4 ms·

this is Helm - check us out at thehelm.com

Mandatum 5y ago
See I see this and it's $349 for the hardware plus $99/year. At that point, I might as well just go with a paid ProtonMail or similar solution. My expectations for self hosted isn't to have annual or monthly fees.
- gsreenivas 5y ago
  This is comparing apples and oranges. If you want to self-host email, you need a trustworthy static IP address with reverse DNS. It's considerably more expensive to get this from an ISP. Our annual fee also includes storage for offsite backups. You don't get the same privacy assurances using Protonmail as you do with self-hosting either. For example, Protonmail is privy to the content of all outbound email messages in the clear unless you are communicating with the recipient using E2EE. From a cost perspective, Helm V2 starts at $199 for 256GB of storage. First year costs, including subscription work out to $298. With Protonmail, their entry level plan with added storage at the same price buys you an inbox with about 28GB, a small fraction of what you would get with Helm storage-wise, not to mention we don't limit users, email addresses, domains, etc.
patrec 5y ago
You clearly have the upsell part, but where is the "and win over the enthusiast crowd by making it possible to host your own alternatives to those services with a little technical know-how." part? I and probably many others would be OK with paying for the upsell part, if it's an optional convenience, but nothing I saw on your site indicates it is, or that "own your data" is in any meaningful way true. How do I own my data if any use of it requires me running stuff on your proprietary box, subscribing to your proprietary service?
- gsreenivas 5y ago
  If you store data on a hard drive you purchased from Best Buy, do you own that data? It's a proprietary box also... Data from Helm is accessible using IMAP, SMTP, CardDAV, CalDAV, WebDAV on the local network (without requiring our service). You own the device, you own the data. There is a standards-based way of accessing that data just as there is with the hard drive from Best Buy.
  - patrec 5y ago
    > If you store data on a hard drive you purchased from Best Buy, do you own that data? I can plug the Best Buy harddrive into almost any computer/SAN I want to and utilize for the purpose I bought for without any lock in. Using the hard drive for my data requires very little trust in Best Buy's good intentions at the time of purchase and zero trust in the continued existence, technical competence or good intentions beyond that -- it is very unlikely that best buy will find a way to snoop on my data even if they wanted to. Everything will continue to work fully as intended until mechanical failure sets in. Feels like ownership to me. In your case I rent some box from you which will lose almost all its intended function the moment your company goes bust or I stop paying you an annual fee. Furthermore it seems I am completely at the mercy of your original and continued good intentions as in addition to using your lock-in for a big price hike later you presumably can also snoop on my data. As far as I can tell there is no really substantial trust differentiator to protonmail. I have to trust them when they claim they won't read my email and are competent enough to keep things secure and I have to trust you (and continue to trust you as long as I want to use the device) that you will encrypt my data and not exfiltrate any of it (or the private key), and furthermore that you run your servers securely enough that no third party will. But what is to stop it? The box is running closed source software that you can remotely update anytime you feel like it, right? I have physical access, but since I don't control the software, what use is that? Maybe I didn't understand something right, but so far this does not feel like ownership to me. It sounds more like the worst of all worlds: the lock-in and lack of ownership of a proprietary cloud-based subscription service with the added hassle, inconvenience, downtime and costs of babysitting (and supplying electricity to) a cloud server for you, the provider. > Data from Helm is accessible using IMAP, SMTP, CardDAV, CalDAV, WebDAV on the local network (without requiring our service). In what ways is that better than running an IMAP client on my laptop and using it to send data via protonmail, using my own domain, and keeping offline copies of everything (with a periodic upload to backblaze or some other e2e encrypted backup solution)? That seems to offer about the same control over my data, but is cheaper, easier, more convenient, has higher redundancy/uptime and if anything less lock-in. It also doesn't require an additional device that has no use beyond adding an additional failure point and cost center that's my responsibility. > There is a standards-based way of accessing that data just as there is with the hard drive from Best Buy. Accessing the data is not enough because what you are selling me is not an overpriced and unergonomic hard drive. You are selling me the ability to send, receive and store email (and likely more). Don't get me wrong, I kind of like the idea of buying a physical box and a subscription service to self host stuff in a way that gives me better control over my data for an acceptable amount of hassle. But that really requires some amount of openness/auditability and interoperability that currently appears to be absent.
candiddevmike 5y ago
Just sent you a message on your website--I think our companies could produce something exciting together.

