Protonmail vs Gmail: What is the difference between two mail services

Are you using the Gmail email service and thinking about switching to Protronmail, then before that you should what is the difference between Gmail and Protonmail free mail services?

No doubt that Gmail is one of the best and most favorite email services all over the globe. And it is also the most used email service in the world with a user base of over 1.4 billion, and that’s huge and it almost makes it invincible in its segment and also completely unparallel when it comes to competition.

Almost every one of us has either used it or is still using it as one of our favorite apps of ours. But with the technology and the human brain evolving rapidly at the speed of sound, better things are being developed or pre-existing things are just getting better.

So here we are in the battle of supremacy, where a new challenger has emerged and it is none other than Protonmail, an end-to-end encrypted email service founded in 2014. But now the question arises can this young email service provider challenge and outthrow the supergiant Google Gmail of this field? Well, let us try to find out by comparing key aspects of Protonmail and Gmail to know what are the differences between them?

Protronmail vs Gmail in terms of Security

The very aspect of our comparison is security. First, let us consider Gmail. Most of you might not know the emails you send through your favorite app are not encrypted until they are in your mailbox. It means your messages are prone to threat. Furthermore, Google also gets a copy of your encryption keys, which simply means that Google can view all your emails at any time. Yes, that is right, I know most of you might be getting goosebumps on reading this, but this is the reality of the biggest and the most favorite Gmail.

This is not the end of the story if you happen to be some sort of journalist investigating a confidential story or any type of spy agent who needs to maintain the confidentiality of everything he knows or has, or have any type of similar profession as I mentioned above. Then, your secret documents or emails must remain accessible to you only and not to the email service provider.

Also, Google can be forced by legal means to hand over your account to the enforcement law without you being informed about it. With all these, we can conclude that Gmail is rather not the best place for handling your sensitive and secret data.

Protonmail, on the other hand, performs fairly better. You might be thinking, How? Let me explain it to you. If you send an email through Protonmail, then the message transmits via an encrypted tunnel that’s far safer and independent from the standard email encryption, also note that Gmail uses the standard email encryption. That’s not all, Protonmail also has one more barrier, which makes all the messages that travel through it completely resistant from all the cybercriminals, or any other sort of third-party guys who are curiously waiting to have viewed your emails without your permission.

All these would have brought a smile to the face of all the journalists, spies, or even you if you happen to be worried that someone might be there to steal your data. Thus, we can conclude that when it comes to security then Protonmail is the complete winner here and Gmail seems to be weaker.

A difference in Storage between Gmail and Portronmail services

Now, let us talk about the second and one of the most important factors, which is storage. First, let me tell you that Protonmail never uses any types of ads, paid promotions, trackers, etc. to generate revenue, and it depends only on the income from the users who upgrade to the paid account.

It is a nice move as almost every one of us hates the unwanted disturbance that we get from these unwelcome guests in the middle of our important work. But as the popular saying goes that happiness always comes carrying the crown of sadness on its head, and the same situation is here also. The major drawback of this good decision is that the free version of Protonmail is not that big in terms of storage. In simple words, you get only 500 MB of storage, and you are also limited to 150 emails per day.

Still, this is more than enough if you happen to be a text-only email guy, but it turns to very low if you happen to be handling heavy media attachments in your everyday work. Frankly speaking in this very scenario you are left with only two options, the first one is to spend some bucks and upgrade your secure email service, and the other one is that remain stuck with everyone’s favorite Gmail.

So, in this very segment, the one who emerges to be the winner is no doubt our very own Gmail. Though Protonmail does a good job in eliminating all those ads but still as we are comparing these two players keeping our emotions aside, the winner here is no doubt Gmail.

Protonmail has two subscription plans if you wish to pay some bucks to get it upgraded, the first plan is the plus 48 euros plan, where you get 5 GB of free storage, an email limit of 1000 emails per day, labels, and custom filters, you can also send encrypted messages to external recipients, you can even use your domain, which is indeed a big thumbs up, you also get up to 5 email aliases, last but not the least very responsive and effective customer support.

Hence, all these for 48 euros a year, is not at all a bad deal, and if you happen to be worried about security then you should purchase it.

The second plan of Protonmail is visionary 288 euros per year. In this mega plan you get massive 20 GB of free storage, no limits of emails that you can send per day, and early access to new and latest features, this plan also provides you with the support of up to 10 domains, 50 email aliases, you can pick new features through visionary only polls, again last but not the least you get instant support from the priority customer support.

Now, if we try to compare this paid version of Protonmail with Gmail then we can get a further clear idea.

Gmail provides us with 15 GB of free storage, but that is not the real storage space we get. This 15 GB of storage applies to your whole Google account, which also includes Google Drive, Photos, and Docs. Now, if you are storing a lot of media in Google’s cloud, the space left for Gmail will shrink rapidly and would be more or less similar to that of free Protonmail. You can also upgrade your Gmail, where you get 100 GB of free space for twenty dollars a year, and it ranges to a maximum of about 30 terabytes or simply 30000 GB which is indeed a supergiant on its own, but it will also cost you a heavy sum of three hundred dollars a year, and if you can afford that then you can enjoy Google at its best.

Who should use Protonmail and who can stick with the Gmail mail service?

Thus, we have learned about both email service providers in-depth, here we didn’t touch the Graphical interface of Gmail and Protonmail because more or less they are the same. Thus, we can conclude that if security is your topmost priority then you should switch to Protonmail right now, or if your profession happens to be one of those which I mentioned in this article, then it is going to be like a boon for you.

However, if all your emails are basically text mails, and you don’t need enough space, then the free version of Protonmail is best for you, you need not think about upgrading it, but if your emails involve heavy media attachment or you need to send more emails than the free email limit per day, then you must upgrade it by choosing between the two plans which I have already mentioned in this article.

Now, if you are not that much or little concerned about the security and want good storage space and an ecosystem of Google apps then you can simply remain loyal to the world’s best and favorite email service provider, none other than Gmail.

Well, you can make a hybrid email service for yourself by using both. If you are worried about security and also want to enjoy the ecosystem of Google on your phone and Google Chrome browser, in that case, you should simply install the free version of Protonmail, and use both the email services. Just use Gmail for normal purposes and Protonmail for your important and secret files of yours.

Links for signup Protomail (link) and Gmail (link).

So, this was the analogy of Gmail vs Protonmail, if you want to add your views to this comparison article the comment box is opened for you…

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