ProtonMail Software Reviews, Pros and Cons (2024)

Reviewed April 2023

ProtonMail is a wonderful experience!

Reviewed July 2023

Best looking UI for safer emailing

Perfect for scheduling emails and safer

PROS

Proton Mail has one of the best looking and easy to use UI. It comes with the Schedule send feature which allows me to draft and send messages later. This has proven critical feature that I often use in my daily emailing tasks. It allows me to stay in my communication schedules even when i am traveling.

CONS

The email storage is limiting to 500mb. I am not yet at the point of upgrading but still i feel this storage should have been bigger. Often i have to delete some conversations.

Reviewed October 2022

The most lovable email provider available!

My experience has been 100% positive, I integrated my proton account with my custom domain and use it as my business email platform as well as for my personal emails.

PROS

Let me start by stating that I LOVE their clean smooth themes, I love the full featured message composer, I love the updated mobile app they released this summer, I love that I get absolutely NO SPAM, as well as no "promotional emails" There's tracker blocking built in, and best of all, Proton's stance is anti big tech! I love their generous storage allocation (15 GB) plus, every year they add an additional GB for free!

CONS

The only thing I wish was improved is the loading time when I open an email in the mobile app. Otherwise it's as close to perfect as any software service can get!

Reviewed January 2024

Expensive, restrictive, poor support

I have been using Protonmail Business (their highest tier) for about a year. I wanted a reliable e-mail service I could use for my freelance work and a few of my personal websites that did not harvest all of my data. ProtonMail was more expensive than pretty much any other e-mail service, presumably because they force you to buy their password manager, VPN, drive, and calendar solutions. I did not need all of these solutions and never used them, nor did I want super-secure e-mail. Nevertheless, I signed up for a 2-year Business plan because of the good reviews, 15 custom domains, and the unlimited SimpleLogin addresses. The first surprise came when I tried to set up my e-mail client. Turns out that Protonmail does not offer SMTP/IMAP and there is no desktop app either (well, there is but it's in closed beta for ages). Using other clients requires installing and configuring protonmail-bridge (a sort of e-mail proxy). This is an acceptable workaround for PCs, however, it is complicated and often impossible to configure for web servers, in particular virtualized or hosted setups. I tried a few community alternatives to protonmail-bridge but ended up having to restart the services daily because the bridge would randomly crash without any warning or error. Support was next to useless. Taking days or weeks to reply with boilerplate text that had nothing to do with my case. Eventually, I decided to migrate all business-critical mail away from Proton. MXRoute offers unlimited custom domains (and a lot of other cool things Proton does not) for a lifetime price that is equal to a yearly subscription to Proton, so I went with them. I decided to cancel my Proton subscription to avoid being charged for another 2 years. Worst of all was what happened when I tried to cancel: despite having paid for 2 years, as soon as I canceled my subscription, I INSTANTLY and WITHOUT WARNING lost access to all premium features for the remainder of the period (about 1 year). This means that all of the addresses I created for custom domains were deleted (luckily I had already migrated them). It also meant that all of my e-mail clients stopped receiving or sending mail because protonmail-bridge is not available for free-tier... Even Google lets you use the remainder of your subscription when canceling... Even my SimpleLogin aliases are going to be disabled because - get this - since Protonmail bought SimpleLogin and bundled it with their product, aliases are disabled when you downgrade (instead of just restricting your ability to create more like SimpleLogin used to to). I begged support to convert my credit to a SimpleLogin or even a Proton subscription but they refused. My only option is to purchase a significantly more expensive monthly subscription for 5 months (instead of the 9 I had left). Maybe ProtonMail was at some point customer-oriented. But my experience with them has been the opposite: overpriced, restrictive, unfriendly money-grabbers. Which frankly leads me to question their privacy and security claims as well.

PROS

zero-access encryption, unlimited SimpleLogin addresses, custom domains

CONS

- They force you to purchase their Drive, Calendar, VPN and Password Manager which means even the cheapest plan is very expensive compared to competitors. - There is no desktop app and using other clients requires installing and configuring protonmail-bridge (an e-mail server proxy) - The custom domains are useless because they do not offer SMTP/IMAP servers and protonmail-bridge does not work on any sort of virtualized webserver setup -> understandable because of the E2E encryption. - Their support is slow to reply and usually replies with boilerplate text that is not helpful or relevant. - I deactivated my subscription with 1 year remaining and instantly lost access to *all* premium features without any warning.

