

Ask HN: Moving away from GoDaddy - which registrar do you recommend? - duhmain

GoDaddy is the king of bad usability and tacky marketing, but until now I've been okay with this because they're cheap. But when I heard that their DNS servers are slow I decided I'd be willing to spend a little more to get a good registrar.<p>What registrar would you recommend? I've heard a lot of good things about Gandi.net, but I can't find any new reviews of them here on HN. Are they still a good registrar, and are there other good alternatives to GoDaddy?
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gbrindisi
If your domain needs are limited to classic tdls (.com, .net, .org) I'do go
with nearlyfreespeech [1].

They are one of the few bullshit-free hosting/registrar companies out there.

[1] <http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net>

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hardik988
If price is not an object, I would recommend Gandi.net - absolutely no
nonsense domain hosting ( I even received a free SSL certificate, though I
don't know if that offer is still on.) . Another good option is Mediatemple,
who are giving away $5 domains as long as you're with them (that's a really
great deal).

You can find HN archives on domain names here:

<http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html#domain-names>
[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#toc34)

NearlyFreeSpeech an NameCheap are great alternatives as well.

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mcpherrinm
I've been using easydns.com for my registration and DNS hosting needs. They
have an excellent feature set, as well as reasonable prices.

I haven't done any particular stress testing of their DNS servers, but their
documentation suggests it should perform well. I have noticed no problems
empirically.

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aeontech
I've been using <http://register4less.com/> for a few years. The price might
seem higher than some others, but it includes whois privacy protection that
godaddy charges extra for, as well as a dns zone editor and a nice UI.

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us
For .com, .net, .org, and .info, I like Fabulous.com. For everything else,
namecheap is a good alternative.

HOWEVER, I wouldn't use them or Godaddy for hosting or DNS or anything else.
If you're fine with Godaddy as a registrar, use an alternative DNS and hosting
service.

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sagacity
Yes, Fabulous.com too is a good alternative for domain registration.

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sagacity
We've many sites running on domains registered with GoDaddy (but hosted
elsewhere) and have not noticed any problems.

Still, if you're looking for an alternative, try:

<http://www.moniker.com/>

HTH

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cmatthias
My advice is to stay far, far away from Moniker. I use them at work, and their
UI stinks: for example, when changing my domains' authoritative nameservers it
will occasionally switch the nameservers back to the default (Moniker's own)
without telling you. I contacted their support about this and they essentially
said "yes, this is a known issue, and we don't have an ETA for a fix, so suck
it up."

The reason why I was changing nameservers in the first place is because their
own DNS service has gone completely offline three times in the last year and a
half, making my company's websites inaccessible for hours at a time and
costing us several thousand dollars in lost revenue.

I have had no issues using NearlyFreeSpeech.net for registering my personal
domains.

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kingofspain
I've used Namecheap and Dreamhost recently for domains. Dreamhost offers free
privacy (Namecheap too but it's implied that's only free for the first year).
Both are $9.9x.

Mediatemple were doing domains for $5 and I'm sure they're reliabe enough.

~~~
znt
I wouldn't do any business with Mediatemple. They wanted me to purchase a
hosting service just to do a 301 redirect whereas GoDaddy or Name.com do it
for free.

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ohashi
Fabulous was recommended by another poster. My favorite registrar but they
require you to either pay a lot ($30 retail) or own a lot of domains to get an
account. They cater to portfolio holders.

If you don't fit, checkout NameCheap.com.

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tam7t
<http://www.hover.com/> I haven't used it but some of my friends have. They do
private registration, DNS management, and forwarding for $15/year.

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kamilski81
We used to use GoDaddy and MediaTemple but have since switched to eApps. It
may be a little pricey but their support service is phenomenal and uptime is
99.9%....we're pretty happy with it

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Jach
I like <https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new> because they do privacy on
whois by default.

~~~
gbrindisi
Google Apps is based on eNom or GoDaddy for their domain name registering
needs.

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kvdr
Currently 1and1 is running a promo for $5 domains. They are pretty good
generally. Nothing special though.

Would recommend eurodns or namecheap.

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runjake
Name.com

Btw this question gets asked here at least once a month, so search back to get
a wider set of answers.

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kongqiu
Haven't had any problems with Hover, 1and1, or Dreamhost.

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tuananh
IWantMyName and Dynadot

