For those who know and protect their privacy, tutanota and proton mail are the industry leaders in “secure email”. both have excellent reputations based on protecting users’ emails from prying eyes, even their own eyes.
So which one is better? let’s take a side-by-side look at tutanota vs proton mail to see which is better overall, or better for you.
tutanota vs proton mail: security and privacy
both services offer excellent security and privacy – it’s your whole selling point. both offer end-to-end encryption that even they don’t have the keys to crack.
tutanota encrypts more spaces within its ecosystem, but we give proton mail a slight edge. proton mail has a restrictive spam filter, full anonymity, and 256-bit rsa encryption compared to the 128 bits of tutanota bit protocol. proton mail also benefits from switzerland’s excellent attention to privacy.
visit the proton mail website
encryption
tutanota offers end-to-end symmetric encryption: 2048-bit rsa for user-to-user email, 128-bit aes for user-to-non-user email. the service uses the same algorithms as pgp, but encrypts the subject lines as well as the body of the email above it. even tutanota can’t decipher your messages. it also offers perfect forward secrecy, meaning that hacking a past session does not give a cybercriminal access to future sessions. tutanota also encrypts your address book and calendar.
proton mail also uses end-to-end symmetric encryption: 2048-bit rsa for user-to-user email, 256-bit aes for user-to-non-user email. uses openpgp, an industry-standard email encryption algorithm that has several weaknesses mentioned above: no subject line encryption, and no perfect forward secrecy. just like tutanota, proton mail’s encryption prevents even proton mail from decrypting it and reading your messages.
Anonymity
tutanota removes ip address information from your messages, making it impossible for anyone to trace the message back to the user, at least using the ip.
Meanwhile, proton mail also offers complete anonymity to its users. In addition to end-to-end encryption, it also removes IP addresses from messages. however, there was one case where they logged an ip address of their user after request from the swiss government; To avoid that and guarantee anonymity in all your emails, we suggest combining an email service together with a good VPN.
Privacy
tutanota is a German company. germany is one of the intelligence sharing countries of the “fourteen eyes” alliance, but emails passing through tutanota are protected by german federal data protection law, which prohibits the use or collection of personal data without express permission or a law that specifically allows it.
proton mail is based in Switzerland, with servers hidden under a kilometer of granite, safe even from a nuclear explosion. Famously neutral and independent, Switzerland has some of the best privacy laws in the world, and the parent company of Proton Mail is very focused on privacy.
spam filtering
tutanota offers an intelligent spam filter with parameters that users can use to identify spam and filter out unwanted messages. while improvements are constantly being made, user feedback tends to identify tutanota’s spam filter as too restrictive.
Meanwhile, Proton Mail uses a smart spam detection system that automatically puts your incoming messages in an inbox or spam folder. Sometimes it’s bound to misplace your emails, so you can use a whitelister as a method to bypass the blocks if they seem too strict for you.
tutanota vs proton mail: features
Different features will be valuable to different users. Although both providers offer encrypted calendars even with the free plans, Proton Mail has the advantage of ProtonVPN. so we’re giving this tight race to proton mail thanks to the availability of encrypted calendars and vpn services on all plans, even the free plan.
features that both secure emails have
For paying users, both tutanota and protonmail offer an auto responder and custom domain aliases. when it comes to secure calendars, both providers offer it for free. therefore, this micro-battle ends in a draw.
Unique features
The most interesting feature is tutanota secureconnect. allows you to implement the tutanota code on your website to create a contact form with the same security and privacy as tutanota. this is a niche feature and expensive add-on that is not included in any plan. however, businesses that want to receive secure messages from their website visitors may find the secure connection invaluable.
what differentiates proton mail from tutanota is its vpn subscription. It is becoming more common to see secure email providers offering other online security solutions, such as password managers or file encryptors. In this case, all Proton mail plans include a subscription to ProtonVPN, which privacy-conscious users should consider anyway.
proton mail paid plans also include proton mail bridge, an application that runs in the background and automatically encrypts or decrypts messages in applications that support imap or smtp. this is probably of limited use for most users, as is the css customization functionality.
Going back to the most used functions, we find that tutanota has a native desktop application. instead, proton mail can only be accessed through webmail or through a third-party email client.
tutanota vs proton mail: prices
while packages are more expensive, we still give this one to proton mail. Tutanota’s a la carte model leads to shock and analysis paralysis: Once you start adding features, your plan becomes complicated and expensive. Despite the higher prices, Proton Mail offers valuable features within each package that more than justify the cost.
value for the price
tutanota offers a free plan with 1 gb of storage. It also offers a premium plan of €1/month, a team plan of €4/month and a pro plan of €7/month. however, it is worth noting that tutanota uses an a la carte approach, with services that can be added. this allows users to customize their plan, but popular features can quickly erase the savings tutanota users enjoy.
proton mail offers a free plan with 1 gb of storage, 3 folders and labels, 25 mb of attachments and a limit of 150 emails per day. however, you also get a free subscription to protonvpn (1 connection and 100+ servers in 3 locations) and 1 personal proton calendar, which is an amazing option to cover basic needs.
