Domain registrar

Nonmi@lemmy.one to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 57 points –

Seeing the news with Google domains, I’m looking to move registrars, and was wondering who everyone uses.

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I use porkbun.

The prices are similar to google domains and the dns management interface is ok.

I like their sense of humour. The definitely don't take themselves too seriously.

Moved to Porkbun yesterday. No fuss, quick setup and pricing is good.

Do they have dyndns support? That was what led me to google.

Keep in mind you can always use a different DNS provider who does support dynamic dns. For example you could use cloudflare (free) with a domain bought from Pork Bun.

Been using porkbun as the registrar and cloudflare for Dns, no complaints. I like the cloudflare interface better and like having Dns and registrar separate.

I used porkbun with Cloudflare DNS, porkbun were cheaper for me than Google.

Porkbun is great. Definitely cheaper. A bit outdated UI but we all know that's the kinda one you really trust.

I've been using Cloudflare for a while now, Namecheap before that. Both have been good to me, but I prefer Cloudflare more for their various other services, so it made sense to move the domains there as well.

I just switched everything over to cloud flare the other day. I already ran most my services through them so it just made sense. The very next day Google sold their domain biz.

Namecheap. I’ve been using them for several years for various projects and have never had a problem with them.

Same here. My only complaint was the slow adoption of hardware MFA tokens, and the limited DNSSEC support on some TLDs but that's mostly resolved now.

https://www.namecheap.com/

Namecheap has okay starting prices but man their renewal prices aren’t great compared to other registrars.

Thanks for this comment, I hadn’t compared pricing in a while and just assumed Name”cheap” was cheap haha! Looks like I might switch to CloudFlare (where I manage DNS anyways) and/or porkbun which others have suggested.

I have used NameCheap for a long time and they have been great. I use AWS Route53 and Cloudflare for some zone hosting and both of their domain registration services are fine but usually not the cheapest out there.

I'm basically in the exact same boat. Used namecheap forever, and sometimes use route 53. They both work well

Namecheap has been good so far. They even provides free DNS service when everyone was still charging for DNS. We have cloudflare now that provides better free DNS service, but for domain registrar I'm still loyal to namecheap.

Cloudflare for supported TLDs and Hover for the rest

I've been using nearlyfreespeech.net for (looks) 14 years now. Their business aligns with my ideals and I've always been happy with their service.

Cloudflare, the prices are just right, and the features they offer are hard to beat.

I'm using porkbun for my instance and it's been great
my domain renewal was half google domain's offering price

+1 for pork bun! Everything is easy and cheap. I don’t really ask for much more from a registrar

https://njal.la for privacy, paying with crypto and no bs. Although a bit more expensive.

Just keep in mind it's not your domain; it's theirs.

Yes, that's correct. Definitely don't use it for really transcendental stuff, but it works well for internet projects. They also have a good track record. The were founded by the pirate bay founder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Njalla

Isn't that the case with every registrar?

Nope, when you register a domain at, for example, Namecheap, this domain is legally yours. It is registered to your name, and even if Namecheap doesn't like you, they can't just take the domain away from you. (excluding for legal reasons, of course)

If they do anyway, you can take legal action and complain at the NIC.

Njalla offers domains by proxy. So they register the domain you would like to have for you and let you use them. However, they have registered the domain in their name, so they own the domain. If Njalla decides tomorrow that you shouldn't use the domain anymore or they want to sell it to someone else, they have the full legal right to do so.

tl;dr Good service if you want an anonymous domain you don't really care about. If you want a domain for something important, don't use them.

I have two domains through a local Czech registrar. How do I know if it's theirs or mine (I know, I should have read the contract but oh well). According to eurid they are tied to my email.

99% of registrars do it the right way, so the domain is in your name. What Njalla is doing is not really common, and they usually market it as a unique feature.

Your email showing up at eurid is a good sign :)

Okay, thanks! Just that who.is shows my registrar instead of me, but I guess that is something data protection related?

Yes, due to the GDPR, they are no longer allowed to disclose private information.
Depending on the registrar they either respond to whois requests with just nothing or just with themself.

I use cloudflare since that’s where I run other stuff anyway (static site builds, edge functions, etc.)

Same here. Great prices and I like having it all in one spot.

Similarly, I use Vercel because that’s where I usually run other stuff anyway!

Same here (love Pages and Workers). Just wish their support for top level country domains (particularly .be for me).

