diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index dc4c6fc7..f8fafdb7 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -135,21 +135,17 @@ configuration from environment variables like so:
 ## Sending Emails
 
 healthchecks must be able to send email messages, so it can send out login
-links and alerts to users. You will likely need to tweak email configuration
-before emails will work. healthchecks uses
-[djmail](http://bameda.github.io/djmail/) for sending emails asynchronously.
-Djmail is a BSD Licensed, simple and nonobstructive django email middleware.
-It can be configured to use any regular Django email backend behind the
-scenes. For example, the healthchecks.io site uses
-[django-ses-backend](https://github.com/piotrbulinski/django-ses-backend/)
-and the email configuration in `hc/local_settings.py` looks as follows:
-
-    DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'noreply@my-monitoring-project.com'
-    DJMAIL_REAL_BACKEND = 'django_ses_backend.SESBackend'
-    AWS_SES_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "put-access-key-here"
-    AWS_SES_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "put-secret-access-key-here"
-    AWS_SES_REGION_NAME = 'us-east-1'
-    AWS_SES_REGION_ENDPOINT = 'email.us-east-1.amazonaws.com'
+links and alerts to users. Put your SMTP server configuration in
+`hc/local_settings.py` like so:
+
+    EMAIL_HOST = "your-smtp-server-here.com"
+    EMAIL_PORT = 587
+    EMAIL_HOST_USER = "username"
+    EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = "password"
+    EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
+
+For more information, have a look at Django documentation,
+[Sending Email](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/email/) section.
 
 ## Sending Status Notifications
 
diff --git a/hc/api/tests/__init__.py b/hc/api/tests/__init__.py
index ad3f004f..b5ec7a15 100644
--- a/hc/api/tests/__init__.py
+++ b/hc/api/tests/__init__.py
@@ -9,4 +9,7 @@ class CustomRunner(DiscoverRunner):
         settings.PASSWORD_HASHERS = \
             ('django.contrib.auth.hashers.MD5PasswordHasher', )
 
+        # Send emails synchronously
+        settings.BLOCKING_EMAILS = True
+
         super(CustomRunner, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
diff --git a/hc/lib/emails.py b/hc/lib/emails.py
index a6b4b5a6..6ea3b591 100644
--- a/hc/lib/emails.py
+++ b/hc/lib/emails.py
@@ -1,11 +1,38 @@
+from threading import Thread
+
 from django.conf import settings
-from djmail.template_mail import TemplateMail
+from django.core.mail import EmailMultiAlternatives
+from django.template.loader import render_to_string as render
+
+
+class EmailThread(Thread):
+    def __init__(self, name, to, ctx):
+        Thread.__init__(self)
+        self.name = name
+        self.to = to
+        self.ctx = ctx
+
+    def run(self):
+        self.ctx["SITE_ROOT"] = settings.SITE_ROOT
+
+        subject = render('emails/%s-subject.html' % self.name, self.ctx)
+        subject = subject.strip()
+
+        text = render('emails/%s-body-text.html' % self.name, self.ctx)
+        html = render('emails/%s-body-html.html' % self.name, self.ctx)
+
+        msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, text, to=(self.to, ))
+
+        msg.attach_alternative(html, "text/html")
+        msg.send()
 
 
 def send(name, to, ctx):
-    o = TemplateMail(name)
-    ctx["SITE_ROOT"] = settings.SITE_ROOT
-    o.send(to, ctx)
+    t = EmailThread(name, to, ctx)
+    if hasattr(settings, "BLOCKING_EMAILS"):
+        t.run()
+    else:
+        t.start()
 
 
 def login(to, ctx):
diff --git a/hc/local_settings.py.example b/hc/local_settings.py.example
index bd90d72c..849e9ae1 100644
--- a/hc/local_settings.py.example
+++ b/hc/local_settings.py.example
@@ -23,3 +23,10 @@
 #         'TEST': {'CHARSET': 'UTF8'}
 #     }
 # }
+
+# Email
+# EMAIL_HOST = "your-smtp-server-here.com"
+# EMAIL_PORT = 587
+# EMAIL_HOST_USER = "username"
+# EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = "password"
+# EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
diff --git a/hc/settings.py b/hc/settings.py
index 22342e20..e41f24bf 100644
--- a/hc/settings.py
+++ b/hc/settings.py
@@ -32,7 +32,6 @@ INSTALLED_APPS = (
     'django.contrib.messages',
     'django.contrib.staticfiles',
     'compressor',
-    'djmail',
 
     'hc.accounts',
     'hc.api',
@@ -134,8 +133,6 @@ STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
 )
 COMPRESS_OFFLINE = True
 
-EMAIL_BACKEND = "djmail.backends.default.EmailBackend"
-
 # Discord integration -- override these in local_settings
 DISCORD_CLIENT_ID = None
 DISCORD_CLIENT_SECRET = None
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 6ee11c62..3d669c09 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 croniter
-django-ses-backend==0.1.1
 Django==1.10.5
 django_compressor==2.1
-djmail==0.11.0
 psycopg2==2.6.2
 pytz==2016.7
 requests==2.9.1