Do I have to host my company email with the same company that hosts my website?

Question

Do I have to host my company email with the same company that hosts my website? If not, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

Do I have to host my company email with the same company that hosts my website?

No

If not, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Advantages

• A dedicated email host can provide a lot of extra features and functionality that may not be available from a regular webhost. Usually this means emails won't eat up your web hosting space.
• If your server is down your email is not down as well. This means support requests can continue to come in.

Disadvantages

• Cost - You have to pay two providers for what you can get from one.
• More logins and passwords to keep track of

Answer 2

If you're dealing with <10 users I would recommend google apps standard edition, it's free and you can upgrade at a later date.

Answer 3

I prefer to separate email and web hosting (and domain registration, for that matter). I agree with toomanyairmiles regarding Google Apps for Your Domain; I've used it many times for small businesses.

And I also agree with John Conde but would add a big advantage. If you want to switch hosting companies for whatever reason, it's a pain to deal with email that they also host. Keeping these separate means that there is no effect on email delivery and usage when moving the client's website to another host.