See I see this and it's $349 for the hardware plus $99/year. At that point, I might as well just go with a paid ProtonMail or similar solution. My expectations for self hosted isn't to have annual or monthly fees.

gsreenivas 5y ago
This is comparing apples and oranges. If you want to self-host email, you need a trustworthy static IP address with reverse DNS. It's considerably more expensive to get this from an ISP. Our annual fee also includes storage for offsite backups. You don't get the same privacy assurances using Protonmail as you do with self-hosting either. For example, Protonmail is privy to the content of all outbound email messages in the clear unless you are communicating with the recipient using E2EE. From a cost perspective, Helm V2 starts at $199 for 256GB of storage. First year costs, including subscription work out to $298. With Protonmail, their entry level plan with added storage at the same price buys you an inbox with about 28GB, a small fraction of what you would get with Helm storage-wise, not to mention we don't limit users, email addresses, domains, etc.

patrec 5y ago

You clearly have the upsell part, but where is the "and win over the enthusiast crowd by making it possible to host your own alternatives to those services with a little technical know-how." part? I and probably many others would be OK with paying for the upsell part, if it's an optional convenience, but nothing I saw on your site indicates it is, or that "own your data" is in any meaningful way true. How do I own my data if any use of it requires me running stuff on your proprietary box, subscribing to your proprietary service?

gsreenivas 5y ago
If you store data on a hard drive you purchased from Best Buy, do you own that data? It's a proprietary box also... Data from Helm is accessible using IMAP, SMTP, CardDAV, CalDAV, WebDAV on the local network (without requiring our service). You own the device, you own the data. There is a standards-based way of accessing that data just as there is with the hard drive from Best Buy.
- patrec 5y ago
  > If you store data on a hard drive you purchased from Best Buy, do you own that data? I can plug the Best Buy harddrive into almost any computer/SAN I want to and utilize for the purpose I bought for without any lock in. Using the hard drive for my data requires very little trust in Best Buy's good intentions at the time of purchase and zero trust in the continued existence, technical competence or good intentions beyond that -- it is very unlikely that best buy will find a way to snoop on my data even if they wanted to. Everything will continue to work fully as intended until mechanical failure sets in. Feels like ownership to me. In your case I rent some box from you which will lose almost all its intended function the moment your company goes bust or I stop paying you an annual fee. Furthermore it seems I am completely at the mercy of your original and continued good intentions as in addition to using your lock-in for a big price hike later you presumably can also snoop on my data. As far as I can tell there is no really substantial trust differentiator to protonmail. I have to trust them when they claim they won't read my email and are competent enough to keep things secure and I have to trust you (and continue to trust you as long as I want to use the device) that you will encrypt my data and not exfiltrate any of it (or the private key), and furthermore that you run your servers securely enough that no third party will. But what is to stop it? The box is running closed source software that you can remotely update anytime you feel like it, right? I have physical access, but since I don't control the software, what use is that? Maybe I didn't understand something right, but so far this does not feel like ownership to me. It sounds more like the worst of all worlds: the lock-in and lack of ownership of a proprietary cloud-based subscription service with the added hassle, inconvenience, downtime and costs of babysitting (and supplying electricity to) a cloud server for you, the provider. > Data from Helm is accessible using IMAP, SMTP, CardDAV, CalDAV, WebDAV on the local network (without requiring our service). In what ways is that better than running an IMAP client on my laptop and using it to send data via protonmail, using my own domain, and keeping offline copies of everything (with a periodic upload to backblaze or some other e2e encrypted backup solution)? That seems to offer about the same control over my data, but is cheaper, easier, more convenient, has higher redundancy/uptime and if anything less lock-in. It also doesn't require an additional device that has no use beyond adding an additional failure point and cost center that's my responsibility. > There is a standards-based way of accessing that data just as there is with the hard drive from Best Buy. Accessing the data is not enough because what you are selling me is not an overpriced and unergonomic hard drive. You are selling me the ability to send, receive and store email (and likely more). Don't get me wrong, I kind of like the idea of buying a physical box and a subscription service to self host stuff in a way that gives me better control over my data for an acceptable amount of hassle. But that really requires some amount of openness/auditability and interoperability that currently appears to be absent.

candiddevmike 5y ago

Just sent you a message on your website--I think our companies could produce something exciting together.