Least terrible domain registrars
from wetdog@lemmy.blahaj.zone to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 20:38
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/22660179
from wetdog@lemmy.blahaj.zone to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 03 Mar 20:38
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/22660179
I want to get some domains for selfhosted stuff, but I’d like to use a registrar that I won’t regret doing business with later, both in terms of ethics and potential customer service stuff. Who do y’all like most?
threaded - newest
Porkbun has been great
Agreed.
Seconded. I switched from namecheap when they raised the price of my domain. I never had a problem with name cheap but porkbin is cheaper.
I’ve been with Porkbun since Gandi got acquired. No complaints.
Acquired by whom?
Total Webhosting Solutions
I’ve been a happy customer of Metaregistrar for over a decade. No complaints, fair prices. Just moved a .be from Gandi there because they wanted to charge me €30 excl. VAT for 1 year. Retail price of .be by DNS.be is about €5 and Metaregistrar only charges me €7,5 excl. VAT for a .be for a year. Was at Gandi with that domain because they used to offer free mailboxes with domain name registrations but have since stopped that. Shop around people!
Thanks for the tip, I’m getting pissed off at the Gandi .be prices as well, just ludicrous.
Namecheap
This. NameCheap actually responds to abuse reports, as well. Turns out they actually think it’s bad for business to allow grifters and con artists to use their services, unlike other major registrars.
I moved all my domains from Google to OVH, OVH have an API so you can get certs with certbot. You could also use the API to update records for a dynamic home broadband
I have a server with OVH. I hadn’t realised they’re a registrar also.
Yeah, OVH do website hosting as well
INWX has been great so far, have been with them for about 6 years at this point. Also had good experiences with their customer support.
+1 for INWX
-1 for INWX. Still waiting on a domain transfer, domain is stuck for about a month, chat support was useless
I have had a lot good experience with Porkbun.
I’ve always used NameCheap. Can’t speak to their ethics, but customer support has been excellent the few times I’ve needed it.
Been using Namecheap for a decade or more now. Great company, no muss, no fuss, just works. The greatest thing is that they’re boring as fuck. That’s one of the best qualities to have in a domain registrar.
Also been using namecheap for years with no complaints. Boring and dependable.
Just like I wish politics were.
gandi.net
Got acquired and rised price.
Move your stuff from Gandi to Netim.com
Gandi got acquired and has done some very weird shit with pricing.
I’m using Cloudflare, because it’s quite convenient since I always end up using them as DNS server.
Also use Cloudflare as new domain registrar because I use them as DNS as well. I can’t say that I’ve had any problems with them at all.
Same, I also use Cloudflare dns, tunnels, and pages. Having these all in the same place makes it easy to deploy/keep track of everything
They’re also slightly cheaper since they don’t take any profit from their registrar side, hoping to make it back with other services.
I have two domains through Porkbun. Never had an issue with them. No-nonsense, simple UI, good prices.
In case anyone was wondering:
I personally have been with onlydomains for a decade or so. No complaints.
I’ve domains from both DomainMonger and NameCheap. If it were trivial, I’d probably move my domains to NameCheap. The web UX is a little better; aside from that, I’ve never had issues with either, not heard anything particularly bad about either.
But, yeah: +1 on the NameCheap suggestion.
Does UX really matter?
I’d rather decouple DNS and domain.
Feels like (no proof, just gut feeling) services like Cloudflare have better security and integration than the respective registrars.
What do you mean, decouple DNS and domain? The registrar is the authoritative source for DNS - how do you bypass that?
While yes, that’s true, you can point the domain to have 3rd party DNS servers.
For example Cloudflare.
You could register VMs with them or with another registrar. Same with DNS. Do it with your choice of registrar or use whatever else you maybe actually want.
I’ve been happy with Hover for several years. They don’t bug me and they’re owned by Tucows so they’ve got decades-old staying power.
I can’t believe they’re still around
Have you tried…GoDaddy???
giggles as the downvotes pour in
Unfortunately yes, and I hate them with everything I’ve got.
Every time I think GoDaddy has hit bottom they find a way to dig deeper.
I have a domain with godaddy that renews very soon. Is it posible to migrate it to another registrar?
If anyone else is on the same situation what helped me find a new one is this site
tld-list.com
There you can check pricing of several registrars for your domain and choose the one that you want and then you can see how to transfer to the chosen one.
