42
votes
What service are you using for domain names?
In light of Google's recent, tragic, and inevitable closure of Google Domains and sale of their customer list to Squarespace: what are you using for domain names?
Google Domains checked most of the boxes for me: good price, availability of TLDs, features, interface. The company's reputation went both ways, as we're now dealing with. Can't even remember what I used for domains before GD.
This thread is inspired by the recent thread on hosting providers, where I saw a lot of people were using Namecheap for domains. The name of the company sounds like a .biz from 2002, but if it's good it's good.
Let's figure out the best option for domain name services as of October 2023.
I'm all in on Porkbun. Small firm, cheap, great service. It doesn't have the biggest selection of TLDs but it has most of the popular and generic ones.
That was the other one folks were big into in the other thread. The name makes me think of a pepperoni roll and wish I was in Appalachia so I could run to the gas station and get one.
Another vote for Porkbun here- I've been with them for years after a brief stint with Namecheap, and I've had absolutely no issues at all with them. They're small, friendly, have all of the tools I have needed so far, and appear to have a sense of fun, too.
Same here. Transferring in has been great and their prices are as cheap as it gets generally.
Same here! Came for the cute name and stayed for the straightforward and reliable service.
I considered Porkbun and was ready to start transferring but I looked around and the "Don't like our name" portion of their site came off as completely unprofessional and gave me a foreshadow of issues and smartassery if I were to encounter issues requiring support. I'm still shopping now.
I went looking for that page based on this comment. I was worried I’d find some cringey text, but it was just a single sad face ? :’(
I’m curious why that scared you off so much ?
I thought that itself was cringy. How about not even addressing it? It seemed they either felt their name was odd or someone else did and they just wanted to address it in a way that, to me, seems immature in the address alone. Just don't mention it. I think GoDaddy is a silly name but they don't seem to think it's silly enough to put it out that they don't care with a punctuation addressing.
It brings to mind that if I had an issue and asked what they felt might be a question they didn't want to help with I might just get ":'(" in reply.
Maybe immature unprofessionalism is a domain registrar thing. Remember those old godaddy commercials?
Yeah, that’s fair, not mentioning it at all would probably be a little more professional. I guess it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek as that seems to kind of be their schtick. I would hope it doesn’t expand to the actual customer service, but some companies (Dbrand, anyone?) can definitely cross that line sometimes.
I think they like to be a bit quirky since they're a small outfit. I'm personally okay with businesses like this being a bit off-the-cuff like that and I think extrapolating that to an expectation about their support is a pretty big stretch. I personally feel like there's not really a connection there and a lot of services out there actually offer the opposite.
All the "more professional" domain services I've used so far (with maybe the exception of Hover- but they were a bit more down-to-earth too) have been worse- upsells, bad interfaces, worse prices, longer support times, company changes hands, worsens over time, etc. no matter how closely they may fit some 'formality' of professionalism.
I appreciate when smaller businesses like these actually humanize themselves and the general gist from all their marketing / text on their site has just always come off to me that way instead of seeming arrogant or "smartass" (tbf, I understand single-tear.html is smartass but I almost actually like that they decided to be spicy about it)- maybe that makes me one too... having worked customer service for many years in my past, sometimes I'm okay when a company takes a shot at what are probably some BS complaints/calls they got or something-
Guess it all depends on perspective, expectations, and how we each infer the tone and feel of stuff like that- but for me, give me quirky BS over corporate jargon any day- especially when the company actually has the service, product, prices, etc to back it up. I understand not everyone sees it that way, though
I believe that corporate professionalism isn't what they're after.
In actual practice, in areas that matter like support and backend, they're everything you could hope for (so far, they're starting to get big).
Personally I love to see pretty much any alternative to dry 'professional' copy. Almost anyone can write it, so it means exactly nothing in terms of what kind of service you'll get.
+1. Porkbun is my choice after using Namecheap, Hover, and a few others. Been there for years now and never had a problem. Also very competitive on prices. It's been so good I don't think I'll ever need to look for another domain service. So simple and easy, no upsells, no dark patterns, lightweight management UI, etc.
Been using them for a while now too, still need to transfer a few domains from NameCheap to them.
They come off as more technically competent/inclined than some domain registrars with a variety of good options for 2FA which I really like.
Yet another vote for Porkbun. I just finished moving all of my domains over from Hover, and it feels like a definite upgrade. The website works well, and they're nicely tongue in cheek about what they do.
