Security · checked 2026-10-20Can I vibecode Proton Unlimited?
NOT REALLY· don't bother
Proton Unlimited is five services under one login, and they split in two. Passwords, calendar and files are ordinary self-hosting: Vaultwarden, Radicale and Nextcloud on a small server, wired together with backups by an agent in a weekend. Mail and the VPN are not: mail that big providers accept needs a sender reputation built over years, and a VPN pool means many countries and shared addresses, while one server is one address in one datacenter range. The honest build is the self-hosted part, and keeping Proton, or another hosted mailbox, for email.
$12.99/moprice
$156it costs you a year
weekendbuild time
—people replaced it
What you need on hand.
DifficultyAdvanced · Real infrastructure or OAuth work.
TimeA weekend; DNS, certificates and the first restore test take the longest
- Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
- A VPS with Docker2 GB of RAM is enough for this stack; a home server works if it has a stable address.
- A domain with editable DNSThree subdomains point at the server; Caddy gets the certificates.
- An S3-compatible bucketBackblaze B2 lists $6.95 per TB a month, so 100 GB of backups is about $0.70.
- A hosted mailboxMail stays out of scope; keep Proton Mail on the free plan or choose another host.
Before you buildProton Free keeps one mailbox and 1 GB at no cost. You can also move only the passwords to Vaultwarden and keep Proton for mail.
- 1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
- 2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
- 3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.
The prompt
Build me a self-hosted privacy stack to replace the Pass, Drive, Calendar and VPN parts of Proton Unlimited. Requirements: - A docker-compose.yml, a Makefile and a .env.example for one Debian 12 VPS with 2 GB of RAM. Caddy serves HTTPS for vault., files. and dav. subdomains of DOMAIN from .env; the only other public port is UDP 51820. `make init` writes every generated secret into .env, pins image tags and turns on unattended-upgrades; `make update` pulls newer tags and restarts one service at a time. - Passwords: Vaultwarden (`vaultwarden/server`) with signups closed after the first account, the admin page disabled and data in a named volume. The official Bitwarden apps are the clients. - Files: Nextcloud (`nextcloud:apache`) with Postgres 16 and Redis, a 100 GB quota for my user and only the Files app enabled. The README says plainly that the server can read these files. - Calendar and contacts: Radicale (`tomsquest/docker-radicale`) with an htpasswd user, reachable over CalDAV and CardDAV from DAVx5 and Apple Calendar. - VPN: `ghcr.io/wg-easy/wg-easy` with its web UI bound to 127.0.0.1 and reached through an SSH tunnel; DNS for peers comes from .env. Peers are created in the UI and shown as QR codes. - `make backup` runs restic over every volume to an S3-compatible bucket (RESTIC_REPOSITORY and RESTIC_PASSWORD in .env), after `pg_dump` for Nextcloud and `sqlite3 .backup` for Vaultwarden. `make restore-test` restores the latest snapshot to a temp folder and checks the dumps open. - `make check` verifies valid certificates, Vaultwarden's /alive, Nextcloud's status.php, a Radicale PROPFIND that returns 207 and the open WireGuard port, then prints each service URL. - Single user. No telemetry; outbound calls are image pulls, Let's Encrypt and the backup bucket. - Out of scope: email hosting and aliases (keep Proton Mail or a hosted mailbox), more than one VPN location, apps of my own. - README: moving in from Proton (Pass export to Bitwarden's importer, Drive files by download), the limit that the VPN exits from one datacenter address, and a warning to keep Proton until every service has run for a month.
Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.
Then keep going
Next prompts, same folder.
The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Proton Unlimited.
Add a password-import helper to the self-hosted stack in this folder. Requirements: - `make import-passwords FILE=<path>` accepts a Proton Pass CSV export or the decrypted JSON from its PGP-encrypted export and prints counts of logins, notes and skipped items. - Convert it to Bitwarden's CSV import format in a temp folder under ./tmp (mode 700), print the path and the exact steps to import it in the Vaultwarden web vault. - Offer to overwrite and delete the temp file afterwards, and delete it by default after 15 minutes. - Never send the file or its contents anywhere. Update the README.
Add monitoring to the self-hosted stack in this folder. Requirements: - `make monitor` installs a systemd timer that runs `make check` every 10 minutes and keeps the last 100 results in a log file. - On the first failure and on recovery send a message to an ntfy topic set in .env; no message for repeated failures within 6 hours. - Also warn when a backup is older than 36 hours or when disk usage is above 85%. - Update the README with the ntfy setup.
Extend the self-hosted stack in this folder with a second WireGuard server. Requirements: - A `make vpn-exit REGION=<name>` target that creates a cheap server through the cloud provider API in .env, installs WireGuard with cloud-init, and prints a peer config for it. - Keep the keys in ./data (mode 600) and list the servers with their monthly cost in `make status`. - `make vpn-exit-destroy REGION=<name>` asks me to type the region name first. - State in the README that each extra exit is another server and bill.
What you lose
- An end-to-end encrypted mailbox with 15 addresses and 3 custom domains, delivered by someone else's reputation
- A VPN with many server locations instead of one address in one datacenter
- Hide-my-email aliases, dark web monitoring and emergency access
- One login, one bill and matching apps on every platform
- Priority support and backups on Proton's side for 500 GB
Why people still pay
People pay for one account that covers mail, calendar, files, passwords and a VPN, from a company whose business is privacy, with end-to-end encryption by default and apps on every platform. The draw is not any single service but not having to run, patch or vouch for five of them, plus an address that other providers deliver to.
