{"slug": "amazon-ses", "name": "Amazon SES", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "Amazon Web Services' cloud email service for sending and receiving email at scale.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 9, "warners": 1, "score": 3.832, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2026-01-07", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "HN commenters use it as a cheap outbound relay with good deliverability, often paired with a self-hosted mail server to avoid IP reputation problems, and some moved their personal email to it so they could retire an internet-facing server.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Self-hosting relay", "Deliverability"], "caveat": "Migration intent", "short_quote": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "icon": true, "domain": "alexlance.blog", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/ses/", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Amazon SES", "AWS SES"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters use it as a cheap outbound relay with good deliverability,", "cites": [{"id": 773733888, "item_id": 48358368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358368", "by": "fixie", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "excerpt": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What email API providers to use for pet project?"}]}, {"text": " often paired with a self-hosted mail server to avoid IP reputation problems,", "cites": [{"id": 769338898, "item_id": 48083681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083681", "by": "morpheuskafka", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have it use something like AWS SES to send externally", "excerpt": "> I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return. Well, besides for the fact that the author's got suspended for no reason, WorkMail is being shut down March 2027 anyway. I recommend checking out Purelymail for a budget, batteries included option. Another option is to run your own server but have it use something like AWS SES to send ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending outbound email", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 776057664, "item_id": 48503604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503604", "by": "OJFord", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit", "excerpt": "Tonnes? I don't like to say 'just search for it', but seriously you'll get more out of that than a response here. Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit, but there's loads of OSS if you want to self-host the actual receiving too. (Sending probably requires more time looking into getting a trustworthy static IP than software. Again, I bypass that by using SES, but that's technically only self-hosting storage & client", "context": "self-hosts storage and client", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 804679649, "item_id": 50292478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292478", "by": "romanmandryk", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...)", "excerpt": "I use Stalwart as mail server but for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...). Most have sufficient free tier for one or few users.", "context": "self-hosts email", "use_case": "outgoing email relay", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do people self host email and maintain deliverability?"}]}, {"text": " and some moved their personal email to it so they could retire an internet-facing server.", "cites": [{"id": 744569872, "item_id": 46535617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535617", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about.", "excerpt": "For many years I used an EC2 server for my personal email (running Debian and Postfix) but I recently decided it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about. This article documents the setup for AWS SES to handle incoming/outgoing mail delivery.", "context": "personal email setup", "use_case": "incoming/outgoing mail delivery", "switched_from": "Postfix on EC2", "story": "Replacing my mail server with AWS SES"}, {"id": 747998096, "item_id": 46749881, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749881", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES", "excerpt": "I used to self-host email, it was mostly all initial setup and then it just worked for years. Eventually I got a bit wary about the security side of an internet-accessible box and decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES. Wrote it up here: https://alexlance.blog/email.html", "context": "previously self-hosted email", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "self-hosted email", "story": "Bye Bye Gmail"}]}, {"text": " Complaints are few and scattered: one user hopes to migrate away from it,", "cites": [{"id": 748218056, "item_id": 46763628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46763628", "by": "freetonik", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I hope I can migrate away from Amazon SES", "excerpt": "I was also suspicious of Cloudflare as a full platform, but now it's one of my favorite ways to develop and scale web applications. I have implemented Minifeed[1] (and Exotext [2]) completely in Cloudflare Workers (except for the full-text search, for which I use a self-hosted instance of Typesense; though in my testing, Cloudflare's D1 database does come with full-text search enabled - it's SQLite compatible, and it", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "You can just port things to Cloudflare Workers"}]}, {"text": " and another notes there is no European equivalent.", "cites": [{"id": 749419088, "item_id": 46838693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46838693", "by": "fnoef", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering.", "excerpt": "I keep seeing over and over how Europe should be self sufficient. I\u2019d be happy for Europe to be self sufficient. But the truth is that Europe does not have the infrastructure and offering to be self sufficient. Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering. Apart from scaleway, there are no competitions for big cloud providers. There are no alternative to office suites. And I\u2019m not even tal", "context": "", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "", "story": "Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Self-hosting relay", "summary": "Commenters run their own mail server or inbox and use SES only to send outgoing mail.", "quotes": [{"id": 769338898, "item_id": 48083681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083681", "by": "morpheuskafka", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have it use something like AWS SES to send externally", "excerpt": "> I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return. Well, besides for the fact that the author's got suspended for no reason, WorkMail is being shut down March 2027 anyway. I recommend checking out Purelymail for a budget, batteries included option. Another option is to run your own server but have it use something like AWS SES to send ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending outbound email", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 804679649, "item_id": 50292478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292478", "by": "romanmandryk", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...)", "excerpt": "I use Stalwart as mail server but for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...). Most have sufficient free tier for one or few users.", "context": "self-hosts email", "use_case": "outgoing email relay", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do people self host email and maintain deliverability?"}, {"id": 768516001, "item_id": 48032250, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032250", "by": "faangguyindia", "date": "2026-05-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am using SES as the sender.", "excerpt": "One of the well-kept secrets about Cloudflare is: You can have a zero-cost inbox. Earlier, I was using Zoho and FastMail (however you dice it, it will use some money, $12 a year for Zoho and $7 per month for FastMail? Even then, perhaps you only get one mailbox and some aliases) but with this method, I get unlimited aliases, domains, and mailboxes: Now, I wrote a script which captures the email and saves attachments ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, buy domains, and deploy"}]}, {"label": "Deliverability", "summary": "SES handles the hard part of sending, sparing users from building IP reputation themselves.", "quotes": [{"id": 773733888, "item_id": 48358368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358368", "by": "fixie", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "excerpt": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What email API providers to use for pet project?"}, {"id": 776057664, "item_id": 48503604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503604", "by": "OJFord", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit", "excerpt": "Tonnes? I don't like to say 'just search for it', but seriously you'll get more out of that than a response here. Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit, but there's loads of OSS if you want to self-host the actual receiving too. (Sending probably requires more time looking into getting a trustworthy static IP than software. Again, I bypass that by using SES, but that's technically only self-hosting storage & client", "context": "self-hosts storage and client", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 769338898, "item_id": 48083681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083681", "by": "morpheuskafka", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have it use something like AWS SES to send externally", "excerpt": "> I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return. Well, besides for the fact that the author's got suspended for no reason, WorkMail is being shut down March 2027 anyway. I recommend checking out Purelymail for a budget, batteries included option. Another option is to run your own server but have it use something like AWS SES to send ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending outbound email", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}]}, {"label": "Less server upkeep", "summary": "Users moved personal email to SES to stop maintaining an internet-facing mail server.", "quotes": [{"id": 744569872, "item_id": 46535617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535617", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about.", "excerpt": "For many years I used an EC2 server for my personal email (running Debian and Postfix) but I recently decided it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about. This article documents the setup for AWS SES to handle incoming/outgoing mail delivery.", "context": "personal email setup", "use_case": "incoming/outgoing mail delivery", "switched_from": "Postfix on EC2", "story": "Replacing my mail server with AWS SES"}, {"id": 747998096, "item_id": 46749881, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749881", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES", "excerpt": "I used to self-host email, it was mostly all initial setup and then it just worked for years. Eventually I got a bit wary about the security side of an internet-accessible box and decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES. Wrote it up here: https://alexlance.blog/email.html", "context": "previously self-hosted email", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "self-hosted email", "story": "Bye Bye Gmail"}]}, {"label": "Low cost", "summary": "One commenter cites a price of $0.10 per 1,000 emails.", "quotes": [{"id": 773733888, "item_id": 48358368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358368", "by": "fixie", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "excerpt": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What email API providers to use for pet project?