenPGP. Decryption happens on your device, and we cannot read the content. An ordinary mail app does not open Sealed folders directly. The limits of both modes are on the Security page.
The features side by side
| Feature | Posteo (by its own account) | privymail.eu (planned) |
|---|---|---|
| Where the provider is based | Germany (Posteo e.K., Berlin) | Germany (patchletter UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Gelsenkirchen; operator of this website) |
| Access with common mail apps (IMAP, SMTP) | Native: IMAP, POP3 and SMTP | Native (IMAP, SMTP) in the default Compatible mode, in all paid plans |
| Your own domain | No | From the Pro plan |
| Stored mail the provider cannot read (by its own account) | Option ("crypto mail storage"). According to Posteo, the encrypted data is then no longer readable by the provider either; it is decrypted only at the moment of access. According to Posteo, it is no substitute for regular end-to-end encryption. | Option per folder ("Sealed", OpenPGP). In the default ("Compatible"), mail is stored encrypted, but the server processes plain text while you are logged in. |
| Calendar and contacts | Calendar and address book; synchronisation over CalDAV and CardDAV, according to Posteo. Both can be encrypted, according to Posteo. | Over CalDAV and CardDAV, in all paid plans |
| Free plan | No. By its own account, Posteo offers no trial account either; if you cancel within the first month, any credit already paid is refunded in full, according to Posteo. | Free plan with 1 GB of storage, without ads and without tracking |
The middle column reproduces what Posteo writes about itself; "Native" is our word for a provider naming IMAP or POP3 for mail apps. How mail apps work with privymail.eu is described under Mail apps and open standards.
Who each one suits
Posteo suits you if you need a mailbox today: you can use Posteo, and you cannot yet use privymail.eu. It also suits you if you do not need a domain of your own and want to sign up without giving your name or address.
privymail.eu suits you if your address has to run under your own domain or if a free plan matters to you. The roadmap shows how far the service is.
Sources
What is said about Posteo is based on the following pages by Posteo. The addresses are given as text because this website does not link to other sites. Retrieved on 5 October 2026.
https://posteo.de/en/site/legal_notice
https://posteo.de/en/site/features
https://posteo.de/en/help/how-do-i-set-up-posteo-in-an-email-client-pop3-imap-and-smtp
https://posteo.de/en/site/faq
https://posteo.de/en/site/encryption
https://posteo.de/site/leistungen
https://posteo.de/site/verschluesselung
Reporting errors
If anything on this page is wrong or out of date, please write to us. How to reach us is on the Contact page.
Trademarks
The names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. There is no connection between those companies and privymail.eu.