Up until recently, I had been using [Proton](https://proton.me) Mail (and Proton’s other products) for all of my needs. They have a flashy suite of applications and services that tightly integrate while preserving user privacy. For example, Proton offers a password manager called Proton Pass which can create email aliases on-the-fly from [SimpleLogin](https://simplelogin.io), a company which they acquired a few years back. Even more recently, they have “teamed up with” (purchased?) [Standard Notes](https://standardnotes.com) to offer an e2ee notes service. All of what Proton does is impressive. Their applications are pretty slick and they have been progressing rapidly recent years.
## The Cost
During my use of Proton’s products, I would pay bi-yearly. This costs around $190 for 24 months of service, which is actually a highly competitive price for what you get. It is a mail service, calendar service, password manager, cloud storage provider, and VPN. If you were to break all of these out into separate services, it would cost more money for the same concepts. Here is how that stacks up to what I currently use:
| Service | Yearly Cost |
| ———— | ———– |
| Proton | $95 |
| ———— | ———– |
| Fastmail | $50 |
| 1Password | $35 |
| Mullvad VPN | $65 |
| iCloud Drive | $120 |
Proton here is listed as $95/yr, which is simply the two-year price divided by 2. The rest of the services are shown at their yearly price rates. As you can see, Proton is less than half the overall cost of the other services combined. In fact, it is closer to three times less.
One caveat about the drive storage, though. Proton Drive under their “Proton Unlimited” plan only comes with 500 gigabytes of storage, whereas iCloud comes with two terabytes. For me, this comparison still works, because I need more than 200 gigs (iClouds next-cheapest plan), but I would be comfortable with 500. Notice that if you were to remove iCloud Drive from this picture entirely, Proton would still be cheaper.
## Feature Comparison
Time to compare Proton’s individual services with the ones listed in the table above. I’ll do my best.
### Mail, Calendar, and Contacts
Proton Mail, Calendar, and Contacts are end-to-end encrypted. This is its chief advantage over competitors such as Fastmail. Note that this does _not_ mean it is e2ee between email senders (this would break how email works and doesn’t make sense), but rather it means that Proton cannot read the contents of your messages. This comes with some downsides, though, such as the _lack of interoperability_. Indeed, Proton is largely a siloed ecosystem by-design. If you want to use their services, you’ll be using either their [desktop applications](https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-desktop-app) or a web browser. There is no other way around this.
#### Proton Mail v.s. Fastmail
Proton Mail specifically is a joy to use. Their integration with SimpleLogin (now folded into Proton Pass) is top-shelf. The desktop app works fine, and they even offer a [bridge](https://proton.me/mail/bridge) helper application so that you can use the email client of your choice (desktop only). I really wish they would expand the bridge to offer calendar and contacts, but Proton seems more inclined to reject interoperability for their own applications.
Fastmail, likewise, is a joy to use. They have a good mobile app which is _basically_ required if you want to send emails using their baked-in email aliasing service (you can do it without their app, but it is a horrible experience). Unlike Proton Mail, you can also forgo using their app entirely and add your Fastmail account to iOS in settings. I do this on my iPhone and the built-in Apple Mail app works great with Fastmail.
Both services offer email aliasing. Proton leverages SimpleLogin which is far more flexible and powerful than the baked-in aliasing Fastmail uses, though both approaches get the job done. I have to give the edge to Proton on email aliasing, though, as I do find myself missing SimpleLogin and its near-endless flexibility.
For example, Proton’s approach to aliasing offers the dynamic generation of aliases with a catch-all. In this workflow, while signing up for a new site, you could type in something like “newsite@mydomain.email” into the email form on the sign-up page and create your account. Once the site sends an email and it hits SimpleLogin, it will dynamically create a newsite@mydomain.email alias for you and land the contents in your inbox. No need to fumble around with an app to create an email alias beforehand. This workflow is unparalleled, and I miss it dearly.
It should also be noted that in Fastmail, their aliasing for “masked emails” (this is what they call it) is limited to a single domain name (yes, really), and you do not get to choose the name of these aliased email addresses. If you want something like target@mydomain.email, too bad. Fastmail will give you some crappy auto-generated name like soft.tree1923@mydomain.email and you just have to deal with it. There are ways around this using their manual email address feature, which inconveniently does not get leveraged by 3rd parties looking to integrate, but that is too much info to put here. Just know that it is not ideal, I’d give it a B-.
#### Proton Calendar v.s. Fastmail
Proton Calendar is not good. The calendar service is bare-bones with almost no features and it does not yet offer an [iPad app](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/11zfag4/proton_calendar_app_for_ipad). Due to the lack of interoperability, you’ll be stuck using their standalone Proton Calendar iOS app or a web browser. Proton calendar exists, that is about the only good thing I can say about it.
Fastmail’s calendar is great. It does everything you’d expect from a modern calendar service and fully interops with the calendar client of your choice on both mobile and desktop. It also allows you to manage any Google calendars you might have right through Fastmail, which is great if you have family members in the Google ecosystem with shared calendars. I can make changes in my Apple Calendar application and have it update a Google calendar _through_ Fastmail. I am never juggling multiple accounts on any of my devices. All is done through Fastmail thanks to integrations like these.
#### Proton Contacts v.s. Fastmail
There is no contacts application or integration for Proton. For those of us that actually use our contacts across multiple devices, this really sucks. Contacts in Proton exist as an afterthought, or maybe more generously, a means to an end that kinda-sorta exists only within the context of emailing people. According to their [support page](https://proton.me/support/proton-contacts-mobile) they are working to make contacts better, but for now it stinks.
Fastmail’s contacts are great. Again, it does everything you’d expect, and you can use the client of your choice on both mobile and desktop.
### Password Manager (Proton Pass v.s. 1Password)
Let’s make this quick. In every way possible, 1Password wins. Proton Pass is decent, but as of writing, it does not support [Safari](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonPass/comments/14m7u1i/comment/jq0e5y0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) which is awful for Mac users. It also does not yet have desktop applications for macOS or Linux. Their website shows “coming soon,” but who knows how long that will take. Proton Pass does have baked in email alias generation through SimpleLogin, but 1Password [supports email alias generation](https://www.fastmail.com/1password/) with Fastmail; so there you go.
### VPN (Proton VPN v.s. Mullvad)
Both offerings here are great. I have used both extensively, and I enjoy both. I will say Mullvad has far better support for Linux than Proton does, and Mullvad also supports IPv6, [unlike Proton VPN](https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/43849329-ipv6-support). Unless those two gaps are dealbreakers for you, Proton VPN is an equal match with Mullvad.
### Cloud Storage (Proton Drive v.s. whatever)
Proton drive is fine. The desktop app on macOS, last I tried it, was quite buggy, but worked pretty consistently after a few updates. For Apple inclined folks, iCloud drive is the better play. You can achieve e2ee in iCloud using [Advanced Data Protection](https://support.apple.com/en-us/108756), so it is not like you are missing out on any ground-breaking concepts. iCloud storage space also comes with the benefit of supporting your iCloud photo library, which again, is e2ee with Advanced Data Protection turned on.
## Summary
Well, there you have it. The overall cost of combining services is nearly 3x the price of Proton, but the experience that you get in return is overall better. I believe this is due to the so-called [UNIX philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy) of “do one thing and do it well.” It costs more to purchase individual services that are hyper-focused on what they do, but the user experience is certainly more rewarding.