Reviewed January 2022

Secure mail

using protonmail i feel my privacy level increased a lot. I think my messages are now secure!

PROS

I like everything: security, graphics, GUI, ease of deployment, possibility to swithch from any other mail platform...

CONS

i can't find something i don't like.. i am really satisfied

Reviewed September 2022

Great for separating work email from personal email

PROS

I love ProtonMail's default domain name options and the ultra-simple, clean interface of the app and web version. It's great to know that my work emails are secure from the start without having to dig deep into the account settings. I love having zero spam in my work inbox.

CONS

The search functionality could be improved, as I have trouble finding past emails based on keywords, whereas this is not a problem with Gmail.

Reviewed August 2021

The most secure email for your business, if you are ready for some extra steps

The fact that it is fully encrypted gives me a peace of mind about the sensitive business information not being leaked, which is especially important in the age of GDPR. Certain conveniences have to be sacrificed though, and the software could be improved.

PROS

Full scale encryption Great flexibility with a number of inboxes, aliases Less expensive than using alternatives

CONS

On a Mac, you have to install an app called "ProtonMail Bridge" for it to work with your email clients Protonmail Bridge often randomly logs out, and then it is a bit of a pain to log back in and sync everything up The spam filter is sometimes too aggressive and hides legitimate mail

Reviewed May 2021

Feel safe

I use ProtonMail every day and I feel safe when I send my emails with encryption.

PROS

I was looking for a good and safe email app that gives me the possibility to send encrypted emails to my customers. ProtonMail is the ultimate tool to do that. After the trial I payes for a subscription and integrated the mail functions with my domain name. I also got ProtonDrive, ProtonVPN and the ProtonCalendar, all secure. Now I send my invoices in a safe way without fear of interception and altering.

CONS

I found no flaws that I like least about ProtonMail. Perhaps the possiblility of integration of ProtonDrive in my Explorer, but I think that will come soon.

Reviewed July 2021

Secure communication, No hidden costs

A+ experience all around.

PROS

Easy to use on my Apple SE. Sends and receives messages quickly. Intuitive interface. Had one issue (user based, that's me) and they contacted me directly with a personal email containing information specifically addressing my question to help guide me along....and that was when using the FREE email services....and then they followed up to make sure it helped. Amazing customer service.

CONS

That they didn't inform me of their product sooner.

Reviewed November 2020

Good to use for most of the sites where you need a separate Email Address

I have been using the protonmail service for about last two years and suggested it to most of friends for their online work, either it's for making new instagram accounts, pinterest or something else.

PROS

This is an alternative of Google mail and yahoo and an easy to use software, ehich you can use with ease in most of your online services.

CONS

The most secure and easy to use software, and because of less users than gmail you can make your favorite email address and easily.

Reviewed August 2023

Encrypted email without ads

ProtonMail prioritizes privacy, has a sleek UI and valuable features like schedule send. The added VPN service further strengthens security and value of the service. The free tier has enough features to be a valuable service.

PROS

ProtonMail includes a VPN service for enhanced privacy, online drive, calendar and a password manager with mail aliases to hide your email from unwanted emails. The email service has enhanced security and encryption with a schedule send feature very useful for drafting and sending messages later

CONS

No notable drawbacks until now, the pricing tier could have a lower entry paid plan.

Reviewed February 2023

Excellent email app

Protonmail is probably the very best email app I have ever used. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a secure email experience.

PROS

I like that Protonmail gives me an extra sense of security and I feel confident that my email is protected from potential threats.

CONS

I liked everything about this app. It is easy to use and the support team always answers questions timeously. I can rest assure that my mail is safe from threats.

Reviewed June 2020

A privacy focused email service

PROS

One thing that makes Protonmail unique is that it's privacy and security focused and also encrypted. The security it provides is it's greatest feature. So, if you are concerned about security and privacy of your mails, you might want to look at Protonmail, but otherwise you'd do just fine with any provider. They have an Android app which is the only client that I've ever been able to make use of to access the service, and you can use browsers too, apart from those, nothing else has worked when I tried on mobile phones. I guess it's for security reasons, and probably intentional.

CONS

The free version is limited in features. If you want to enjoy the complete features of the app, you probably need to upgrade. You can only have 3 folders for organising your mailbox in the free version.