Tested porkbun and namecheap. Namecheap has a nice and reactive support from my experience. Porkbun also helped me quickly.
Top answers from the last 39580202 times this was asked:
I’ll throw in for namecheap. Been with them for a while with no complaints.
Another +1 for name cheap, been using em for a decade now. Their deals are stellar and renewal prices are on par with any other competitors usually
Transferred all my domains from nanecheap to CloudFlare and I’m saving like 1/3 of price on renewals.
Moved to Porkbun, saving about the same. The price creep pisses me off.
I was with Namecheap for years, and they’re totally fine. I am now with Cloudflare because they’re a bit cheaper and their API is well supported in various tools, and they also seem fine.
I use porkbun and you get cloudflare through them, not sure to what extent, porkbuns just cheaper, I like their ui, straightforward, everything you need on one screen.
Exactly this. Also it annoys me that Namecheap tries to automatically “top up funds” over a month before renewals are due. I think they’ve always done it but it wound me up enough this year to move to Cloudflare.
Counterpoint, I quite like this. I’m terrible at keeping payment details up to date, and I’ve got long renewal periods on my domains. The early renewal attempt allows me to get an email that my payment is expired or revoked (due to a stolen card number or something) and I have a month to go correct it.
I wouldn’t buy domains from Cloudflare from a risk mitigation perspective. At work I direct six figures of budget their way annually, but as a free-tier customer in my personal life I don’t trust them not to fuck up at some point and lock my account. If I register my domain elsewhere I can bring myself back online by moving the nameservers. If it’s registered at Cloudflare I’m fucked.
I have one of my domains on Cloudflare and was thinking of moving the rest of them there. What makes it harder to move name servers away from Cloudflare than other places?
Your registrar (the place you buy your domains) is where you update your nameservers. If Cloudflare have locked you out then you won’t be able to change them. Other standard registrars will have far less cause, legitimate or not, to lock or disable your account, since they don’t host/proxy your content.
I’m not sure what the consequences are for ignoring it, but it would violate the ICANN RAA to lock a person out of being able to transfer their domain except for legal reasons like evidence of fraud or a court order. Sure, they can terminate your account on their services but they can’t prevent you from transferral without violating their agreement with ICANN.
It would be a weird scenario that you’re describing that would be unusual and exceedingly rare. You would need to be directly connected to something highly illegal for that to happen, not just a normal user.
That’s why I said I don’t trust them to not fuck up, not that it’s something that should ordinarily be expected. Additionally, especially considering how the rule of law in their jurisdiction is going recently I wouldn’t assume it will always be this way.
You’ll be fine to move them to Cloudflare.
What the other user is describing would be an extremely rare scenario, and you should be able to change registrars in that case anyway.
There’s really not much of any practical benefits of that kind of excessive “risk mitigation”.
I don’t agree and it’s no extra work to do it the other way. And when one or the other goes fucky, you can recover immediately.
I get that you’re likely exaggerating by saying “it’s no extra work”, but managing another account is markedly extra work. It will also cost extra because Cloudflare does not add any markup for registration, which is why they are the cheapest registrar.
I think the convenience and reduction of cost greatly outweighs the highly unlikely situation where “something goes fucky”. If it does, then what? You can’t make DNS updates for a little while?
The most likely reason to get locked out is billing issues, or maybe you lost your login information or something like that, which is going to be the same risk regardless of who your registrar is. Otherwise you’d have to be involved in some sort of legal issue associated with your domain and that is a much deeper issue than can be solved by simply changing nameservers.
Years ago I had a registrar go tits up without warning, taking about 70-80 active domains for an MSP’s customers with it. I managed their email servers and DNS, which was with the registar, of course. It was a bloody nightmare to recover that situation. Because we couldn’t supply them a DNS change to prove our control of the DNS, hence ownership of the domain, we had to individually affadavit each domain. Took weeks.
I get you don’t think it’s important, but there’s plenty of sysadmins that do, with experience backing that up.
What registrar was that? Were they as big as Cloudflare? How exactly did they “go tits up”? Isn’t the situation you describe a completely different scope from an individual’s usecase? It’s also an anecdotal point of data without including the full context of how common that situation is. “It happened to me once, and I have heard stories” does not necessarily mean it’s common enough for everyone to prepare for every time. I’ll remain skeptical of the
Mainly, though, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea in total. I just think that for someone who is inexperienced with DNS management and self-hosting, those types of concerns are already unlikely and just keeping the environment simple and cost less has far more value than being prepared for unlikely scenarios. It could even prevent self-inflicted issues by keeping it simple, which would be far more likely than Cloudflare’s infrastructure creating a problem that they have to remediate themselves.
