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Proton Mail

E2EE email at scale, non-profit owned

provisional — pending verificationClients OSS (GPL)

Arete score

4.0 / 5

Autonomy5

Return4

Efficiency3

Transparency4

ἀρετή “AH-reh-tay” — excellence: a thing being good at what it’s for. Mean of the four principle scores. How we score →

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Plain outbound link — no affiliate parameters, no tracking redirects.

~ Provisional — seeded estimate by a human researcher; full rubric pass pending.

Why it's listed

Proton Mail is listed in email hosting because it competes on utility: e2ee email at scale, non-profit owned. It's stewarded by a non-profit or foundation, which structurally protects it from acquisition-driven enshittification. Licensed Clients OSS (GPL); pricing: free tier / paid, public. Its resource footprint is reasonable for what it does, though not featherweight. This entry is provisional — the scores are seeded estimates pending our full manual rubric pass, and the verification date will appear here once complete.

Facts

License: Clients OSS (GPL)
Pricing: Free tier / paid, public
Funding model: Non-profit foundation
Self-hostable: No
Replaces: Gmail
Verification: Provisional — scores are seeded estimates pending manual verification

Also in email hosting

Fastmail (4.5) — Independent paid email since 1999
Migadu (4.5) — Email hosting priced by usage, not mailboxes
Tuta Mail (4.5) — E2EE email, post-quantum crypto

Spotted a problem — trackers added, dark patterns, abandonment? Report a violation. Scores change when evidence does.