Email privacy, honestly reviewed. No marketing fluff, just what you get when you self-host it.

TL;DR

What it is: Open-source (AGPL-3.0) email aliasing service — create throwaway email addresses that forward to your real inbox, without giving your real address to anyone [website].
Who it’s for: Privacy-conscious individuals, non-technical users who are tired of spam, and founders who want to compartmentalize their online identity. Also self-hosters who want full control over their email forwarding infrastructure [1][2].
Cost savings: The free tier covers personal use (10 aliases). Premium is $36/year — cheaper than Burner Mail’s $34/year and includes more features [1][2]. Self-hosted is $0 software cost on a VPS you already own.
Key strength: Full two-way aliases — you can send emails from an alias, not just receive them. Most competitors either don’t support this or hide it behind clunky workarounds [2][website].
Key weakness: Free tier caps out at 10 aliases, which fills up fast if you use it seriously. AGPL-3.0 license means any modifications must be open-sourced, which matters if you’re embedding it in a commercial product [1][4].

What is SimpleLogin

SimpleLogin is an email aliasing service. Instead of giving websites your real email address, you create a throwaway alias (like xk7mq2@simplelogin.io or orders@yourcompany.com if you own the domain). Emails sent to that alias get forwarded to your real inbox. If the alias starts receiving spam, you disable or delete it — your real address stays clean.

What separates it from basic forwarding services is that aliases are bidirectional. You can reply to a forwarded email from your normal email client (Gmail, Thunderbird, Apple Mail) and the reply will appear to come from the alias, not your real address [2]. This makes it functionally equivalent to a real email address, not just a spam filter.

The project is AGPL-3.0 licensed, built on Python/Flask, self-hostable via Docker, and ships browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari plus native apps for iOS and Android (including F-Droid for degoogled devices) [website]. It’s based in Switzerland and, as of 2022, is owned by Proton — the same company behind ProtonMail and ProtonVPN [4]. That acquisition shows in the pricing page, where Premium now bundles Proton Pass premium features [1].

GitHub shows 6,527 stars for the main repository. The project claims over 1,000,000 users [website].

Why people choose it

The comparisons people make online land in roughly the same place: SimpleLogin wins on openness, two-way aliasing, and price, and the main friction points are the free tier limit and setup complexity for self-hosting.

The real-email problem. The core use case is straightforward: every time you give a website your real email, you’re making a bet they won’t sell it, leak it in a breach, or spam you into oblivion. SimpleLogin users on AlternativeTo describe the pattern clearly — one reviewer uses it specifically “to protect my main e-mail from companies that potentially don’t respect GDPR laws or can’t be bothered to” [4]. Another: “if an alias is compromised or [gets spam], you can simply block or delete it” [1]. That’s the whole pitch.

Versus the plus-sign trick. Gmail’s name+site@gmail.com trick is well-known and broken in three ways: you can’t reply from it (your real address shows), many sites block sign-ups with + in the email, and anyone who sees the address can trivially remove the + and recover your real email [website]. SimpleLogin’s aliases don’t have any of these problems.

Versus Burner Mail. SimpleLogin’s own blog post [2] lays out the comparison directly (take that with a grain of salt, it’s first-party marketing). The honest points: Burner Mail’s free tier gives 5 aliases vs SimpleLogin’s 10; Burner Mail’s paid plan ($34/year) includes 1 custom domain and no PGP encryption vs SimpleLogin’s unlimited custom domains and PGP at $36/year. The bidirectional alias support is the sharper differentiator — Burner Mail historically required composing replies from their web interface instead of your normal client [2].

Versus Apple Hide My Email and Firefox Relay. Apple’s equivalent is locked to the Apple ecosystem and iCloud+. Firefox Relay’s free tier gives 5 aliases. Neither is open-source or self-hostable. For people who want their email infrastructure to not depend on a single platform vendor, SimpleLogin is the cleaner option.

The Proton angle. The acquisition by Proton is either a strong signal or a yellow flag depending on your threat model. If you’re already using ProtonMail, the integration is genuinely useful — PGP-encrypted forwarding from SimpleLogin to Proton works out of the box, and the Premium plan now includes Proton Pass premium features [1][4]. If you’re using SimpleLogin because you don’t want your data at a major provider, having it owned by Proton (even a privacy-focused one) is a point to factor in.

