

Ask HN: How do I choose the right domain registrar? - ElongatedTowel

I'm trying to secure a somewhat decent .com domain so I have a space to put projects or even a blog so I can find some work. Also to have a mail address that does sound a bit more professional.<p>So far I've looked trough the usual articles (blogs, lifehacker stuff, e.g.) which advise against GoDaddy and recommend sites like Hover, Namecheap, Name.com and Gandi.<p>They all seem to offer nearly the same stuff for nearly the same prices. I'm really not sure who to take or if it even matters.<p>Not all of them offer cheap mailboxes. I really like to have name@domain.com without too much hazzle or beeing bound to gmail(which costs money anyway if you want to use your own domain if I understand correctly?!).<p>Gandi comes with a free mailbox which I guess is great. Namecheap asks for an additional tiny fee. Name.com doesn't host mail. Hover asks for another $20 which is a bit steep.<p>I'm living in Europe, does it matter whether I use an US-based registrar? Does it if my site would be used for a business?<p>I'm beeing overwhelmed by choices.
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justhw
I'm not very familiar with Gandi but I'd suggest you go with Namecheap. I
currently host most of my domains with Godaddy, though I've never had any
serious problems there there, the terrible customer support and the fact that
they try to up-sell me (some crap like a site badge) every time I login is
infuriating me.

Namecheap has good customer serivce and IMO is worth paying the little extra.
You can hook up Namecheap to Rackspace mail for ($2 a mo).

Location does not matter. Nope, business or personal, it's totally fine.

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manacit
It sounds like Gandi might be your best bet - they offer five free e-mail
addresses, a free SSL cert, and other benefits if you register a domain with
them.

When all is said and done, a lot of the registrars around are reselling from
the same company, and it doesn't make a huge difference who you go with. After
the GoDaddy fiasco, there was a lot of talk about alternatives:
[http://kevnull.com/2011/11/domain-name-registration-
alternat...](http://kevnull.com/2011/11/domain-name-registration-alternatives-
to-go-daddy.html)

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cnu
I use gandi for all my domains. Even use their mailbox for 1 domain and
haven't had a problem. I would recommend only gandi to anyone.

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orangethirty
Location does matter. With US based registrars you may be bound to US
laws/regulations.

