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Ask HN: Recommendations for a New Domain Registrar?

16 points by buggy6257 ↗ HN
With the announcement of Google Domains shutting down and being sold off to Squarespace, I find myself losing the one registrar I had any trust in. In retrospect it was REALLY dumb of me to trust that a Google product that wasn't Ads/Youtube/Search to not shut down, but here I am.

I dunno much about Squarespace -- haven't used them at all, since I prefer making my own websites/apps -- so I'm leery about using a registrar that's so focused on products and addons and other stuff.

I'm looking for recommendations for a registrar that:

  - Has a reasonably modern interface
  - Has easy to use DNS settings etc
  - Has modern features (WHOIS protection etc), preferably built-in without needing to pay out the ass
  - Doesn't have scummy practices (*cough* GODADDY *cough* GANDI *cough*)
Thanks ahead of time!

24 comments

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rogerkirkness
Public service announcement after doing my own research: if you use Google Cloud, you can move to GCP Cloud Domains, which seems like it will still exist.
sandy_mountains
Where did you see that? I’ve been trying to figure out whether Google Cloud Domains is impacted by this change myself.
rogerkirkness
Update: people have learned from leaked internal emails GCP Cloud Domains is going to be shut down too. I might have to Degoogleify at this point.
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JoeMayoBot
I've been using https://www.namecheap.com for a while and am pleased with the service.
pid-1
+1

I've been a namecheap costumer for about five years for both personal and business stuff, can't really remember having any issues.

ehPReth
Thoughts on Cloudflare?
tiernano
I moved nearly all my domains (50+) to Cloudflare a few years back, saving me something like 200 quid a year from my old provider. Only domains outside cloudflare are my .ie domains, which are currently not supported and I think one or 2 others that haven't been supported yet. Handy to have the rest of the cloudflare services on there too.
jameshiew
Great but only so long as you want to use their nameservers. I had a domain with them that I wanted to use with AWS Route 53 nameservers which I was unable to - then I had to wait the standard ~60 days before I could transfer it out which caused a headache in the meantime.
ehPReth
oh that’s a major bummer they won’t let you customize NS records for domains you buy on their platform. not a huge deal for most of mine but some of them…

thanks for the warning!

tiernano
You can set NS records for subdomains though... I have done this for a couple of domains where i have internal.<domainname> and that points at Route53. I also use Route53 for my Reverse IP lookups, since Cloudflare does not seem to support this (unless i missed something).

On an related note, what does Route53 give you that you cant do on Cloudflare?

ehPReth
Ahh ok. That's not so bad. It's really only for one 'learning' domain or such where I set it elsewhere. But it's by far the minority of the time that I didn't just use Google's built in one (or used GCP's) for the API which Cloudflare has
pfooti
i like hover.
menshiki
Had a domain with them for 2-3 years, every year they rise the price by $1-2.
codegeek
No matter which one u choose, don't go with Godaddy. Thank me later. My suggestion is Namecheap or Cloudflare.
VoodooJuJu
I have experience with porkbun and namecheap. I recommend porkbun. Mostly because they have the best prices and they work. Namecheap works, but the renewal prices get jacked up and I don't appreciate it.

In addition to that, I remember reading here on HN about namecheap screwing with someone's DNS records and blocking/banning someone because a twitter user complained about the registrant being "problematic" or something.

guraf
Namecheap is known to drop "problematic" users without notice and their website is filled with dark patterns.

I was banned with no explanation around the time they banned all Russians customers. I have no ties with the country but I have a Russia first name so I have to wonder...

I have no idea why people keep recommending them around here.

menshiki
Cloudflare Registrar has the best prices since they literally don't make any money on selling domains. They also fulfill all your requirements. I recently transferred my domain from Hover to Cloudflare. No issues and I can save some money. Hover is fine but their prices have been getting more and more expensive.
jameshiew
Cloudflare is straightforward to use but watch out, they don’t let you use custom nameservers, which is very unusual for a domain registrar. As great as Cloudflare’s nameservers are, this was a dealbreaker for me and I eventually moved all my domains off of there.
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tortilla
Dynadot (been using them for ages)