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Best options for domain registrar and static site hosting in 2026?
I am helping a small business owner make and host a static website. What are the best options for hosting the site and paying for the domain?
For hosting, I was considering GitHub Pages, since it's free and just built in to GitHub.
For the domain registrar, I see a lot of people on places like Reddit discussing Namecheap, Porkbun, Cloudflare, and Ionos. I was originally considering GoDaddy, but I saw a lot of posts were saying that was the #1 place to avoid. I saw a lot of older posts recommending Google Domains, but I see that has since been killed by Google.
Porkbun is great. Migrated all my domains there from Namecheap a few years ago.
+1 for Porkbun, they sell at close to cost and have a great backend. Stay away from Namecheap and Godaddy, they're well into the enshittification cycle.
+2 for Porkbun. Good customer support too.
+3 for Porkbun, really just a stellar registar.
When you use an SSG and notably don't need PHP, you can't go wrong with Cloudflare. You register the domain at cost, it's got an excellent developer experience, and any and all static hosting is completely free. I use this. I run a web app that compiles to static sites and have over 34 million requests a month, and I haven't paid a single cent, apart from the ten-or so dollars for the domain name.
I've used Namecheap and really price was their defining factor for over a decade but now it's comparable to Cloudflare. I was using Google Domains + GitHub Pages until the former got sunset. I transferred my domains to Cloudflare from Squarespace which also allows you to host static pages so it felt like an all-in-one solution. They also have Cloudflare Workers which allow you to host small actual apps and if they're small enough, they're free.
My use-case is having a few vanity domains, one that redirects to my wedding website hosted on Zola, one that masks my GitHub Pages static website, and I also aliased a few e-mail addresses for fun.
After typing this, I know it sounds like a Cloudflare ad, but I generally find it easy to use and the docs for all of the little things they offer for free are pretty good. The UI is modern and it still feels like software that is continuously being updated unlike some of the other registrars.
This is useful for me. I'm trying to figure out where to transfer my domain that ended up in Squarespace's hands, and I forgot about the Cloudflare Workers. That is a cool feature that factors into my decision making.
Re. registrar, I use CanSpace and they've been drama-free (and cheap for .ca domains) for a couple years. Namecheap was fine before that.
I use namecheap. It works. I barely interact with it, it's not like you need your domain registrar to do all that much.
Porkbun is what all of my friends recommend and they like it.
Personally, I’ve been using Hover/Tucows for like 15 years and never had an issue. The one time I contacted them, it took three rings for a real person to answer the phone.