HN Explorer

Ask HN: What's the current best domain host?

12 points by sloankev ↗ HN
I've got domains on 1and1, GoDaddy and NameCheap. I don't like any of them due to various reasons including clunky user experience, hidden fees, very slow or no support. I want to consolidate them all onto one host.

Looking for recommendations of modern domain hosts that provide a good user experience and competitive pricing.

Don't need hosting, just domains.

25 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 50.9 ms ] thread
dieselgate
I get my domains from Dreamhost. It works well for my needs - host with a few different places including Digital Ocean and GitHub pages fwiw
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fIREpOK
Namecheap.com isn't bad...I think that $10 is kinda expensive for a domain though.
simpleintheory
The issue is that ICANN already wants the $8/year cost, so if they’re to make any margin at all…
quickthrower2
plus one for namecheap, out of habit rather than a specific reason, but no reason to change
bitxbitxbitcoin
Plus points for being willing to experiment with Handshake names.
brunnock
I've been using https://domains.google/ for years. $12/year/domain. Email forwarding is included. I don't even know if they charge extra for anything else.
detourdog
I have been with network solutions for registration from the beginning and panix.com cheap-web for primary dns.

http://www.panix.com/web/

They are actual unix sysadmins and very easy to deal with.

Leftium
I have been moving all my domains to https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar

I think they charge you their cost for domains hoping you'll pay for their other services later.

Overall it's been a good experience. Sometimes you have to use CloudFlare rules instead of simpler settings at other registrars.

imirzadeh
Same experience!

CF is great. Their free tier is so good I can't believe people use other clouds for personal/small projects. The integration of products is also seamless: dns/ssl/workers/pages/storage for free!

aeharding
I’m being bitten by this right now. Registered a domain in personal account, want to move to a different cloudflare account and I can’t since that’s completely unsupported. The recommendation is to transfer out to external registrar, wait 60 days, transfer back in.

Can’t even change the name servers, since that’s not configurable with cloudflare.

And I can’t move the domain out of cloudflare so I can change nameservers for 60 days because I just registered the domain…

Support very unhelpful, situation sucks.

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tkiolp4
No problems with gandi.net so far. Very friendly customer service as well.
is_true
I use two companies: name.com and one local provider, mostly because the local provider has an offer and when you move a domain to them the renewal costs USD2.
codegeek
1and1 and Godaddy are absolute trash. But what's your issue with Namecheap ? They have solid support and yes domains are a bit pricey may be compared to another registrar but when I look at domain registrar, I care mostly about Support and reliability.
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romanhn
I registered my last domain with Porkbun based on HN recommendations. No complaints.