Ask HN: Recommended Domain Registrars?
I'm currently on Hover, which is mostly fine. Except it doesn't support a certain kind of DNS record (can't remember which; ALIAS maybe?) which is necessary to get requests without the www. prefix to resolve correctly to my Heroku apps
Google Domains is out because I don't use Google products/have a Google account
Security is a high priority because my emails go through one of my custom domains
Those are about all of my requirements; it's also just hard to know which registrars are trustworthy
Would be very grateful for recommendations
83 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 79.8 ms ] threadYou can use Cloudflare now too as a registrar but I decided to keep my registrar and DNS separate
Am I missing something, or are these products really entangled like they seem to be?
You can only tell how a registrar handles problems when they occur. I ran a large non-controversial content forum ranked high globally, but a user posted illegal image, namecheap.com suddenly sent me a link warning that they will suspend my domain completely within 24 hours, if I did not delete two problem images (which were inappropriate/troublesome images but in the context of the forum posts, "a very poor attempt at humor").
If I missed the warning email or checked my email after 24 hours they would have completely suspended my domain. I'm talking about a site with MILLIONS of visitors per month and ten thousands of posts per day, not some small blog. I thought the warning was SPAM then looked at the headers and then found it was really namecheap.
I do use namecheap and don't check my email every month, so that is quite worrying.
Obviously some images are more harmful and illegal than others, but Namecheap has absolutely no business acting as judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to something that in no way passes through any part of their infrastructure.
If they’re not hosting the DNS or web servers hosting the offending image then they should stand down. They took down Imgur for not deleting an image within I believe it was 2 hours of notice. Completely unprofessional.
I'm not sure what legal rights or responsibilities the registrar has, though. Obviously someone is going through them because it works and it's probably easiest for them to just ignore a request if it's not their responsibility.
Why should content be a concern, or relevant, for a registrar?
If this was a CDN then I guess that this sort of meddling could be debatable, but DNS?
So why would a glorified traffic signal be allowed to deny you service just because it disagrees with you?
I'm wondering if someone else can relate?
I went with Gandi as I suspect their support is more geared toward domain specialization. I don't like companies with no margins, and as Cloudflare domain sales officialy have no margin so they are definitely cheap in price, I find their non-paid non-enterprise support bad in quality. Gandi seems ok support and policy wise. Gandi also has paid telephone support if needed in emergency which is fine with me.
Somehow the registrant email address was set to their whois proxy address, which meant I could not receive my transfer-out EPP code.
I had to contact their support who reset it back to what I had set during purchase and I could receive the EPP code.
For DNS, I use Cloudflare for everything.
> We currently, and historically, have sold .com, .net, .org domains at cost. That means at the cost we pay the registry + fees we need to cover, such as regulatory taxes and card processing fees, without any profit for ourselves.
> When we mark up other, standard domains, typically the most we do so is $1 + those fees. We often do less than $1.
https://blog.porkbun.com/2021/06/23/how-much-does-a-domain-n...
Cloudflare is the least expensive registar, but they don't handle new domain registrations (only transfers and renewals), and they offer fewer TLDs than Porkbun. A combination of Cloudflare and Porkbun is the most cost-effective way to register domains in the long run, unless you're willing to deal with registrars that steeply discount only the first year.
I like the wide range of TLDs they have.
However they must have different versions and detect your country based on IP address.
Adding another perspective: the important aspects of domain registrars changes depending on what you plan to use them for.
You noted a specific kind of dns record, and also security.
For dns records, you aren’t locked to a domain registrar. DNS records are offered by which nameserver you choose. (I apologize for being pedantic, but once you realize you can register their domain one place, and then serve dns records from another place…things get much easier.)
Another thing to consider are domain disputes and privacy. You didn’t mention either, but they (can be) serious considerations.
I’ve really appreciated www.tld-list.com to help identify which registrars offer the best value- including whois privacy.
Regarding domain disputes, you might want to look into different hosts to see how they are handled. There isn’t (or does not seem to be) a specific standard regarding what is required to dispute a domain. We’ve all heard horror stories of a domain suddenly switching ownership due to a mysterious fax to the registrar.