I think Hover is the best. Not the cheapest though. If you want cheap and good, go Cloudflare.

I just transferred all my domains out of Namecheap into Porkbun. I think Porkbun is 10 to 50 cents more expensive than Cloudflare, but they seemed a bit easier to use and could hold all my TLDs. So far, a way better experience than Namecheap!

Do you mind sharing the things that you find better at porkbun over namecheap. I have domains scattered over there registrars and might use this as an impetus to consolidate. I've been okay with namecheap but not sure what I'm missing out.

For me it was really the price of domain renewals. Namecheap has great starting deals, but eg. I have a .studio domain and it costs $28.16 to renew at Namecheap and $21.09 at Porkbun. My .xyz domain costs $9.92 to renew at Porkbun, $14.16 at Namecheap. (Registrar comparison chart here.)

In terms of pure price, Cloudflare is cheaper to renew for all the domains I have, but Porkbun is only a dollar or two off and I like supporting a smaller company. Edit: Porkbun offers free SSL which is nice if you don't feel like bothering with LetsEncrypt yourself.

(Also, I find Namecheap's domain management console absolutely horrible to work with in terms of UI.)

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm not a fan of centralizing everything and hence avoid cloudflare. Good to know the differences with namecheap and porkbun. I have my account loaded with credit on namecheap to get API access. I'll use that up and then move over to porkbun. Thanks again!

Thanks for the post! I didn't realize google was going out of the registrar business. I only have a couple domains with google (mostly stopped using all of google services so this was the final service I was using).

I really like cloudflare due to the at-cost renewal/registration so that'll be where I am moving them to

Just switched to cloudflare after the seeing the announcement. It's actually cheaper too, for a .com its $12/year from Google and for cloudflare its only $9.15/year. Switching was painless, was already using cloudflare as the nameservers for the domain anyway.

Yeah, Cloudflare offers domain registration at cost, which is pretty hard to beat.

I have most of my domains on Google, but also have a couple on CloudFlare. I suppose I will just move them all to CloudFlare. They offer free WHOIS privacy and several other features for free. For those of you self hosting on a dynamic IP, there's a pretty good API that you can use for DNS updates.

I moved my domains from google domains to cloudflare earlier this year. Cheaper and I haven’t had any issues

I use primarily Hover, I want to like Cloudflare but I don't like that they require using Cloudflare's nameservers in order to use the registrar.

Porkbun if you’re cheap and Njalla if you’re paranoid. Cloudflare if you do things that other registrars can’t do.

Have you used Njalla? I was considering them recently, but these reviews gave me serious pause:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/njal.la

I don’t really think Trustpilot is a good place to get info, a la Yelp.

I can vouch for Njalla as one of the more privacy respecting providers(they require zero personal info and allow you to pay in crypto). Other providers said a .gg domain requires WHOIS data to be published, Njalla didn’t give a shit and gave me WHOIS privacy anyway. Even their name servers spell out “you can get no info”. Also, Pirate Bay uses them lmao

Downsides would be being billed in euro, higher cost, and they require you to pay into your account then they use your account “credit” to pay for your domains, but remember, they operate in “cash”. They don’t know you and they don’t know your card info, so they can’t just bill your card when your renewal comes up.

For privacy and overall service they get a 10/10 from me. Porkbun is cheaper if you’re not paranoid.

I don’t really think Trustpilot is a good place to get info, a la Yelp.

Hard disagree on that, I've found it invaluable as a tool for assessing the safety of a company. Sure you're going to get some idiots who simply don't know how to use the tool and go online to bitch about it, but if you're seeing a significant number of people making the same complaints about support or having domains withdrawn from them, it certainly makes me suspicious.

Thank you for your reply though, it's good to hear that some people are having success. My understanding from the reading I've done online is that they used to be a lot better but have fallen in quality over the last 2 years.

I’ve been using squarespace for my domain and hosting because I got a special deal on it. I was planning on switching to Google but now I’m wondering if I should just keep it on squarespace

Namecheap, but all my domains use Cloudflare's nameservers

I'm using INWX

Yeah, INWX is nice, it even has a nice API.... Well, okay, an API. Also, no automatic credit card charges, it's kind of an "prepaid" account.

I use Cloudflare for TLDs they support, and Namecheap for everything else. Though, I use Cloudflare's DNS services for all domains.

I would recommend Porkbun, been using it for almost 1.5 years after I had to migrate from Namecheap. Wouldn't really recommend the latter

I love porkbun, but I am currently having an issue with their 2FA implementation. Their customer service is very responsive however.