Proton Unlimited or your own copy?
Over
Your usage
12h ×$/h
Proton Unlimited, 1 yr$156
Your own copy, 1 yr$112running + build session
You keep$44pays for itself in 3 months
Estimate · A small VPS, a domain and a backup bucket come to roughly $5 to $12 a month depending on the host (not checked here), against $12.99 for Unlimited billed monthly. The build is token usage on your agent plan.
Take your data, then cancel.
1 · Take your data out of Proton Unlimited
- 1Mail: download Proton's Mail Export Tool for Windows, macOS or Linux, sign in, choose backup and wait; it saves your emails and metadata, decrypted, as EML and JSON files, and exports cannot be paused or resumed.
- 2Pass: export from the browser extension, web app or Windows app (the phone apps cannot) as a ZIP holding a PGP-encrypted JSON file, an unencrypted ZIP or a CSV; the encrypted ZIP is the safer choice.
- 3Drive: select files or folders in the web app and download, which bundles several items into a ZIP; the Proton Drive command-line tool can download a whole folder, and the desktop app keeps a synced folder.
- 4Calendar, VPN settings and aliases are not covered by Proton's mail export tool; we did not read the Calendar export article, so look for an export in Calendar settings.
2 · Cancel Proton Unlimited
- 1Sign in at account.proton.me, open Settings, then All settings, then Subscription.
- 2Scroll to Cancel subscription and click Continue, then click Cancel subscription again to confirm.
- 3The paid plan stays active until the current billing period ends and then moves to Free; downgrading to another paid plan instead gives prorated account credit.
- 4Before the end, bring each service under the free limits: Proton's support page says sending, syncing and uploading stop if you are over them.
- After access is restricted you have one year to fix it; Proton cannot read your data, so it cannot delete selectively and everything over the limits can be deleted.
- Storage bonuses you earned on a paid plan stop applying after you cancel.
- Proton's page does not describe refunds for cancelling; assume the current period is not refunded.
- Move your email address last: keep Proton Mail on Free to forward, and tell your contacts the new one first.
Checked 2026-10-20 against Proton Unlimited's docs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The escape hatch
Don't feel like building it? These are already free.
VaultwardenOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 Bitwarden-compatible server; the official Bitwarden apps and browser extensions work against it.★ 69k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
Web, desktop, iOS, AndroidVisit ↗wg-easyOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 web interface for creating WireGuard peers with QR codes on your own server: one exit address, not a server network.★ 27k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗StalwartOpen sourceAll-in-one mail server with IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, dual-licensed AGPL-3.0 and a commercial licence.★ 15k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
Web, desktop, iOS, AndroidVisit ↗wg-easyOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 web interface for creating WireGuard peers with QR codes on your own server: one exit address, not a server network.★ 27k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗StalwartOpen sourceAll-in-one mail server with IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, dual-licensed AGPL-3.0 and a commercial licence.★ 15k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗
The numbers
Proton Unlimited pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 GB of storage, 1 user, 1 encrypted email address, 3 folders and labels, 150 messages a day. |
| Mail Plus | $4.99 | $3.99 | 15 GB, 10 encrypted email addresses, 1 custom domain, unlimited folders and labels, 10 hide-my-email aliases, priority support. |
| Unlimited | $12.99 | $9.99 | 500 GB, 1 user, 15 encrypted email addresses, 3 custom domains, unlimited folders, labels and hide-my-email aliases, VPN, password manager, encrypted cloud storage for photos and documents, advanced account protection. |
| Duo and Family | custom | — | Bundles for two people or a family, sold under a For Families link on the pricing page. |
| Business | custom | — | Team mail, drive, VPN and password plans for organisations. |
- Free tier
- 1 GB in total, one mailbox address and a daily send limit; the VPN and password manager are sold in the paid bundles.
- Billing
- Choose 1-month or 12-month pricing; the page lists USD, EUR and CHF (a Polish visitor sees PLN first, so the dollar view was selected). Renewal dates are in Settings under Subscription. Changing the billing period uses Edit subscription when you switch plans.
- Hidden costs
- Storage is shared across Mail, Drive and Pass, so 500 GB is the whole bundle. If you drop to Free while over its limits, sending, syncing and uploading stop, and after a year over the limits the data can be deleted.
- Source
- proton.me
Also on the list
Related apps
Proton Free gives 1 GB of storage, one user and one encrypted email address.
Not really. People pay for one account that covers mail, calendar, files, passwords and a VPN, from a company whose business is privacy, with end-to-end encryption by default and apps on every platform. The draw is not any single service but not having to run, patch or vouch for five of them, plus an address that other providers deliver to. The prompt on this page builds the closest honest substitute.
About $12.99 a month on the Unlimited plan, $155.88 a year (checked 2026-10-20).
An end-to-end encrypted mailbox with 15 addresses and 3 custom domains, delivered by someone else's reputation; A VPN with many server locations instead of one address in one datacenter; Hide-my-email aliases, dark web monitoring and emergency access; One login, one bill and matching apps on every platform; Priority support and backups on Proton's side for 500 GB. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.
Yes: Vaultwarden (open source), wg-easy (open source), Stalwart (open source).