Fastmail to Zoho and back
When I switched from Google Suite to Fastmail, I began liking email again. Fastmail's interface is fast and simple. The updates are consistent and it has almost all of the features I would need. It's cheaper than Gsuite. The only glaring negative was the lack of integrations, but I can live without those.
However although cheaper, FastMail is still $80 for two users while Zoho mail is $30. So for the past few weeks I switched to Zoho and have been trying it out.
It didn’t last. We are back to FastMail. Here is why:
- Major Issue is Zoho UX. They have serious readability issues for their inbox. Fonts make it difficult to distinguish read and unread, and the entire inbox appears cluttered. There are no options to change font sizes either, so everything kind of blends in.
- Unified inbox for external accounts is missing. I love that in FastMail I can fetch emails from other providers and they all come to the same inbox. Zoho separates these into separate accounts. I’d have to set up forwarding rules for everything to go to the same place which adds friction.
- Wildcard addresses. FastMail handles this fantastically. I can create a new “from” address right in the compose screen. In Zoho I had to go to the admin console to create a new one. So if I signed up for a service with “[email protected]”, although I could receive that email I’d have to create it in the admin console in order to respond with it. FastMail wins hands down here.
In the end, we know cheaper is not always better. But different, is not always better either. Zoho has a lot going for it but it created more friction to my workflow and it just is not suited for my needs.