What was the issue with Namecheap? I've been using them since 2008 and wondering if there's something I should be aware of.

I'm probably gonna go cloudflare because that's what I've had the best experience with besides Google Domains

I recommend namesilo, and the reason is because they give privacy shield for free in all your domains, also good prices, and also you can pay with bitcoin at market price. I kind of hate to put my personal data and my financial data in the same spot, that's why the bitcoin part is important to me.

I use Hover… it’s weird no one else does. Should I be moving off?

Never heard of them, but just looking at a registrar comparison chart, their renewal costs are pretty high. eg. $20 for .wiki renewal at Porkbun and $30 at Hover. Maybe they bundle in a lot of services along with it that make the price worth it? but unless you're taking full advantage of those (if they're offered) then you could def get a better deal elsewhere.

I use hover too, but reconsidering after this topic. Hover does provide anonymity, so I’m not sure if some of the other registrars listed do that too.

I switched over to Netim after Gandi announced their new prices and removed the free mailboxes. They're a bit pricey (close to current Gandi pricing) but it comes with a mailbox (1GB) and a 250MB website.

They were close to Gandi pricing. Gandi just hiked up their prices on most TLDs by 75-100%. For my next renewal all my domains show up as €28 now. Netim is actualy looking pretty good right now with €15-22. 😆

Another vote for Cloudflare as suggested by many others

Consolidated all of my domains with NameSilo.com over 10 years with no regrets. Prices are very good with no additional fee for WHOIS privacy protection. I’ve tried multiple registrars, including GoDaddy back when they were good.

Disclosure: I work for a hosting company and we use eNom (as a reseller). I’d still pick NameSilo.com

Ditto here for Namesilo. Cheap and works. Decent support.

I use blacknight.com their support is unreasonably good, plus they're local to me.

I know it's not the most popular option here, but Namecheao served me well for several years now. No real complaints that I can think of.

GoDaddy. Easy, no hassle. DNS config is OK. There are libraries to programmatically configure DNS (for Let's Encrypt).

Please don't recommend GoDaddy, someone may actually listen to you. They're well known as one of the worst registrars. I would suggest you find a recommendation on this post that looks good to you and then move your domains there. Literally anywhere would be better than GoDaddy.

I see. What's the problem with it? I don't deal with them very often. Why are they bad?

I'm genuinely curious, bc I'm not against switching providers.

For me personally, they once stole a domain from me that I'd purchased from someone else, with no recourse whatsoever. I also saw them (firsthand) doing some shady things around their WHOIS lookup tool, where they'd register domains that users had searched for. I wouldn't take my word for it though, I'm just some rando online, I'd do some searches to see just how many people have had issues with them over the years. Spoiler alert, it's a LOT. There are even websites dedicated to detailing why GoDaddy is awful.

Uh... Google Domains... damn.

Well actually it depends, I have things spread across different registrars for different things. For all my personal stuff I have been using https://www.namesilo.com/ for over 5 years with not much to complain about. They generally have good prices and support quite a few TLDs, and no nonsense. Though they've been in a control panel redesign limbo for like 2 years which is pretty annoying, especially since I liked the old one better.

For IT stuff that I do for nonprofits and other orgs I've used Google Domains, but I guess that will have to change. Mostly because it integrates well with Google Workspace. I already use Cloudflare for a few of these things, so maybe I'll just move the domains to Cloudflare too. Generally I'm pretty happy with most things Cloudflare.

I hear excellent things about Porkbun but have never used it myself.

I have been using cloudflare. It works nicely, and integrates well with their tools.

I moved all of my data from google domains to it.

I have also previously used amazon, which wasn't horrible.... and previously used quite a few other registrators.

The only BAD one I have used, was godaddy. Don't use them. They.... are evil.

What problems did you have with GoDaddy? Just wondering what to watch out for, or if there's a reason to move.

I emailed their support to complain that their transfer out ui was broken so I couldn't get the transfer code, they sent me the code without me proving who I was. I was communicating with them using a different email and even different email domain than anything they had on file.

Porkbun or namecheap depending on use case and cost. Both have been reliable.

I have been using naemcheap for years. Seems fine for me. Just wondering when Porkbun would be better? Just wondering if I am missing out on something. Thanks,

I use Internetbs.net, sometimes Name.com if they have a particular TLD way cheaper.