I bought a domain for 3 years on porkbun. One reason I did that was that they allowed me to easily purchase a domain for 3 years. The other is that a lot of people seem to like it.
I just finished moving mine from Google to Cloudflare. Wanted to stay with a bigger company that wasn't Squarespace or GoDaddy. Includes email routing for the domains I don't actively use and easy set up with Fastmail for the ones I do have email addresses with.
I would have moved to Cloudflare but it seems they give no option to be a registrar only. I self host and they have no offering for such.
Are you talking about needing to use their nameservers? Do you self host your own nameservers? I have had plenty of self hosted services through cloudflare.
I went through signing up but saw no option to without also signing up for hosting. If there's an option to just use them as a registrar and use my own nameservers I'm not finding it or being offered it. Do you know how to get that done?
You do have to use their nameservers. That is the only restriction to their dns registrations. But they have a very full featured nameserver control panel and API, so that shouldn't be particularly limiting. If you are doing a transfer into cloudflare, they will automatically set up their nameservers exactly like your current nameservers, so you don't even have to manually migrate anything. You can also disable their proxy on all DNS routes, so you only use them for registration and nameservers.
I've moved everything over to Cloudflare. They really try to go near 0% margin on domain name renewals and I don't mind utilizing Cloudflare as a first layer of protection.
Is the renewal price cheaper than Namecheap?
Looks like it: https://tld-list.com/tld/com
I used to use namecheap, but recently switched to Mythic Beasts.
Two main reasons
Considering there are a billion domain name registrars out there, I feel happy to be using a service that's a little less evil than your standard bigcorp. Plus, this way I can avoid getting enshittified by Namecheap when they inevitably start turning the profit screws.
Haha, that metal name is a draw for me too! How's their TLD selection?
They've got over a dozen pages with 10 or 20 entries per page, so pretty good! They're based out of the UK, so UK-based TLDs tend to come first and at the best prices, but they seem solid as long as you're not chasing the newest .ai or .zip hotness.
I have used Namecheap for about 20 years and AWS's Route 53 for about ten. I have never had issues with either. Namecheap has a nicer UI while Route 53 is more powerful, especially when combined with other AWS services.
And yes, Namecheap's name sounds like that of an early 2000s web-bizniss-company, but then again, that's what they were.
I've also used Namecheap for longer than I can remember (except the TLD they don't register), but switched public DNS to Microsoft 365 and Cloudflare years ago. I haven't looked seriously at Route 53, does it have advantages over Cloudflare outside of private networks within AWS?
My perspective on the Namecheap brand is that it sounds dated and could give the impression that they're a low quality registrar or service provider, but it doesn't matter because they have great brand equity. It would be nice if the account pages when logged in weren't also stuck in the early-2000s, though...
Yea I've used NC for about the last 10 years and I'm happy with them. I switched from GoDaddy and it was a little bit of an adjustment dealing with the extra layers of security they had, which is kind of the standard these days but they were definitely ahead of the curve.
Haha I didn't notice until just now how dumb Namecheap's name really sounds.
I've also been using them for a long time, and super happy with them!
Another vote for Namecheap here. Been using them for years and never had any issues. No pushy upselling; their portal has always been pretty advanced though when I first started using them years ago I found it a little confusingly designed. I don’t think that still applies as much but honestly I’ve been on set-and-forget mode with my domain names as of late.
I’ve been using Hover for over 15 years and never had a single problem. They’ve always been quick to respond to support requests on the rare occasion I’ve had to contact them.
Prices are pretty in line with everyone else.
Same here, I’ve also used some of their email services with a small hiccup earlier this year sending to gmail, but once I actually tried to fix the issue they had a help article that was exactly what I needed.
I have been on name cheap for years, and it has always been good for me. Pretty good UI, free whois masking, not a lot of crazy upsell.
I've had no issues with Namecheap for the 5+ years I've used them. I've also used their support a few times and they've always responded in a timely manner and resolved my issues so I can vouch for that side too. So at least for me, despite the name, I can vouch for Namecheap.
Well I can't recommend Namecheap.
A couple of years ago I managed to get myself in a situation where I needed to change the email on my Namecheap account in order to login. Basically I was away for a few days, tried to login to change something and Namecheap wants email verification to login, then Gmail decides I'm suspicious for trying to log in on a different computer and locks my email account. When I get back home to my main computer Google still refused to let me in so I eventually log into Namecheap support and put in a ticket asking them to change the associated email address so I can get into my account there (with the proof of ownership their help page said to provide).
