Mail

Orbit Mail: mail on its own servers in Switzerland, with a separate key for every mailbox.

• Client: Orbit GmbH
• Built by: Orbit (Jan)
• Period: 2026

Orbit Mail: mail on its own servers in Switzerland, with a separate key for every mailbox.

Most companies hand their mail to Google or Microsoft and forget about it. That is convenient, but it also means the correspondence sits with a corporation abroad, under its rules. Orbit does not want that for itself, and in May 2026 the choice arises: set up a ready-made mail server or build its own. Orbit builds. A ready-made product brings its own user management, its own data storage and its own administration; at Orbit there is only one login, one database and one place for keys for everything, and mail should be no exception.

• Receiving, sending and filters in Rust • Signed, checked, encrypted • One key per mailbox • Switching domains via DNS • Quarantine without looking at the content • Webmail with Gmail, GMX, Yahoo and Outlook • Sending for Orbit's own products • One login for everything

The art of arriving

A mail server can be up and running in an afternoon. The hard part is making sure its mail arrives and its mailboxes are open to no one else. Every other server checks a message from Orbit before accepting it, so every outgoing message carries a signature that server can verify. Every incoming message is checked for spam and viruses before it reaches a mailbox, and stored there encrypted, with a separate key for every single mailbox.

A core in Rust

The core is written in Rust, on the open-source libraries of Stalwart Labs, and speaks the languages every mail program expects: sending, fetching and filter rules. In mid-May 2026 it accepts its first message; sending, forwarding and signing follow in the weeks after. Webmail and the admin area read the same data as the core and are built from the same building blocks as every other Orbit interface.

One domain, one switch

A domain's mail runs on Orbit as soon as its public records point to the server. If the zone is hosted at Orbit, the admin area writes these records itself, and it always reads back what is in effect from the public DNS, never from its own memory. A migration is no longer a project but a switch, and the owner's existing decisions stay in place.

Discretion in the filter

Every tenant sets the threshold at which a message is held back. It then lands in the webmail's quarantine, and the admin area shows it only with sender, mailbox, date and size, never with subject or content. The people running the server do not need to read the mail to protect it.

All mailboxes in one place

The webmail shows every person their own mailboxes and those shared with them. Promotions and spam are sorted into separate folders, and whatever a person marks themselves takes precedence over any rule. An account with Gmail, GMX, Yahoo or Outlook can be connected: every five minutes the admin area fetches new messages and leaves the external mailbox unchanged. The move does not have to happen in a single day.

Mail for the products

Since October 2026 Orbit's own products also send through the server, each with its own identity. Vapply sends its sign-in codes this way, and messages with attachments and a reply-to address are ready, for instance for applications that are one day meant to go straight to the employer.

A server nobody else reads

Orbit Mail is live: Orbit's three domains, orbit.zuerich, orbit.ad and astra.orbit.zuerich, point to mail.orbit.zuerich, and their mail is stored encrypted at Orbit. Switching over further domains is already built. Anyone writing to Orbit today is writing to a server in Switzerland that nobody but Orbit reads.