u/Shijinb

Hi everyone,

We are currently using AWS SES for sending company emails. Previously, we were sending around 1 lakh emails per month, but recently our volume increased to around 10 lakh emails/month.

I started thinking about whether setting up our own mail server would be a better option, mainly to reduce costs. But I don't have much experience with running a mail server.

My main goal is cost saving. If maintaining our own server costs more (including infrastructure, maintenance, etc.), then I would prefer to continue with AWS SES.

I have a few questions:

• Is a self-hosted mail server actually cheaper at this scale (~10 lakh emails/month)?
• What kind of server/infrastructure would be required?
• How difficult is it to maintain good email deliverability compared to AWS SES?
• How do we manage IP reputation, warming, blacklists, bounce handling, spam complaints, etc.?
• Which tech stack/tools are commonly used for this? (Postfix, PowerMTA, Mailcow, etc.)
• Are there any legal/compliance requirements or documentation needed?
• What are the hidden costs and challenges people usually discover later?

Would love to hear from anyone who has moved from AWS SES/SendGrid/Mailgun to their own mail infrastructure, or anyone managing high-volume email servers.

Thanks in advance.

I'm experiencing a continuous scraping attack on my website. It looks like someone is scraping every page continuously.

My application is hosted on an AWS EC2 instance running Nginx, and I'm using the free plan of Cloudflare. I'm very new to Cloudflare, so I may not be aware of all the available security features or the best way to configure them.

From what I understand, the Cloudflare Free plan has limited bot detection. The attacker appears to be using a different/random IP address for almost every request, so blocking individual IPs isn't effective. The requests are continuous, and the traffic is overwhelming my server, causing my website to become slow or even go offline.

I don't want to use any paid services. What are the best ways to protect my website from this type of scraping attack using only free or open-source solutions? I'm looking for practical steps I can implement on Nginx, Cloudflare Free, or AWS EC2 to reduce or stop the attack. Please explain the steps in a beginner-friendly way, as I'm still learning Cloudflare.

I recently launched an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) SaaS and we just crossed a milestone of 20 active clients (mostly small recruiting agencies and early-stage startups).

Right now, our absolute #1 feature request is a seamless LinkedIn integration. Specifically, our clients want:

1. To post a job in our ATS and have it automatically publish to LinkedIn.
2. When candidates apply on LinkedIn, their application, resume, and profile data should sync back automatically into our ATS pipeline (similar to LinkedIn's native "Apply Connect" or "Easy Apply" flows).

I found the official LinkedIn ATS Partner Application form and want to apply, but I’ve been reading some horror stories online. It seems LinkedIn is incredibly strict and manually rejects almost any new/small ATS that doesn’t already have hundreds of joint enterprise clients.

With 20+ clients, we are still early. I don't want to get permanently blacklisted or ignored by their partnership team.

For those who have built ATS or HR tech products:

• Is direct partner approval realistic at our size? Has anyone gotten approved for Apply Connect or Job Posting APIs with fewer than 50 clients?
• What are the workarounds? If we get rejected, are there intermediate options? For example, can we use standard XML feeds for job boards, or does LinkedIn restrict that too?

I really want to do this right without burning any bridges with LinkedIn's BD team. Any advice from founders or engineers who have navigated this would be appreciated!