If anything, the true argument for risk mitigation would be to have multiple DNS servers for redundancy.
I just don’t believe that, in this type of usecase, it’s worth pressing for and that there’s more of an argument to keep it simple.
Additionally, you can leave out trying to use your credentials and a hypothetical group of people to make your argument for you. It makes it seem like you’re trying to talk down.
This seems like a lot of text for saying “unless you can predict all the specific ways a bad thing could happen, I think putting all your eggs in one basket is fine.” And under some circumstances you’d be right.
Interesting how you feel the need to disingenuously misrepresent my point.
I’m sorry you feel that way, but you literally started off by doing that.
Yeah, I’m not buying into your trolling. Go somewhere else.
I liked reading both of your arguments, and I think they have merit on both sides. I’m sorry to see this became hostile, but I think the discussion up go the parent comment was good. I hope next one will stay friendly!
Well, our discussion didn’t go too far off the rails, but it sure escalated with the other commenter. I think this guy just likes to argue.
“I get you don’t think it’s important, but there’s plenty of sysadmins that do, with experience backing that up.” Is a passive aggressive remark designed to belittle me based on a notion that you have experience and qualifications over me that makes your point more valid, and also that other people with experience and qualifications would hypothetically agree. It very clearly implicitly claims that I am not a sysadmin and that lacking sysadmin experience is why I am wrong. This does not add to the point at all and provides, so it could not be seen as any other way than an expression of that. However, I still gave you the benefit of doubt and I felt I expressed pretty rationally that that remark does not add to the comment and is disrespectful and that it may have been unintentional to be disrespectful.
But now “I think this guy just likes to argue.” and “it sure escalated with the other commenter” is clear evidence that you were just trying to be rude. I certainly don’t like to “argue” but much more than that I don’t like to be disrespected. So I will stand up for myself and call out such poor behavior.
This is the way. Never use the NS of your registrar.
I like pair domains.
Gandi massively increased their prices 2 years ago.
For email hosting only. But yes, they are not as trustworthy as they once were
I’ve been using Namecheap for almost a year now with no complaints
I’ve been with namecheap for years too. No complaints
Namesilo is quite good - cheap & been using it for 5 years now (coming from namecheap)
I find their website so awful and painful to use. Everything is difficult to find and just takes longer to accomplish than nearly anywhere else. I bought one domain from them once and will never use them again.
I’ve used two, NameCheap, and PorkBun.
Hated Namecheap, would never use them again. Janky pricing, tons of email spam, terrible UI.
Porkbun has been pretty great. Simple, solid prices, easy to use, no issues for about a year and a half.
I’ve been with 1984.is for a couple of years now. I think my domains cost around 12 Euros a year each. Their web GUI works fine and I’ve never needed to contact their customer service, so I cannot comment on that.
I switched to Porkbun from Namecheap recently because Porkbun is somewhat local.
Porkbun is decent but cheaper if you have a dozen domains too
I use namesilo for everything but my .au domains.
Hetzner
They don’t support DNSSEC.
Yeah,one of the few drawbacks they have. Most people can live with it, but it’s indeed one of the things they should be providing by now but don’t
Is this important when self hosting?
I migrated from IONOS and Namecheap to INWX because it does support both domains I use.
And their prices were reasonable.
Migration was quick and neat. Had to issues doing it.
Iwantmyname.com ticked almost all boxes last i looked. Hasnt been mentioned yet. hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false…
Pair domains supports ipv4/6 DNS, Dnsmasq, and dynamic DNS. Cheap, 2fa secured and does the job reliably.
Namecheap. Avoid Dynadot.
Just curious. Why should dynadot be avoid?
I can only speak from personal experience but for me they jacked up the price significantly after year one and then sent my domain straight to auction after I decided not to pay. I respect that there are reseller-focused providers out there but they aren’t for me.
On the other hand, I’ve had nothing but quality service from namecheap for the best part of a decade.
As a side question, are there other free DNS providers besides Cloudflare? Ones that don’t require you to register your domain there.
Cloudflare dns changes are lightning fast compared to network solutions.