For clients requesting my web services, or anyone in general, I recommend Google Apps for email.
In the past, I used email systems built into the web hosting account (e.g. cPanel and RoundCube or any proprietary control panel and email variant). This works great for many people, but it leaves a lot to be desired. When using this type of email, you need to set hard limits on users’ email accounts, otherwise they will just fill up. Also, when managing hundreds of users, you end up requiring powerful servers and a huge amount of disk space to deal with the incredible load. Not a problem, if you’ve got plenty of money to spare.
About 4 years ago, Google rolled out a system for using email and other collaboration tools for domain names, called Google Apps. There are currently 5 flavors available: Standard, Business, Education, Goverment and Non-Profit. Each edition is tailored to their respective organization types. The main difference is user or resource limits.
The great thing about Apps is, if you’ve used Gmail, email is a breeze. You can use the Gmail-inspired web mail interface, or you can configure POP3 or IMAP access for email clients such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail for Mac, etc. There are a few other tools included in the Google Apps platform, but I’m going to focus on the email system.
