Forward Email vs Fastmail: privacy compared
Forward Email and Fastmail are both rated in email providers against the same 21 public criteria. Forward Email does better on open source, no trackers or telemetry, independent audit, security headers, end-to-end encryption, encrypted mailbox storage, sign up without personal data, SMTP submission, mail transport security and Sender Rewriting Scheme. Fastmail does better on transparency report. Forward Email is based in the United States (Five Eyes); Fastmail is based in Australia (Five Eyes).
| Criterion | Forward Email Our pick | Fastmail |
|---|---|---|
| Grade | Grade A A (93/100) | Grade D D (50/100) |
| Jurisdiction | United States Five Eyes | Australia Five Eyes |
| Open source Is all the source code needed to run the product public? | Yes source | No |
| No trackers or telemetry Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default? | Partial source | No source |
| No ads or data sales Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data? | Yes source | Yes source |
| Independent audit Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years? | Yes source | No |
| Transparency report Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds? | Partial source | Yes source |
| Tells users about requests Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it? | Yes source | Yes source |
| TLS configuration Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better? | Yes source | Yes source |
| Security headers Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better? | Yes source | Partial source |
| Modern web standards Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test? | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| End-to-end encryption Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents? | Yes source | No source |
| Encrypted mailbox storage Is stored mail encrypted with a key the provider does not hold? | Yes source | Partial source |
| Open protocols Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software? | Yes source | Yes source |
| Custom domains Can mail be sent and received with your own domain? | Yes source | Yes source |
| Sign up without personal data Can an account be created without a phone number or another email address? | Yes source | Partial source |
| Email security standards Does the mail domain score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl email test? | Not tested yet | Not tested yet |
| IMAP support Does the IMAP server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 993 and advertise IMAP4rev1 or IMAP4rev2 with IDLE push? | Yes | Yes |
| POP3 support Does the POP3 server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 995 and answer CAPA with UIDL? | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP submission Does mail submission work over implicit TLS on port 465 with SMTPUTF8, 8BITMIME, PIPELINING and AUTH? | Yes | Partial |
| Mail transport security Does the mail domain enforce encrypted, authenticated delivery with MTA-STS, DANE, DNSSEC, TLS-RPT and an enforced DMARC policy? | Yes | No |
| Sender Rewriting Scheme Is the envelope sender rewritten with SRS when mail is forwarded, so forwarded mail keeps passing SPF? | Yes source | Partial source |
| ARC sealing Does the provider validate and add ARC (RFC 8617) signatures, so authentication results survive forwarding? | Yes source | Yes source |
Summaries
Forward Email. Forward Email scores 93 out of 100 (grade A) on the email providers criteria. It meets 17 of 19 criteria: open source, no ads or data sales, independent audit, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, security headers, end-to-end encryption, encrypted mailbox storage, open protocols, custom domains, sign up without personal data, IMAP support, POP3 support, SMTP submission, mail transport security, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. It partly meets no trackers or telemetry and transparency report. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+ and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade A+.
Fastmail. Fastmail scores 50 out of 100 (grade D) on the email providers criteria. It meets 9 of 19 criteria: no ads or data sales, transparency report, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, open protocols, custom domains, IMAP support, POP3 support and ARC sealing. It partly meets security headers, encrypted mailbox storage, sign up without personal data, SMTP submission and Sender Rewriting Scheme. It does not meet open source, no trackers or telemetry, independent audit, end-to-end encryption and mail transport security. It is based in Australia: Five Eyes member; CLOUD Act data access agreement with the US. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+ and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade B+.