On 22 Apr 2022, at 15:45, Teton Amateur Radio Repeater Association via 44net <44net@mailman.ampr.org> wrote:

Well, there are some interesting comments. One being the cost of service. If you look at the discourse link, right away it says it is $100 per month, so it is not free.

That's for the hosted version. The software itself is open source and you can host it yourself at no cost.

And if they were to decide this group was a business then it is $300 per month. Still not free. Trying to find pricing for groups.io shows starting at $20 per month for up to 500 members. I don't have any idea how many members there may be to this group.

Just under 1,000 members. groups.io do an enterprise edition for $200/month but they discount this by 50% to non-profits.

A few have said they don't want anything that is "cloud based". Anything you get from the internet is "cloud based" one way or another.

Indeed, “cloud based” just means it’s on a server in a datacenter when you boil it down. “Cloud” is more of a marketing term than a technical term.

A few years ago when most of the groups were jumping from Yahoo some of the groups talked about google. That is probably one of the worst places to go to. I, along with several others in several groups said if they went to google we would drop out. That hasn't changed for me. Trust google for much of anything? Good luck with that.

+1 Google is definitely NOT the way to go IMO.

A bit of my experience with groups.io. For those who like the digest, it works, for those who like to get email, it works, for those who just want to look at the messages in the group, it works. It works well for archive and searching. A couple of other good features, it allows an email receiver to limit attachment size (for those inconsiderate people who think they have to send an image that is 10 megs and larger) so instead it sends a link for the attachment. Also, if a user is no longer interested in getting email about a subject, it allows that user to mute the subject, which means they don't get any more emails about it. Since I don't manage any groups, I'm sure there are several management tools available to manage the group.

I’ve been using groups.io practically since it began, I manage several groups and have contributed to their beta programme. I have made several suggestions for improvements, most of which they have implemented. They are very open to suggestions for improvements and seem keen to keep their customer base happy. It’s not open source, which is a shame, but it is by far the best option, hands down, IMHO.