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Migration intent", "summary": "One commenter says they hope to migrate away from SES, without giving a reason in the excerpt.", "quotes": [{"id": 748218056, "item_id": 46763628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46763628", "by": "freetonik", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I hope I can migrate away from Amazon SES", "excerpt": "I was also suspicious of Cloudflare as a full platform, but now it's one of my favorite ways to develop and scale web applications. I have implemented Minifeed[1] (and Exotext [2]) completely in Cloudflare Workers (except for the full-text search, for which I use a self-hosted instance of Typesense; though in my testing, Cloudflare's D1 database does come with full-text search enabled - it's SQLite compatible, and it", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "You can just port things to Cloudflare Workers"}]}, {"label": "No EU alternative", "summary": "One commenter notes there is no European equivalent to SES.", "quotes": [{"id": 749419088, "item_id": 46838693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46838693", "by": "fnoef", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering.", "excerpt": "I keep seeing over and over how Europe should be self sufficient. I\u2019d be happy for Europe to be self sufficient. But the truth is that Europe does not have the infrastructure and offering to be self sufficient. Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering. Apart from scaleway, there are no competitions for big cloud providers. There are no alternative to office suites. And I\u2019m not even tal", "context": "", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "", "story": "Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native"}]}, {"label": "AWS account risk", "summary": "One thread mentions an AWS user whose account was suspended for no apparent reason.", "quotes": [{"id": 769338898, "item_id": 48083681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083681", "by": "morpheuskafka", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have it use something like AWS SES to send externally", "excerpt": "> I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return. Well, besides for the fact that the author's got suspended for no reason, WorkMail is being shut down March 2027 anyway. I recommend checking out Purelymail for a budget, batteries included option. Another option is to run your own server but have it use something like AWS SES to send ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending outbound email", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}]}], "who": [{"by": "romanmandryk", "context": "self-hosts email", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292478", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "OJFord", "context": "self-hosts storage and client", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503604", "date": "2026-06-12"}, {"by": "joostdecock", "context": "runs an open source project", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47774755", "date": "2026-04-14"}, {"by": "alance", "context": "previously self-hosted email", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749881", "date": "2026-01-24"}], "tags": ["for self-hosted mail servers", "for personal email"], "use_cases": ["sending email", "email sending", "outgoing email relay", "sending outbound email", "email delivery", "incoming/outgoing mail delivery"], "compared": [{"slug": "scaleway", "name": "Scaleway", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "cloudflare-workers", "name": "Cloudflare Workers", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "cloudflare-r2", "name": "Cloudflare R2", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50218062", "title": "Ask HN: How do people self host email and maintain deliverability?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502321", "title": "The Future of Email", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357995", "title": "Ask HN: What email API providers to use for pet project?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48073201", "title": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48031684", "title": "Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, buy domains, and deploy", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47738962", "title": "Troubleshooting Email Delivery to Microsoft Users", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804679649, "item_id": 50292478, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292478", "by": "romanmandryk", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...)", "excerpt": "I use Stalwart as mail server but for outgoing email I set it up with sending service (like AWS SES, Sendgrid, Brevo...). Most have sufficient free tier for one or few users.", "context": "self-hosts email", "use_case": "outgoing email relay", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do people self host email and maintain deliverability?"