I've been thinking of switching my web server from a VPS to a dedicated Mac OS X Server. Does anyone have any experience running Mac OS X Server as an internet-facing mail server? Is this a good idea, or should I stick to the current system I have (Google Apps)?

I've got a bit of experience, and it can be a bit of a pain depending on the configuration, and your needs.

The limiting factor, primarily, is the Server Admin tools, which only allow the alteration of a fraction of the settings actually available in most services. If you modify the actual config files too much, Server Admin may stop working with that service entirely.

I've been running OS X Server as my personal public-facing email/web/whatever server for a few years now, and it's pretty stable on the whole. If I was starting again, I'd do it with something like CentOS, which is much more versatile than OS X Server.


What it boils down to, in my 2c is...
If you're happy with Google Apps, I'd suggest sticking with it. The anti-spam is unparalleled, and downtime is pretty rare.

I agree with john Clay. It depends on your needs. If you are just doing very simple/straightforward stuff it is easy to use, but if you start to go down the path of having to edit a lot of stuff outside Server Admin it can get annoying really quickly. Also depending on your needs the Apple supplied PHP/Apache/MySQL environment may not cut it either, which means using alternate versions (either third party or manually rebuilding your own) which nullifies the Server Admin apache integration ... and at that point I tend to just go to CentOS myself. If it's from a colo/hosting facility get it with cPanel/WHM on it and save yourself a lot of hassles.

sudo rm -rf /

Without repeating mguertin completely...

Snow Leopard Server uses Dovecot for IMAP and Postfix for it's MTA. It's been running absolutely fantastic for my workplace.

Mac OS X Server is no better (in web cases it can be worse) for mail and web hosting than a Linux variant unless you really want Open Directory integration without rolling it yourself, or the other features in OS X Server stand out (eg. Software Update Server - can be replaced by Reposado, NetBoot, Podcast Producer, QuickTime Streaming Server)