Features

Core aliasing:

Create aliases on the fly from the browser extension without leaving the current page [website]
Forward-only or two-way (reply/send from alias using your normal email client) [2][website]
Enable, disable, or delete individual aliases — disabled aliases bounce, deleted ones are gone [website]
Alias-level notes so you remember what you signed up for [website]

Custom domains:

Bring your own domain (e.g., newsletter@yourdomain.com) — Premium feature [1]
Catch-all: anything@yourdomain.com routes to your inbox [1]
On-the-fly subdomain aliases without opening the app (e.g., shopping.simplelogin.co) [website]

Security:

PGP encryption before forwarding — emails are encrypted with your key, so even SimpleLogin’s servers can’t read the content en route [2][website]
2FA via TOTP and WebAuthn/FIDO [1]
HaveIBeenPwned integration — alerts you if an alias appears in a breach, so you can kill it immediately [2]

Platform coverage:

Browser extensions: Chrome/Chromium, Firefox (including Tor Browser), Safari [2][website]
Mobile: iOS, Android via Play Store, Android via F-Droid [2][website]
Self-hosted instances: apps can point to your own server via the API URL setting [README]

Multiple mailboxes:

Add multiple real email addresses and route different aliases to different mailboxes — useful if you have a work inbox and a personal inbox [website]

Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

SimpleLogin Free:

10 aliases
Unlimited bandwidth and forwards
Reply/send from aliases
1 mailbox
Browser extensions, mobile apps
TOTP and WebAuthn 2FA
$0 [1]

SimpleLogin Premium:

Unlimited aliases
Unlimited custom domains with catch-all
5 subdomains
50 directories/usernames
Unlimited mailboxes
PGP encryption
Proton Pass premium bundled
$36/year (~$3/month) or $4/month billed monthly [1]

Self-hosted:

Software cost: $0 (AGPL-3.0)
VPS: $5–10/month (Hetzner, Contabo, etc.)
All Premium features unlocked for your own instance

Burner Mail for comparison:

Free: 5 aliases, no reply support, no custom domains
Paid: ~$34/year, 1 custom domain, no PGP [2]

The math for a typical user:

If you’re using fewer than 10 aliases, the free tier covers you completely. Most personal users hit the ceiling around alias #8 when they realize they’ve been handing out their real email for years and now want to migrate everything over. At that point, $36/year is hard to argue with — it’s $3/month for unlimited.

Self-hosting unlocks everything at the cost of infrastructure time. If you already run a VPS for other services and are comfortable with Docker and DNS, the marginal cost is near zero. If a VPS is a new concept, factor in a few hours of setup and ongoing maintenance.

Deployment reality check

Self-hosting SimpleLogin is not a one-click operation. The README is honest about the prerequisites: a Linux server with ports 25 (SMTP), 80, 443, and 22 open; a domain with configurable DNS; and DKIM setup to keep your forwarded emails out of spam folders.

What you actually need:

A Linux VPS with at least 2GB RAM
Docker and docker-compose
A domain with DNS access (A record, MX record, DKIM TXT record)
PostgreSQL and Redis (bundled in the default docker-compose)
An understanding of SMTP — port 25 needs to be open and unblocked, which some VPS providers restrict by default

The DNS part is the real friction. DKIM key generation, MX record setup, SPF and DMARC configuration — none of this is hard for someone who has done it before, but it’s a full afternoon for a first-timer. DNS propagation adds another 1–24 hours of waiting. If your VPS provider blocks outbound port 25 (common on cheap plans to prevent spam abuse), you’ll need to either switch providers or use a relay like Postfix with an external SMTP.

What can go sideways:

Outbound port 25 blocked by your VPS provider (Hetzner, for example, allows it but requires a request)
Email clients treating forwarded emails as suspicious because DKIM/DMARC isn’t set up correctly
The AGPL-3.0 license requires you to publish any modifications — fine for personal use, relevant if you’re building a commercial product on top

Realistic time estimate for a technical user: 2–4 hours to a working instance. For someone following a step-by-step guide with no prior Linux server experience: a full day, including DNS wait time. If you’ve never set up DKIM before, budget extra time to debug email deliverability.

Pros and cons

Pros

Genuinely open source. Every component — server, web app, mobile apps — is open-source and auditable [2][website]. Emails are sensitive; a black box handling your forwarding is a harder trust proposition.
Bidirectional aliases. Most competing services treat aliases as receive-only. SimpleLogin lets you reply and initiate emails from an alias in your normal email client [2]. This makes it usable for real correspondence, not just spam management.
PGP encryption before forwarding. For Gmail users who want an extra layer, this is meaningful — the content is encrypted before it ever hits your inbox [2][website].
Self-hostable with full feature parity. Unlike many SaaS tools where self-hosting means a stripped-down version, self-hosting SimpleLogin unlocks everything [README].
HaveIBeenPwned integration. Getting alerted when a specific alias appears in a breach — not just your real email — lets you respond surgically [2].
F-Droid support. The Android app is available without Google Play, which matters to the privacy audience this tool targets [2][website].
Cheap. $36/year is among the lowest prices in the category for what you get [1][2].
Proton integration. If you’re already in the Proton ecosystem, PGP forwarding to ProtonMail and Proton Pass bundling add real value [1][4].