I appreciate www.namesilo.com because they don’t fluctuate on their .com prices, have reasonable renewal fees, and offer Whois privacy for free (when possible). I have 20+ domains with them, so that should give you some perspective of how little I know. ;) My affiliate link: https://www.namesilo.com/register.php?rid=e1d6e83hi
One last comment: if your current issue is a dns record, then I’d recommend changing your nameserver to cloudflare or some other dns provider. This way, you don’t have to transfer your domain to a new registrar (which can be a hassle). Instead, you just change the nameserver record in your domain’s hover.com settings.
Hope you figure it out!
I ended up changing both (servers and registration) over to Cloudflare. It was annoying that proxies were on by default and I had to turn them off manually, and the website is kind of fiddly to be honest (I had to input my payment info three times), but overall I trust them to have good security practices, and they have a reasonable-enough track record when it comes to disputes and business dealings. I feel like I know what I'm getting, and all I really want is for my personal site and email to do what I need and not get compromised.
This led me to porkbun (https://porkbun.com) - which I am considering using for some .top domains to try them out - if anyone has any experience with them please enlighten me!
I do not like godaddy since they went stock marker years ago, and was moving all my domains to uniregistry - but then godaddy bought them out - and somehow made the support worse - and then gave all my .top domains to some company that doesn't do US wording and stuff very well - and jacked the price - so I'm letting them expire there and getting new ones.
Given all the activism for cancelling online, I might try to find where strumfrunt got domaining from - really feel that domain names, dns, and pipe to /from the net should all be dumb-pipe / immune to X Y and Z pressures, but some of these places put PR reputation in the MSM as more important than principals and it's lame to deal with sometimes.
my 3 cents
Glad you asked, actually there is! (kinda[1])
You can check UDRP[2] (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). If you receive a dispute notice on a gTLD/newGTLD that doesn't use UDRP, you can redirect the lawyers to this procedure or complain to the ICANN. This is a good way to eliminate bogus complaints because an UDRP procedure is ~$1000 to initiate.
[1]: UDRP is an ICANN procedure so it's not necessarily available on ccTLDs (2-letter TLDs), but these should have their own procedure (Afnic for .fr has Syreli for instance)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Re...
Just works. Dead simple. No frills. Feels like something from the early 90s. I've been using it for DNS for the last 10 years with multiple domains and no issues.
The founder, Mark Jeftovic, wrote the book[0] on domains. pg commented[1] back in 2008 that, "I use EasyDNS. They're expensive, but reliable and never do anything evil."
I've mentioned them a few times over the years; here's my comment[2] from 2015: "Mad props to Mark Jeftovic and easyDNS. Found his service by doing a WHOIS on ycombinator.com when looking for a new registrar a while back. easyDNS has the cleanest and most logical interface for managing domain names and DNS records that I've found. And Mark's blog posts (like the one above) are great. Here's another favorite: http://blog.easydns.org/2014/01/29/welcome-to-easydns-press-... ".
[0] Managing Mission-Critical Domains and DNS: Demystifying nameservers, DNS, and domain names https://www.amazon.com/dp/1789135079/
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9358129
EasyDNS clearly has staff that know their stuff, and get things taken care of, even if their web interface is a bit clunky in comparison to Hover.
Looking at the Heroku page about custom domains, it lists EasyDNS directly:
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/custom-domains#configu...
With a link to: https://kb.easydns.com/knowledge/aname-records/So, looks like it should work. :)
As a bonus, EasyDNS is one of those places that's known to _not_ automatically roll over to legal requests. So, that reduces the risk of having your online presence disrupted by anyone sending dodgy legal request (or even a forged one).
They price their offering a tad on the expensive side. From a cursory search, easydns prices some domains at between 2x and 3x the prices offered by the likes of namecheap.
They are not the cheapest registrar, though.
1. A really good customer support.
2. You can purchase all products & services with crypto.
If he's going to use Cloudflare DNS, OP might as well transfer the domains to Cloudflare.
Interface is from the 90s, no BS, full access to DNS config and transfers, no upsells, just hardcore neckbeard admin stuff.
I like.
I'm still looking for a UK version of this…the holy grail.
Otherwise my default is Gandi.
https://www.bookmyname.com/?wl=en
https://www.gandi.net/en
Gandi also gives 3 emails with 3 GB each with a domain.
Also for privacy I’m mostly just focused on profiling by ad companies. For security my concern was someone using my DNS to take over my email, and thereby all my other accounts
The only thing I dislike is not getting ample warning when domains are close to renewal. They just send a new bill without warning me beforehand.