Go forward a month and I've heard absolutely nothing from Namecheap's support team. I do finally manage to convince the Google algorithm I am human and can be allowed into my email so I send an update for the outstanding support ticket saying I've solved the problem on my own and expressing disappointment in the lack of response. Five months after sending that I get my first response from Namecheap support - they're sorry I was disappointed but this sort of request takes time to work on...
TL;DR: Namecheap is fine until you need support, in which case be prepared to wait for half a year to hear anything from them.
Namecheap also does arbitrary price increases, not because of cost changes, but because they want more profit. They're better than GoDaddy, but there's no reason to believe they won't keep squeezing customers for more cash as new customer growth in the domain industry continues to plateau.
Meanwhile there are lots of solid alternative options that only charge a small markup on cost, which is how it should be when you consider how cheap it is to offer domain registration once you've built the infrastructure. Don't be fooled by first year registration deals!
I'm still on google domains. I just use the domain to have an e-mail alias and a git simple website.
I've only used GoDaddy.com so far, so I can't compare it to others but it seems stable for me.
Yeah GoDaddy for all the hate it gets is largely fine. At work, we have some domains and services with GoDaddy (along with others at Namecheap and NetSol). GoDaddy's support has always been great.
I use Namecheap personally for a couple domains I own, though my hosting is elsewhere. Never had a problem with Namecheap either.
A few businesses I worked with used GoDaddy - the UI and customer service worked and they were very reliable. The only concern was that they were at times 2x the price of other registrars and they were pushing add ons. For core DNS, they worked fine.
I'm boring and my stuff is in Amazon Route 53, it works, it's not going away any time soon.
And as a bonus it has an API I can use to create new subdomains if I need to.
Namesilo
Prices are reasonable, and I haven't felt a reason to switch away.
Still on name dot com as they've been stable over the years. I know their reputation is not the greatest, but in my defence, a lot of people seem to overlook the fact that the majority of those vanity gTLDs everyone is using these days are fully and exclusively owned by this registrar anyway, which means the whole world has, through inaction, decided to put their trust in their common corporate owner...
...Ethos Capital! The private equity firm which famously tried to hijack the .org TLD and was accused of shady dealings with ICANN. Fun!
The last time I tried to change to a different registrar I found out that basically everyone in the European Union's list of .eu registrars was actually NOT providing .eu domain names. They had lied and the EU never actually validated those claims. (I contacted eurid about my findings at the time.)
Almost makes me like Verisign.
Can you elaborate on them not having the best reputation? I haven't heard anything like that about them..
I buy my domain names at NameCheap but use Cloudflare for DNS.
Who ever bumped this thanks. I have a .io with Gandi and their payment system is entirely broken so I need to transfer to some other registrar.
I had been using Gandi for about a decade, but switched to OVH this year.
I’m using OVHcloud, but only because I have everything else on it (VPS etc)
Porkbun is what I recommend to anyone who isn't super technical; friendly UI, friendly support, good prices.
I personally use CloudFlare because it's a bit cheaper and I already manage all my nameservers with them as well as making use of CloudFlare Workers.
I have a
.stdomain through Gandi because there are very few registrars for that extension, but I'm looking to move it now that Gandi was bought and seems to be declining rapidly. Looking at trying out Netim for that one.I've used OVH for some years now and never had a complaint with how they operate. They have a decent amount of TLDs and support is pretty fast to respond in the rare occasions I need it.
Does anybody but me use joker.com?
I've had domains there for.. well, pre-2000 so a good while.
Maybe not particularly beginner friendly but super strong (from what I can see) privacy and no particular problems at all.
Maybe I'm just still there out of inertia.
I'm still on Joker, too, for much the same reason. I've been using them for literal decades and they just work. The web UI is pretty horrendous, but I rarely need to use it.
I appreciate these threads to see what else is out there, but they also highlight that some of the newer offerings can be a bit flavor-of-the-week. It wasn't that long ago that Namecheap seemed to be everyone's first choice, but there's now a fair bit of "Don't use Namecheap; use Porkbun."
As long as Joker works for me, I'll probably just stick with them.
Absolutely true about the UI. But. It works well enough that I can buy a joke domain on a whim, in a bar, using my phone.
So for me, that's good enough.