Runbox - Review 2022 - King Noput1947

Kingdom of norway-based Runbox (which begins at $19.95 per twelvemonth for the Micro edition, which gives you one mailbox and one single runbox.com address), is a privacy-minded hosted email service that also touts the fact that it runs largely off green energy. As far as privacy goes, Runbox seems to perform as advertised. However, when compared against the contest, the Runbox service has a means to get in terms of management tools, business features, and user interface (UI) design. For at present, these problems keep it well behind Intermedia Exchange Email and Microsoft Role 365 Business organization Premium, our Editors' Selection winners in our hosted email provider review roundup.

If you make up one's mind to attempt Runbox, then yous'll immediately notice some anemia in terms of initial configuration. Where services such as Rackspace Hosted Exchange offset you off with 100-gigabyte (GB) mailboxes, Runbox keeps users to just 1 GB worth of post storage, though this can scale up as you add users. Additional accounts brainstorm at $seven.95 per mailbox per year. While not specifically citing a service level agreement (SLA), Runbox does claim betwixt 99.99- and 100-percentage of monthly uptime, though the latter sounds optimistic. They too offer email and live text conversation on a 24/7 footing. A gratis 30-day trial is available on their website.

Getting Started

On the plus side, getting started with Runbox is unproblematic. With some basic contact information and a password, you can start using it. Adding your domain to Runbox is one of the easier things to do with the platform. Upwardly to v domains can be registered nether the electronic mail hosting administration page. For those who don't already have a domain, Runbox can likewise register and host your domain name for you lot. Using your own domain does require that you get at to the lowest degree the $34.95-per-yr Runbox Mini edition, however, so it'due south of import to evaluate if that's important to y'all. For all intents and purposes, businesses with domains are taken more seriously, then unless you're a sole proprietor who doesn't practise a pregnant amount of online business organization, this should probably be your default choice.

Unfortunately, while setup is easy, account direction is something of a foreign brute. Additional users are called subaccounts in the context of the service. Calculation and maintaining them, however, is finer the aforementioned as managing users in any other organisation. The only take hold of is that because they are subaccounts, yous tin can't elect multiple administrators, which could put some constraints on your Information technology staff in larger organizations. Yet, aside from this, Runbox'southward administration pages are fairly clear and certainly well-documented.

Runbox maintains well documented configuration pages

Email and Collaboration

Runbox is reminiscent of Google G Suite Concern' Gmail in terms of its minimal appearance and overall navigation style. Composing an email instantly made me realize my pop-upwards blocker was on. That'south a ding because, considering HTML 5'southward capabilities, there's simply no valid reason to require popular-ups in an online web customer. On the bright side, there is an HTML text editor if yous need to add specially formatted text to your emails, and Runbox as well supports drag-and-drop attachments. Just despite these niceties, the UI but felt disjointed: nothing felt or behaved equally though information technology had been cleanly put together and thoroughly tested. Groups and contacts seemed nigh similar an afterthought and, while the email tagging could have been used to great issue, it turned out to be noticeably clunky to apply.

Runbox uses a dated but familiar web client

Given all of the weaknesses of the Runbox spider web customer, most users will want to tie the service to a third-party e-mail client of their own choosing. Fortunately, this is easy to do in one case you become the instructions. A flake of digging gets you procedures for connecting Runbox to Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Microsoft Outlook, though near of those instructions will be through an FAQ. Runbox supports both the POP and IMAP email standards, which makes adding third-political party clients even easier. IMAP, in item, opens the service to for employ across multiple devices, which is more than just a squeamish-to-take for today's business users.

In terms of collaboration tools, Runbox offers a shared file repository accessible via FTP. With plenty try, you lot could create a shared FTP space for collaboration. But considering the capabilities of sophisticated team communication tools such equally Dropbox Business or Microsoft Teams, what Runbox is offering tin can only exist termed "collaboration" in the broadest possible sense. Worse, the web UI to this FTP service is virtually useless, then using it will once more require a third-party FTP client, and that means more unsupported configuration headaches for you lot.

Runbox does support drag and drop attachments

Security and Privacy

Like AtMail, Runbox's spam detection is based on the tertiary-party app SpamAssassin likewise equally a statistical spam filter called DSPAM. These feed off of multiple databases of spam originators that seem well-maintained. The DSPAM component uses self-reported spam as training textile to help improve performance over fourth dimension. In improver, there'south a Cake Sender list and a whitelist that can be used to explicitly deny or allow private users or domains from sending email to your account. Unfortunately, while phishing emails tin and practice get flagged as spam, there is no boosted engineering science in play to baby-sit confronting clicking on links. Runbox customers will need to seek out 3rd-party security software to deliver this level of protection.

On the privacy front end, Runbox starts with a good story reflected mainly in its marketing. The company places extra emphasis on the fact that it operates nether Norwegian jurisdiction, which ways it'south not subject to the typical information mining operations of the known superpowers. It as well ways that personal data must be kept confidential unless access is required by law. Their data middle is secured by a 360-degree boundary fencing with secure access control, a detail that seems intended to evidence Runbox has user privacy and security in mind. The downside, however, is that it doesn't cite any third-party regulating trunk that audits internal processes. So if your business concern operates with the demand to comply with regulations and standards, like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or even HIPAA, you'll probably wind up working with someone else.

Integration

Third-party integration is another weak point for Runbox merely this one seems to exist by blueprint. It doesn't offering a publicly available awarding programming interface (API) but there's a reason for that: If it did, then that would probably wind up alien with the information privacy the principles that are then important to Runbox. That'southward disappointing because it essentially means you can't include the Runbox service into a larger ecosystem, but it'southward not surprising given the company's security opinion. Those that demand to live in a larger web services world will exist better off going with one of the more mainstream options, such as Microsoft Role 365 or Google G Suite Business organisation.

Later using the service, I really want to similar Runbox. The company champions ideas of anti-surveillance and try to place security at the forefront of everything they do. But when I look at Runbox from a business organization Information technology professional person's perspective, the lack of verified regulatory back up, the lack of third-party integration capabilities, and the near full lack of team collaboration tools really identify it at the back of the pack. Couple that with a dated web client and no calendar and this is really a depression-frills, security-conscious email service aimed at alone users rather than fifty-fifty the smallest of business clients.

If Runbox ever builds more than business organization-witting features into its service, then it will be well worth a look to companies for which security is important. But in the meantime, toll-conscious businesses will probably exist better served looking at platforms such as {ZIFFARTICLE id="360749"}}IceWarp Cloud or {ZIFFARTICLE id="359256"}}Zoho Mail as well as the lower pricing tiers of either of our Editors' Option winners mentioned earlier.