The problem
I was tired of the monopolies we live with today, where we have to play by their rules while they profit from selling our data and compromising our security.
I looked for alternatives, but the moment you want anything decent, you have to pay. So I thought: why not build my own service? I got to work to have my own email, on my own terms, with no limits.
The decisions
The first thing was figuring out which mail server to use. I read about Mailcow, but Stalwart was starting to gain real traction, and it’s written in Rust, which makes it much lighter. I bet on the newer project and went with Stalwart.
Then I realized I needed a “viewer” for the emails. I found Bulwark, built specifically to work alongside Stalwart. No question there.
Next came the landing page, where users could see what the service was about and sign up. I had to learn how to use Stalwart’s API, which runs on JMAP. That’s how I got users to create their email account from the landing page and log straight into Bulwark to start using it.
Everything runs in Docker containers, with a daily script that backs up all the data. If something breaks, all it takes is moving the data over and spinning up the container again in no more than 5 minutes.
The result
Right now Nivis is up and running. I use it myself, along with a few friends, I’m not after fame or profit. I want to push back against the world and show that you can build things without exploiting your users. Here the product is free, and you are not the product.
Nivis