Paid plans start at $3.49/mo for Plus and $7.99/mo for Unlimited. There are also business options including the Essential plan for $6.49 and the Business plan for $9.99 per user per month.
Although these prices are higher and the menu is fixed, these plans offer powerful and comprehensive feature packages. unlimited, for example, includes a fully featured subscription to protonvpn: 1700 servers in 63 countries and up to 10 simultaneous connections. tutanota doesn’t offer anything close to this value, not even on the pro plan.
tutanota vs proton mail: storage and attachments
Without any attachment size advantage, this match goes to protonmail based on storage. Even though the free plans of both providers offer the same amount of data, the tutanota premium plan grants only 1 gb of allocation compared to 15 gb for the proton mail plus plan.
data mappings
tutanota offers 1 GB of storage for free and premium plans, 10 GB of storage for team and professional plans. tutanota limits attachments to 25mb. if you need more space, you can get 10gb for €2/month, 100gb for €10/month and 1tb for €50/month.
proton mail offers 1 gb of storage for its free plan, 15 gb of storage for the plus plan, and 500 gb of storage for the unlimited plan. the essential plan includes 15 gb and the business plan 500 gb both per user per month. proton mail also limits attachments to 25mb.
tutanota vs proton mail: ease of use
both tutanota and proton mail are reasonably easy to use. the winner, however, is proton mail. We were impressed with its ease of setup, useful settings, and third-party integrations.
configuration
Setting up a tutanota account begins by clicking the “sign up” button in the upper right corner of each page. you will be presented with a variety of plans to choose from. if you select the “free” plan, a window appears notifying you that tutanota limits users to one free plan each.
The next page asks you to create your username (ie your email address) and create and confirm your password. two checkboxes verify your age (over 16 according to German law) and your acceptance of the terms of service.
The next page takes you to your recovery code, a 64-digit code that authorizes you to change your password, and the second factor. store it carefully, or losing your credentials could lock your account – permanently! You will then be taken to a login page and will be able to access your new inbox.
The Proton Mail setup process is lightning-quick and easy. Upon clicking the “Sign Up” button, on every page next to the “Sign In” button, you will be taken to a page with dropdown menus from which to select your plan.
once you select your plan, you will be taken to a simple one-page setup screen, which will ask for your new username, password with double confirmation, and recovery email. click “create account” and you will be taken to a verification page, where you can choose to verify by captcha, sms, email or phone. captcha is probably the fastest. verify your account, and voila! you’re ready to start customizing your inbox.
ease of use
tutanota is very easy to use. it looks like many other email inboxes, so it’s intuitive and easy to navigate. the interface is elegant too: it’s responsive and fun to use.
proton mail does not lose on this front, it is also very easy to use and intuitive. however, you lose a few points from a home screen that includes a huge message to update your account. however, proton mail has many more settings, including custom css import.
Performance and speed
tutanota sends and delivers mail quickly and reliably. service was down during a 2020 ddos attack, but overall performance is excellent.
proton mail also shows excellent speed and performance, with no noticeable delays or interruptions in service. proton mail also offers excellent speed for loading and transferring attachments. however, the preview pane takes a while to load, as this is the step where the message is decrypted in proton mail.
app integrations
tutanota‘s proprietary encryption has the side effect of negating the ability to integrate it with third-party email clients. this may not matter to many users as tutanota includes a native desktop app, but people who love microsoft outlook or apple mail may be disappointed.
proton mail integrates with the most popular third-party email clients, including microsoft outlook, apple mail, and mozilla thunderbird.
Tutanota vs Proton Mail: customer support
proton mail is the clear winner. Offering a larger subreddit, a more helpful knowledge base, and direct email support even for free users, it far outclasses tutanota in terms of user support.
knowledge bases and email support
tutanota offers a subreddit and user knowledge base. It also has direct email support, but only for paid users.
proton mail offers direct email support, even for free users. free accounts supposedly have “limited support,” which means longer wait times are likely to be expected, but it’s better than nothing. It also has a larger subreddit, as well as a knowledge base that is much easier to search and navigate.
verdict
visit the proton mail website
both tutanota and proton mail are great mail apps, but proton mail stood out in many categories: security, pricing, storage, attachments, and ease of use. where proton mail really outshines tutanota is in customer support, which matters more than people sometimes realize.
It was a close race, but our pick in the tutanota vs. proton mail: proton mail!
related secure email guides from cybernews:
tutanota review: private email service with a no-nonsense approach
proton mail review: one of the most discreet email providers
fastmail review: the private email service that started the craze