Cons

10-alias free tier is tight. Anyone who uses this seriously will hit the limit fast. AlternativeTo comments flag this as the top complaint [4]. The free tier is enough to evaluate the tool, not to use it for your full online life.
AGPL-3.0 has commercial implications. If you self-host and modify the code for a commercial product, you must open-source your modifications. MIT it is not.
Setup requires DNS fluency. The DKIM + MX + SPF dance is not optional for deliverability, and it’s not beginner-friendly [README].
No refund policy reported. At least one user on AlternativeTo complained about being auto-renewed and refused a refund [4]. Not a systemic problem (the overall sentiment is positive), but worth knowing before you pay.
Proton ownership is a concentration risk. SimpleLogin’s privacy guarantees now depend on Proton’s continued independence and alignment. Most users will consider Proton trustworthy — but the option to self-host exists precisely for users who don’t want to extend that trust [4].
Limited community size. 6,527 GitHub stars is modest compared to major open-source projects. The community is real but not enormous, which means self-hosting issues may take longer to resolve.

Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use SimpleLogin if:

You want to stop giving websites your real email and you want a clean, auditable tool to manage aliases.
You already use ProtonMail and want PGP-encrypted forwarding and Proton Pass integration.
You want to sign up for services, newsletters, or one-off vendor accounts without creating a permanent link to your identity.
You can afford $36/year or you have a VPS and want to self-host everything.
You want F-Droid availability and open-source mobile apps.

Use the free tier only if:

You need fewer than 10 aliases and your use case is simple (protecting your main address from a handful of services).
You want to evaluate before paying.

Skip it if:

You need more than 10 aliases and can’t justify $36/year — the free tier won’t scale.
You’re a business wanting to embed email aliasing in a commercial product: AGPL-3.0 requires open-sourcing your modifications. Look at something with a more permissive license.
You’re not comfortable managing DNS records and don’t have a technical person to help with self-hosting.
You need disposable/temporary addresses that auto-expire after a time window — SimpleLogin aliases are persistent by default, not ephemeral.

Alternatives worth considering

Addy.io (formerly AnonAddy) — the closest open-source alternative, also AGPL-3.0, also self-hostable. Free tier gives 10 aliases with a shared domain; paid plans start lower than SimpleLogin. Doesn’t have the Proton ecosystem integration. Worth comparing directly if you want to stay fully independent of larger privacy companies.
Apple Hide My Email — free with iCloud+ ($0.99/month), works natively in Safari and iOS Mail. No self-hosting option, Apple ecosystem only, not open-source.
Firefox Relay — free tier gives 5 aliases, paid gives unlimited. Mozilla-backed, not self-hostable. Simpler than SimpleLogin, less configurable.
Burner Mail — proprietary, more expensive for fewer features [2]. The comparison article from SimpleLogin [2] is accurate on the main points even accounting for bias.
DuckDuckGo Email Protection — free, easy to use, but limited: forwarding only, no custom domains, no self-hosting. Good for casual use, not serious alias management.
Proton Pass (with Proton’s own alias feature) — if you’re already paying for Proton, their built-in aliasing in Proton Pass overlaps significantly with SimpleLogin’s core use case. The Premium bundle now includes both [1], so you may not need to choose.

For a non-technical user who just wants to stop giving their real email to every website: SimpleLogin free tier or Firefox Relay as a starting point. For anyone serious about managing their digital identity across dozens of services: SimpleLogin Premium or Addy.io paid.

Bottom line

SimpleLogin solves a real and underrated problem: every email address you hand out is a permanent link to your identity. The fix — email aliases — isn’t new, but SimpleLogin’s execution is cleaner than most. It’s open source, self-hostable, bidirectional (you can actually send from aliases, not just receive), includes PGP forwarding, and costs $36/year for unlimited everything. The free tier’s 10-alias limit is the main friction point for serious users, and the DNS setup for self-hosting requires more than basic Linux knowledge. If you’re already in the Proton ecosystem, the integration makes Premium a straightforward add-on. If you’re not, the tool stands on its own at a price point that’s easy to justify compared to the alternative — handing your real email to every site you’ve ever signed up for and hoping they’re responsible with it.