What is Proton Mail used for?

Proton Mail is an encrypted email service from Proton, with a calendar, contacts, custom domains and apps for web, mobile and desktop. It is a good fit for private personal email, business email on a custom domain and moving off Gmail.

Yes. Proton Mail has a free plan. A free plan with 1 GB of storage is always offered. Mail Plus (15 GB) and Proton Unlimited (500 GB with VPN, Pass and Drive) are paid; their prices are not shown in the page text.

Is Proton Mail open source?

No. Proton Mail is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Proton Mail include Forward Email, Tuta and docker-mailserver.

What are some alternatives to Proton Mail?

Proton Mail competes with Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and Fastmail. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Proton Mail alternatives.

Proton Mail: features, pricing and alternatives

About Proton Mail

Proton Mail is an encrypted email service run by Proton, a company based in Switzerland. It is designed for people and organizations that want their messages protected from third-party access, and the vendor says the service is covered by Swiss privacy law. Accounts can be created for free.

The service is available on the web, on iOS and Android, and as desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux. A separate add-on called Bridge lets people read their mailbox from a desktop email client. Proton also provides a calendar, contacts, appointment scheduling and custom email domain support, and it publishes guides for switching from Gmail, Fastmail and Tuta or, for businesses, from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

Proton Mail is a hosted commercial service with a free tier and paid personal and business plans. It belongs to a wider Proton suite that includes a VPN, cloud storage, a password manager and an AI assistant. It is cloud-only, so it cannot be self-hosted.

Key features

End-to-end and zero-access encrypted email
Web, mobile and desktop apps
Bridge add-on for desktop email clients
Integrated calendar and contacts
Custom email domain support
Appointment scheduling
Business plans with team calendar

Good fit for

→Private personal email
→Business email on a custom domain
→Moving off Gmail

Tags: encrypted-email; email; privacy; secure-email; custom-domain; calendar; proton

Proton Mail: questions and answers

What is Proton Mail used for?: Proton Mail is an encrypted email service from Proton, with a calendar, contacts, custom domains and apps for web, mobile and desktop. It is a good fit for private personal email, business email on a custom domain and moving off Gmail.
Is Proton Mail free?: Yes. Proton Mail has a free plan. A free plan with 1 GB of storage is always offered. Mail Plus (15 GB) and Proton Unlimited (500 GB with VPN, Pass and Drive) are paid; their prices are not shown in the page text.
Is Proton Mail open source?: No. Proton Mail is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Proton Mail include Forward Email, Tuta and docker-mailserver.
What are some alternatives to Proton Mail?: Proton Mail competes with Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and Fastmail. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Proton Mail alternatives.