email isn't that hard when you have a static IP, either from your network provider or via a VPS. Then, setup SPF, DKIM and DMARC and you're good to go (at least for simple use cases like notifications. When you want to send out thousands of emails, you might need more.)
It's one of the most interesting new phones (at least for me). Moderate pricing, long support, good hardware. And probably many options like LineageOS or Graphene if you want a custom operating system.