Tutanota vs Protonmail vs Gmail – The Best Email in 2024

In the recent past, Cybersecurity has become a tricky thing. Not just the hackers, but the companies and governments have a prying eye on your personal data including your emails.

While Gmail is a giant and has been around for a while now, Email Service Providers like Tutanota and Protonmail have made a big name for themselves in a relatively short period of time. Though their user base is far less when compared with Gmail, they are progressing at an ever-increasing rate.

While Gmail is famous for being one of the most user-friendly email service providers in the world, Tutanota and Protonmail have all their focus on providing the best in industry security and privacy features in the times where organizations responsible for our safety are themselves using our data for their advantage.

Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail:

Tutanota vs Protonmail vs Gmail – The Overview

In this 3-Way Battle between the greatest – Tutanota vs Protonmail vs Gmail, we will be evaluating them on 5 different grounds named Security, Privacy, Pricing and Storage, Features, and Ease of Use.

So, by the end of the comparison, you will have a fair idea on which Email provider is probably the best for you.

Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail – The Ultimate Comparison

Now that we have understood how this fight is going to go down, let’s not waste anymore of our precious time and get straight into the comparison.

A.  Security Comparison – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

	TUTANOTA	PROTONMAIL	GMAIL
End to end encryption	YES	YES	NO
Encryption for messages b/w users	RSA	RSA	TLS
Encryption for Messages b/w non-users	AES	AES	NO
Two-Factor Authentication	YES	YES	YES
Perfect Forward Secrecy	YES	YES	NO
No Log Policy	YES	YES	NO
Open Source	YES	YES	NO
Self-Destructing Email	YES	YES	YES

I am hoping that you aren’t too surprised looking at the amount ‘NOs’ under your favorite Gmail, are you? As mentioned earlier Gmail isn’t famous and rather is infamous for its security and privacy outlook.

While Gmail only offers TLS encryption for mails transferred between the users only, mails transferred to other recipients other than Gmail users aren’t encrypted at all. Also, because Gmail isn’t End-to-End encrypted, the company can decrypt your mails for advertisement and various other purposes. Also, Gmail doesn’t follow a No Log policy. Though Two-Factor authentication is good to have, it doesn’t sufficiently replace all other security features that Gmail Lacks.

On the other hand, both Protonmail and Tutanota have their primary focus on Security and Privacy. As can be seen in the list of security features given above, they are almost identical in terms of security that they have to offer. Both of them use AES and RSA encryption to provide End-to-End Encryption.

Though Tutanota doesn’t work on either of OpenPGP or PGP services, it works similar to PGP. However, Tutanota doesn’t possess the shortcomings of PGP Services.

Which means that both Protonmail and Tutanota offer Perfect Forward Secrecy. You can also rely upon their Multi-Factor Authentication.

Security Comparison Conclusion – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Winner – TUTANOTA While Gmail was already out of the league from the very beginning, it was a close call between Tutanota and Protonmail. However, Tutanota takes the lead because while Protonmail requires you to use a web browser to access your mails, Tutanota has a dedicated desktop application to access mails and Dedicated applications are always more secure than general web browsers.

Scorecard – Tutanota VS Protonmail vs Gmail

Tutanota – 1	Gmail – 0	Protonmail – 0

B.   Privacy Comparison – Tutanota vs Protonmail vs Gmail

While Privacy and Security are, in most cases, referred to as one and the same thing, we have decided to put both of them under different headers. Where under the head Security, we discussed how difficult it is for a third person to find his/her way into your mails, Under the head Privacy, we are going to discuss how much the company respects your privacy and if it itself is the one that you need to be afraid of.

For Gmail fanboys, this isn’t going to go well. To begin with, Gmail has its servers and storage in the USA which we know isn’t the most secure place in the world. Secondarily, as accepted by Gmail itself, they go through their users’ mails for advertising and other purposes. Later on, Gmail provided access to their users’ mails to other organizations too. That’s not so Private I would say.

On the other, as we mentioned above, Protonmail and Tutanota have Privacy and Security as their main concerns. Talking about Protonmail, they have their servers in Switzerland. Switzerland has one of the strictest rules about data sharing. Also, Protonmail maintains a Transparency Report* for the data they had to share with agencies as per legal requirements.

Note: Transparency Report contains the data about what all the information has been shared by the company with which organization due to legal reasons.

However, if we talk about Tutanota, it doesn’t maintain any record at all, not even the cookies, that surpasses even the security standards of various VPNs. Though it keeps a track of all the IP Addresses, they are put through an Anonymization Process which makes it impossible to track back the IP Address to any user. That’s the most security I have seen relating to any software available in the market.

Privacy Comparison Conclusion – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Winner – TUTANOTA Though Protonmail and Tutanota are both designed for security and privacy, Protonmail is one of the mail service providers which has been very transparent about its policies. Hence, We believe Tutanota to be the Winner on the Privacy Front.

Scorecard – Tutanota vs Protonmail vs Gmail

Tutanota – 2	Gmail – 0	Protonmail – 0

C. Pricing and Storage – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Pricing and Storage is a necessary aspect of this ultimate comparison – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail.

