I have been thinking of completely going off Google. I have a Nextcloud server for documents and contacts and calendar. Thinking of moving mail away too. Currently I am conflicted between hosting my own email server. On searching only advice I am getting is not to do it.
How many of the homelabers do host their own email server? What software do you use? Any tips.
I run iRedMail (a collection of dovecot, postfix etc, plus sogo and roundcube web clients and managed by a nice web frontend, all open source and runs on any linux.
I've run for about 8 years, no dramas other than my isp technocally doesnt allow it. But they don't block anything and occasionally they submit their ip ranges for customers to places like spamhaus, so i just script check every month to see if they added my ip back, then i just submit removal, it takes all of 30sec. (IP is semi static, probably changes once every 9 months or so, so not a drama to update dkim on my domain registrar.)
Same here, IRM for 3 years. It's not as difficult as so many make it out to be. As long as your ISP allows port 25 and you're not blacklisted, you're good to go.