Mailman, phpList, normal emails

#1

I am planning to move a website (which includes Mailman and phpList) from a shared server to Digital Ocean, to be faster.

I was looking at Mailgun for the Mailman and phpList emails, then MIAB for normal emails (to and from me personally) but wondered - could I use MIAB for it all? I would still put MIAB on its own droplet, on a box. subdomain of its own domain.

From reading the forums I get the impression that MIAB is designed primarily for the “normal” emails, and that using phpList might be simple enough but perhaps not Mailman.

Thanks.

#2

Absolutely.

Yes, you would not want to run Mailman on the same server …

If this is a WP website, you would configure a SMTP plug-in. If not, you would configure sendmail/postfix as a ‘satellite’ install and relay the mails to the MiaB server which is much more reliable than just sending with sendmail - however if you do send from the other server using sendmail be certain that the SPF record reflects this properly.

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#3

Thanks for your reply.

If I were to begin with a reputable IP address from Digital Ocean, and keep it that way by only sending email to interested subscribers, then do you think MaiB could be as good as Mailgun for me?

I probably send about 20k phpList emails per month to 5k subscribers, and a similar amount on Mailman among a few hundred participants. Does this sound OK?

By normal email I just meant personal email using Roundcube or whatever. It’s not a Wordpress site, but I do use the php mail function on the existing shared server for some bits and pieces so your advice may prove helpful.

#4

I do not think that such a thing exists quite honestly. Digital Ocean leads the market in cheap VPS and spammers. Many network ranges are simply sent directly to spam boxes by some providers (looking at you MS).

I have to be honest in that anything is possible, but you are facing an uphill battle. Warming up IP’s is an artform.

#5

This has been reported many places starting around when DO launched. I have been using Vultr for several years now with zero reputation issues and the only questions I’ve seen across various forums regarding Vultr and mail is some people, for whatever reason, have to submit a support ticket to open inbound mail ports.

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#6

Let’s say you had the choice between Vultr (cost savings and pleasure of running it yourself) and Mailgun (expensive but they are experts in this dark art) - which would you choose for phpList/Mailman? Assume (for now) that you are not an expert and are drawn to MiaB partly because of its lack of configurability…

#7

Managing mailing lists or list servers is not something I’ve done before. I believe some of the key features people use include customizing every single link for tracking purposes, built-in un-sub features, double opt-in support, and probably other stuff I’m not aware of.

There are open-source tools created for this purpose, at least some of which are listed at Awesome-Selfhosted.

However, I’m not aware that Mailgun can replace list servers, such as GNU Mailman (or Majordomo).

If you do not need your list mails to be sent out in high volume super fast (I’ve tested https new sessions on $5 server at 60-100/second, not sure how that translates to mail), I would choose Vultr, and even go to a higher plan depending on the cost difference of using a provider such as Mailgun. However, I am a person who goes through conf options carefully and would just jump in to learn mailing list and list server packages.

Note that I would also contact Vultr support to see if they have any issues with a server that sends out mailing lists. I suspect that as long as the lists are clean with double opt in and unsub links at the bottom, they won’t have any issues with it. I’ve read through their TOU and most if it I found very reasonable given they are in the VPS business.

#8

Thanks for your detailed reply. I’ll look into all this.

I would plan to keep using the existing software (including Mailman) but send the email using Mailgun, MiaB or whatever else. I’m at the early stages of working out what’s possible.

#9

Have you considered AWS SES? They would be worth checking into.

Also, would you be able/willing to rate limit your outbound to 300 per hour? If I am reading correctly the phpList has about 5k subsribers, so would take about 13-16 hours to send to the entire list, and the other list has a few hundred subscribers so it could be knocked out at one time. If so, contact me via PM for a low cost, very effective, high inbound rate commercial option that I have available. I am a strong supporter of MiaB, but unfortunately it is not always the right tool for every situation.

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#10

Thanks. I’ll look into this.

I think phpList sends in batches of 1000 and gets through 5000 in about 2 hours at the minute. If I can do this on a shared server at no extra cost I’d be reluctant to change without a good reason - but there might be a reason, for instance deliverability.

#11

Exactly the reason to consider.

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#12

Hey Alento, just joined in here today, but have been off and on reading the info about MiaB for the past month.

I’d be interested in chatting with you or even having a call and I’d be happy to pay you for your time.

Looking to set something like MiaB up. But more so in the use case of a mailing list. Got couple thousand emails on an email list, all opted in. But looking to message them from something other than a standard Email Provider, i.e. mailchimp, converkit, etc.

Would like to create my own if it’s even possible.

Thought I’d reply here since I’m not sure how to message you, but I appreciate your time reading this. Thank you! I’ll be monitoring this as well, so feel free to reply back, if you’re interested.

#13

Hi, I’ll send you a PM.