I'm migrating from SendGrid to something simpler. What should I look at?

If you’re moving off SendGrid and want something simpler, I’d focus on how much of SendGrid you actually use first. The “best” replacement depends on whether you need:

• Transactional email only (password resets, receipts, alerts)
• Marketing/email campaigns
• Both
• SMTP only vs API
• Just sending, or also templates, webhooks, logs, suppression lists, etc.

Good options to look at

1. Postmark

Best if you want simple, reliable transactional email.

Why people choose it:

• Very straightforward product and UI
• Great deliverability reputation
• Good logs and event tracking
• Easy API and SMTP
• Clean template system

Tradeoffs:

• Mostly focused on transactional email
• Not meant to be a full marketing platform

2. Amazon SES

Best if you want low cost and don’t mind more setup.

Why people choose it:

• Very inexpensive at scale
• Solid deliverability if configured well
• Works with SMTP and API
• Good if you already use AWS

Tradeoffs:

• Less “nice” out of the box
• More operational overhead
• Fewer built-in conveniences than SendGrid

3. Mailgun

Good middle ground for transactional email and flexible API usage.

Why people choose it:

• Developer-friendly
• Good API
• Useful if you want a more modern email infrastructure tool

Tradeoffs:

• Can feel a bit more complex than “simple”
• Pricing/support experience varies depending on plan and use case

4. Resend

Best if you want a newer, developer-friendly transactional email tool.

Why people choose it:

• Simple API
• Clean UX
• Good for modern app workflows
• Often appealing for startups and product teams

Tradeoffs:

• Newer than the others
• Less battle-tested than SES/Postmark in some environments

5. Brevo (Sendinblue)

If you need both transactional and marketing, and want something simpler than SendGrid.

Why people choose it:

• All-in-one-ish
• Includes campaigns, automation, and transactional email
• Decent value for small/medium businesses

Tradeoffs:

• Less focused purely on developer transactional use
• UI can feel more marketing-oriented

What to compare

When evaluating replacements, check these:

• Deliverability
• API quality
• SMTP support
• Templates
• Webhooks/event logs
• Suppression handling
• Dedicated IP options if needed
• Sandbox/testing mode
• Price at your volume
• Ease of migration
• Support quality

Quick recommendation

• If you mainly send app emails: Postmark or Resend
• If you want lowest cost and can handle setup: Amazon SES
• If you want marketing + transactional: Brevo
• If you want flexible but still familiar: Mailgun

If you want, I can narrow this down based on:

1. your monthly volume,
2. whether you send transactional vs marketing,
3. whether you need SMTP or API,
4. and what language/framework you’re using.