# Guidance for Setting Up Discourse: Hetzner VDS + Namecheap Private Email SMTP

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/guidance-for-setting-up-discourse-hetzner-vds-namecheap-private-email-smtp/382532>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Tags:** hosting\
**Created:** [September 13, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/guidance-for-setting-up-discourse-hetzner-vds-namecheap-private-email-smtp/382532 "2025-09-13T16:23:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

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**Author:** ![Can](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Can](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Can)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/guidance-for-setting-up-discourse-hetzner-vds-namecheap-private-email-smtp/382532/11 "2025-09-14T00:00:02Z")

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Namecheap Private Email is not only for inbox (IMAP/POP) use; it fully supports **secure outbound SMTP delivery** as well. In my Discourse setup I configured:

- `mail.privateemail.com` as the SMTP host

- **Port 465 / SSL**

- `DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: false`

- `DISCOURSE_SMTP_FORCE_TLS: true`

and then ran `./launcher rebuild app` to apply the configuration.  
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are also **fully set up through Cloudflare DNS**.

As a result, Discourse connects to Namecheap’s SMTP server **securely over 465/SSL and fully in line with email standards**.  
Given the current email volume, there is no need for an additional transactional email service such as Mailgun, Brevo, or Amazon SES at this stage.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/guidance-for-setting-up-discourse-hetzner-vds-namecheap-private-email-smtp/382532)._