Email Hosting vs Email Forwarding: What Are The Differences?

No doubt, email forms the most important channel of communication. But, when it comes to selecting the right email service for business, most people often get confused between email hosting and email forwarding. 

Generally, most users get the hosted email service when they buy domain name and hosting plan. Email forwarding, on the other hand, is a service exclusively offered by an email host. 

This brings us to one question — Which is a better option between email hosting and email forwarding? Keep reading to know the answer!

What Exactly Email Hosting Is?

Email hosting is a solution that allows businesses and organisations to set up and handle their custom email accounts using their personal domain name, like [email protected]. This is also called business email, and in the business world, it holds great importance. 

An email hosting service offers you a great deal of control and customisation over your email accounts. Besides, your online reputation gets enhanced when you use a professional email address that depicts your brand. 

Other than that, an email hosting service also offers several exclusive features such as unlimited storage, low bounce rates, high security, reliable customer support, and so on. 

What is Email Forwarding?

Email forwarding refers to a feature that allows you to forward or direct an email from one email address to another. In simple words, it is a convenient way of managing your email channels because you can receive the same email from different email addresses. This not only removes the hassle of checking different email accounts but also saves a great deal of time. 

There are various applications for email forwarding. Some of them are as follows:

• Email Consolidation
• Filtering and Sorting
• Switching to a Different Email Address
• Backup

Email Hosting Vs Email Forwarding 

Both email hosting and email forwarding are important for businesses and organisations. However, they are different in terms of purposes, features, and use cases. Here is how:

Email Hosting:

• Purpose: Email hosting provides you with a custom email address that represents your brand. For example: [email protected] 
• Use Cases: Ideal choice for organisations and businesses looking for a professional-looking custom email solution.  
• Features: Most email hosting providers offer features such as multiple email accounts, storage, email templates, spam filters, etc. 
• Control: Email hosting offers complete control over your email accounts. 

Email Forwarding:

• Purpose: It is a service used for forwarding email messages sent from one email address to another. 
• Use Cases: Mainly used by organisations to consolidate multiple email accounts without having to use the entire email suite. Moreover, an email forwarding service doesn’t offer facilities like storage, email security, etc. 
• Features: As discussed above, the email forwarding service doesn’t offer any additional features to the users. 
• Control: As compared to an email hosting service, email forwarding offers less control to the users. 

Final Words

Email forwarding and email hosting are two distinct services with different use cases. 

As discussed in the blog, email forwarding offers limited features and can only be used for email consolidation and creating backup. 

On the other hand, email hosting is a comprehensive service that provides you with a custom email with several other features that offer you complete control over your email communications.