Reviewed May 2023

ProtonMail: My go-to email service

PROS

I like ProtonMail for its security, simplicity, and lack of ads. With end-to-end encryption and servers in Switzerland, I trust that my emails are protected. Plus, the straightforward service doesn't sell my information to third parties. Overall, ProtonMail is my top choice for email.

CONS

One downside of ProtonMail is that it does not offer IMAP/SMTP service for free accounts. This means that if I want to use a third-party email client to access my ProtonMail account, I need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Reviewed February 2023

Great private mail

Is a usefull product for improve privacy, filtering spam mails and send encrypted files (mainly between Proton and Proton).

PROS

As personal as professional ProtonMail will give you an extra security layer and protecting your privacy, i think that is the most valuable of it.

CONS

Is a bit annoying when you must to learn some shortcuts or change it when every product uses the same, except Proton.

Reviewed January 2023

The Underrated Mail

Easy to use ,user-friendly , free , secure , reliable , fast , smooth , no errors , no mail delays and much more

PROS

high protection system , protonmail is linked to my financial accounts and I feel safe with , I've been using it for more than three years and its perfect , informs me with my new mails immediately , no delays.

CONS

I can't think of anything bad in this system , I'm comfortable using it with no issues and I won't give it up.

Reviewed November 2022

The most secure email service provider out there.

The greatest benefit of using ProtonMail is that it is very secure. The UI is not clustered and is easy to view. Overall the experience with ProtonMail was good.

PROS

Like many people, the most I like most about this product is the secured and encrypted email service. The user interface is very minimal and does not distract you.

CONS

You cannot search your emails by their content because the emails are encrypted. Many useful features are also locked behind a paywall. And you may not be able to use the email to sign up for other applications as it may not be supported.

Reviewed December 2022

Use ProtonMail instead of Gmail

PROS

If you are concerned about privacy ProtonMail is a better option than the most famous Gmail as a mail provider. It promises end to end privacy and live up to its word.

CONS

At a first glance, the UI is not as intuitive as others.There is also no integration with other products like Microsoft One Drive for outlook accounts or Google Drive for Gmail.

Reviewed September 2020

An alternative encrypted email account

PROS

Great alternative if you do not agree with data sharing policies and encryption standards of more common "free" platforms. All the functionality of a traditional email account, end-to-end encryption, does not constantly try to link you across other platforms and put all your personal information together.

CONS

The graphics is a little bit outdated and doesn't bring anything extra but it doesn't affect basic functionality.

Reviewed July 2023

Proton

PROS

I like the Proton brand and the privacy and the security they provide.

CONS

I would recommend the brand. My experience has been good.

Reviewed January 2023

Encryption for mails

Protonmail is for privacy concerned people. If anyone who wants their professional data to be secure they could opt for this service. It doesn't have more features like Gmail and outlook.

PROS

Protonmail provides secure conversation with emails by providing end to end encryption. No one can read mails other than sender and receiver. It also provides VPN service for paid subscriptions. We can use email service without paid subscription.

CONS

Protonmail has very high paid subscription plans. The users interface also little confusing. It doesn't provide considerable cloud storage. It has less integration with other services like drive and outlook.

Reviewed May 2021

Protonmail is a great solution if you care about your privacy

PROS

Very easy to use, the free version is enough for me but they also offer different alternatives.

CONS

only 500 MB of space for the free account, "plus" plan offers 5 gb but 4€ /months seems a little high

Reviewed September 2023

My usage of ProtonMail

My overall experience with ProtonMail was that it is a good option for users that those who seeking for more privacy and security.

PROS

1.ProtonMail is a very secure email service.2.It uses end to end encryption for strong security.3.It also supports two factors authentication for purpose of security of added accounts.

CONS

1.The major drawback of ProtonMail is that cost of paid plan is very expensive.2.It have only limited features in free plan like limited mails to send per day and low storage space.

Reviewed August 2022

Free and very safe service

My company decided a few months ago to use Proton as its main email server due to the level of security it offers in terms of message privacy.

PROS

It offers a very high level of security for your communications. Especially recommended for companies.

CONS

Its use is less widespread than that of other email servers.

Reviewed November 2021

I love this app!

I love the way I can access

PROS

Encrypted email for my business account is great

CONS

Needs a better spam filter in my opinion