}, {"id": 776057664, "item_id": 48503604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503604", "by": "OJFord", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit", "excerpt": "Tonnes? I don't like to say 'just search for it', but seriously you'll get more out of that than a response here. Personally I use SES for the 'hard' bit, but there's loads of OSS if you want to self-host the actual receiving too. (Sending probably requires more time looking into getting a trustworthy static IP than software. Again, I bypass that by using SES, but that's technically only self-hosting storage & client", "context": "self-hosts storage and client", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Email"}, {"id": 773733888, "item_id": 48358368, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358368", "by": "fixie", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "excerpt": "Cheap ($0.10/1000 emails) + good deliverability = Amazon SES.", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What email API providers to use for pet project?"}, {"id": 769338898, "item_id": 48083681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083681", "by": "morpheuskafka", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have it use something like AWS SES to send externally", "excerpt": "> I am reminded why I left AWS and how I need to finish the job, get off AWS Workmail, move my domains from Route53 and never return. Well, besides for the fact that the author's got suspended for no reason, WorkMail is being shut down March 2027 anyway. I recommend checking out Purelymail for a budget, batteries included option. Another option is to run your own server but have it use something like AWS SES to send ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending outbound email", "switched_from": "", "story": "I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left"}, {"id": 768516001, "item_id": 48032250, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032250", "by": "faangguyindia", "date": "2026-05-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am using SES as the sender.", "excerpt": "One of the well-kept secrets about Cloudflare is: You can have a zero-cost inbox. Earlier, I was using Zoho and FastMail (however you dice it, it will use some money, $12 a year for Zoho and $7 per month for FastMail? Even then, perhaps you only get one mailbox and some aliases) but with this method, I get unlimited aliases, domains, and mailboxes: Now, I wrote a script which captures the email and saves attachments ", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, buy domains, and deploy"}, {"id": 764396081, "item_id": 47774755, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47774755", "by": "joostdecock", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Yet Microsoft did not block us because the sender IP was AWS.", "excerpt": "Plenty of advice here, which I'm certain is well intended, but it feels like we're victim blaming here. Things like \"you cannot mix marketing and transactional email\" are good advice, but they do nothing if you're using different subdomains but the same infrastructure (IP address) to send them out. Microsoft is simply trying to squeeze smaller operators out of the market. I run an open source project, we send out tra", "context": "runs an open source project", "use_case": "email delivery", "switched_from": "", "story": "Troubleshooting Email Delivery to Microsoft Users"}, {"id": 749419088, "item_id": 46838693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46838693", "by": "fnoef", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering.", "excerpt": "I keep seeing over and over how Europe should be self sufficient. I\u2019d be happy for Europe to be self sufficient. But the truth is that Europe does not have the infrastructure and offering to be self sufficient. Even looking at basic things like AWS SES, there is no European offering. Apart from scaleway, there are no competitions for big cloud providers. There are no alternative to office suites. And I\u2019m not even tal", "context": "", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "", "story": "Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native"}, {"id": 748218056, "item_id": 46763628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46763628", "by": "freetonik", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I hope I can migrate away from Amazon SES", "excerpt": "I was also suspicious of Cloudflare as a full platform, but now it's one of my favorite ways to develop and scale web applications. I have implemented Minifeed[1] (and Exotext [2]) completely in Cloudflare Workers (except for the full-text search, for which I use a self-hosted instance of Typesense; though in my testing, Cloudflare's D1 database does come with full-text search enabled - it's SQLite compatible, and it", "context": "", "use_case": "sending email", "switched_from": "", "story": "You can just port things to Cloudflare Workers"}, {"id": 747998096, "item_id": 46749881, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749881", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES", "excerpt": "I used to self-host email, it was mostly all initial setup and then it just worked for years. Eventually I got a bit wary about the security side of an internet-accessible box and decided to move the whole thing over to AWS SES. Wrote it up here: https://alexlance.blog/email.html", "context": "previously self-hosted email", "use_case": "email sending", "switched_from": "self-hosted email", "story": "Bye Bye Gmail"}, {"id": 744569872, "item_id": 46535617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535617", "by": "alance", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about.", "excerpt": "For many years I used an EC2 server for my personal email (running Debian and Postfix) but I recently decided it might be better to have one less internet-facing server to worry about. This article documents the setup for AWS SES to handle incoming/outgoing mail delivery.", "context": "personal email setup", "use_case": "incoming/outgoing mail delivery", "switched_from": "Postfix on EC2", "story": "Replacing my mail server with AWS SES"}]}