Tutanota has a flexible pricing option and is heavily customizable depending upon what you choose. Rather than offering a fixed bundle with the things that the company deems fit for you, it lets you choose the feature for your personal suite.

The Free plan comes with 1GB Free Storage and One Calendar Application which, by the way, is also end-to-end encrypted.

Custom Domains, however, are only available with the paid plans. The Tutanota Pricing plans for individuals are as follows:

Users get the option to add storage space, aliases, or everything else as they wish and can create a custom plan tailor made for them by simply using the tool on their pricing page.

Protonmail, on the other hand, has no custom plan feature available. Basic Protonmail account is available for Free that offers 500MB Storage and 150 messages per day.

Gmail on the other hand offers the most features in the free version. Gmail has around 15GBs of Free Space for every user shared between Drive, Mail, and Suites. You can upgrade to Google One for more storage. However, it doesn’t have any advanced features to offer like Protonmail and Tutanota.

Pricing and Storage Comparison Conclusion – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Winner – It’s a Tie (Gmail and Protonmail) In the case of Pricing, it’s totally subjective. Where Tutanota and Protonmail offer various plans with various advanced features, Tutanota comes at an expensive price point. While Protonmail has a more reasonable pricing. However, if you want the most storage space for Free, Gmail is the option to go with. Hence, it’s a tie between Protonmail and Gmail.

Scorecard – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Tutanota – 2	Gmail – 1	Protonmail – 1

D.   Features Comparison – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

We can’t conclude this comparison without considering the Features that these Email Service Providers have to offer. All of these have great features to offer. Let’s look at each one of these in detail.

	TUTANOTA	PROTONMAIL	GMAIL
Auto-Responder	YES	YES	YES
Custom Domains	YES	YES	YES
Calendar Application	YES	YES	YES
Encrypted Calendar	YES	RECENTLY LAUNCHED	NO
Email Aliases	YES	YES	YES
Unique Features	Secure-Connect	Proton Bridge	–

Tutanota is a fully feature packed Email Service Provider. It has applications for all the different Operating Systems. Depending on your plan, you get Auto-Responder included. You can also set up custom domains and aliases in Tutanota. The fact that it has an Encrypted Calendar App included even in the Free Plan adds more value to the service. In Tutanota, you get Secure-Connect as an additional feature which works as a form when someone wants to connect to connect to you through the secure line. If you actually have a website, the feature is great to have.

Protonmail too is another feature packed Email Service Provider. But not as much as Tutanota. You get the good Auto-Responder in Protonmail too, depending upon the plan you choose. Though it does have the encrypted calendar app, it is still in the beta version and also it is only available with the free plan. Also, Protonmail is much more customizable when compared with Tutanota. Also, it has Proton Bridge as a unique application that automatically encrypts all the messages that you send or receive on your PC in any application that supports SMTP or IMAP.

Gmail, on the other hand provides, greater app integration. But it lags behind when it comes to features. Gmail, though, has a calendar application, it is not encrypted. However, it does have all the basic features like Auto-Responder. But it still lags behind in terms of features when compared with Protonmail and Tutanota.

Features Comparison Conclusion – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Winner – Tutanota Though Tutanota and Protonmail are neck and neck in terms of features, the more professionally designed encrypted calendar application wins the race over Protonmail. Gmail, on the other hand, isn’t that big of a competition in this case. Hence, winner is Tutanota.

Scorecard – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Tutanota – 3	Gmail – 1	Protonmail – 1

E.  Ease of Use Comparison – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

While it comes at ease of use, there is no second thought that Gmail is the king of all. Those smooth transitions and smart user-interface wins the heart of all. Gmail is really Easy-to-use, and even if you have any problem, they have all the solutions in the world available on their library. While Gmail has been encountering a lot of downtimes lately, it is still one of the most user-friendly email service providers in the world.

On the other hand, among Tutanota and Protonmail, Protonmail wins our support. Protonmail features a smoother transition when decrypting the mail. While in Protonmail you only have to open the mail to decrypt it, Tutanota requires you to open a separate window once the email has been decrypted. Also, Protonmail is a bit more professionally organized than Tutanota.

However, Tutanota has applications for all the different Operating Systems while Protonmail only has applications for iOS and Android which gives an upper hand to Tutanota against Protonmail.

Ease of Use Comparison Conclusion – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Winner – Gmail The winner in this case is Gmail because it is, in fact, one of the most user-friendly email service providers in the world.

Scorecard – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Tutanota – 3	Gmail – 2	Protonmail – 1

Pros and Cons Comparison Table – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

Gmail – Pros and Cons

Tutanota – Pros and Cons

ProtonMail – Pros and Cons

Final Verdict – Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail

If you are looking for a Free Email Service Provider, Tutanota is the absolute best. Though you get less storage space than you get in Gmail, it offers far better Security and Privacy. Also, it has got a greater number of features in free version among all three Email Service Providers.

However, if you don’t mind spending a few bucks for greater functionality, Protonmail offers the most features for the money.

And you should only continue using Gmail if you don’t worry much about security and privacy.

So, this was our full comparison of Tutanota VS Protonmail VS Gmail. We hope you found the information insightful and it helped you come to a decision.

Do let us know which one of these three email service providers you are going to use; we love hearing from you. Keep Visiting Tweak Library for more such tech related content.