
Ask HN: Where have you registered your domains and why? - tzury
From business perspective, I am simply tired of $5.99 domain register fee that turns $59.99 a year later.<p>Then comes the security aspects, after all, the NS records are to be managed by the registrar.<p>So, kindly share where have you chosen to run your domains, and I am sure the community will benefit of hearing about a decent domain name service.
======
_diyu
I've used a few registrars over the years in different ways.

About 10 years ago I used pair.com because they also had PHP hosting and
that's all I knew at the time. I did little with them.

I think for a very brief period I actually used godaddy for one or two
domains.

A few years later I used gandi.net because they were "no BS" domain name
registration, which I think was a direct reaction to having a hard time using
godaddy. I mostly used it to point to custom slicehost servers. Later I also
configured the DNS to point to github pages. Since they're in France, there's
an extra step and extra few minutes before you get your domain names approved.

A few years after that I started using namecheap instead, and still use them.
They give me the same amount of control as gandi.net but with a simpler (less
confusing) interface, and they're in USA so they don't have the same delay
that gandi.net has. I've pointed them to EC2 instances but mostly to github
pages.

Recently I experimented with buying a few from Route 53 on AWS, mainly so I
could see if it was all that big of an improvement to have everything on AWS.
For some reason I'm getting charged like $2 every month for some (or all?) of
these domain names, and it's a charge that's slightly annoying to me, mostly
because I don't really understand what the charge is for (I think they said
some sort of DNS routing fee or something?). I did like the integration with
other services that Route 53 gave, but the flexibility and customization
needed to get that integration working seemed like overkill and was definitely
harder to figure out than the other services. Again I've used them
successfully with both github pages and EC2.

Personally I would go with namecheap if I had to buy another domain name.

~~~
Cacti
Ha! I too am being charged for Route 53 for what, I have no idea. Very
confusing service.

~~~
pfg
There's a fee of $0.50 per hosted zone and month for Route 53, in addition to
the $0.40 per million queries. This is optional if you don't want to use Route
53 for DNS, so you can still use a free option like Cloudflare instead.

~~~
joshribakoff
Most registrars would reach out & ask you to pay for premium DNS after some
sort of soft limit anyways. Companies like Google pay thousands for their DNS.
Free DNS is a form of over-selling. Cloudflare also has a history of shutting
of people's service after they hit some soft limit, and asking you to upgrade
to paid.

~~~
herbst
I've had that talk with cloud flare. They didn't come over very aggressive and
confirmed that I wouldnt have a issue when I stay on free.

------
Arqu
Currently I use namecheap for their simplicity and speed yet they have all the
options if you need them. Tried GoDaddy and went away screaming since they
have some super shady practices. Willing to try Google Domains since I use GCP
a lot but its not available to me as of now.

------
kawera
Gandi.net for the last 14 years. Not the cheapest but good service and no
upsell.

~~~
jnnnthnn
I concur. Gandi.net has excellent support, predictable pricing, and a
reasonably good admin interface. Also, their email reminders (e.g. to renew a
domain or verify information) are pretty much plain text and straight to the
point, which is all I want.

~~~
SenHeng
I'm a Gandi user and but I hate that they insist on leaving my email address
in the WHOIS data.

~~~
davewasthere
I think that's only certain domain suffixes?

.com domains seem to be obfuscated okay these days...

e.g.
[https://v4.gandi.net/whois/details?search=davewasthere.com&s...](https://v4.gandi.net/whois/details?search=davewasthere.com&sourceid=Mozilla-
search)

~~~
SenHeng
Hmmm, was the service updated?

I couldn't get my emails obfuscated on .com and .io addresses about 2~3 years
ago. Just managed to get it done.

~~~
jsnell
It's probably due to the GDPR. My understanding is that a lot of registrars
are removing all personal information from WHOIS due to GDPR concerns.

~~~
misterhtmlcss
What's GDPR?

~~~
matthewheath
The General Data Protection Regulation, coming into force on May 25th in the
EU.

[https://www.eugdpr.org](https://www.eugdpr.org) for more information.

------
pdonis
I use Dreamhost for almost all of my domains. I have been hosting with them
since 2003 and for simple hosting needs they have been just what I need, no
hassle, no attempts to sell me other products I don't need, and reasonably
responsive tech support in the (pretty rare) cases when I've needed it. Based
on that hosting experience I started moving my registrations to them as well
(mainly from GoDaddy but a few from Network Solutions), and by now almost all
of them are with Dreamhost.

I have a few domains that are with GoDaddy simply because I paid for ten year
registration years ago when they had special deals for that, and the ten years
haven't expired yet. When they do I expect to move those remaining domains to
Dreamhost as well.

~~~
caleblloyd
I have also been with Dreamhost for years and register domains and use shared
hosting with them for a few websites. I have nothing but good things to say
and I think it's really cool that they are Employee Owned.

Ten or so years ago when I was in high school and I put up a PHP web proxy at
Dreamhost so that I could browse blocked sites on the school desktops. It
ended up on some web proxy list and got flooded with traffic. I got the most
kind email for such a blatant ToS violation:

> I've had to disable your domain due to it almost crashing the server because
> someone was hammering the proxy you put up there. We do not permit public
> proxy scripts on shared webservers; please remove the software. You may
> reenable the domain with non-proxy content if you wish.

------
irongeek
Hover.com, great user interface with no bloated advertisements. Moved there
from GoDaddy years ago.

~~~
srik
And their support is always phone call away too.

------
pasbesoin
Regardless of with whom, I recommend not using the same service you host with
or use for development. Don't place yourself in the position to be held
hostage -- whether deliberately or through neglect.

Some services allow you to designate another account as an "administrator"
without giving up your control over the domain's ownership.

That said, don't forget to renew your registration! You are going to want to
whitelist messages from whomever you register with.

This may vary with a more substantial presence and formalized agreements
beyond random user account boilerplate.

------
chrisweekly
IWantMyName.com for reg (cheap, reliable, "do one thing well", nice UX).

DNSMadeEasy for DNS, same reasons.

~~~
stephenhuey
IWantMyName for the same reasons, and good customer support from the dev team.

------
kaikai
Gandi.net for years now. They've made recent changes that fixed my biggest
gripes, and have pretty good docs for getting everything set up. I especially
appreciate their private domain registration, meaning that my address isn't
associated with my domain.

------
guiambros
I recently transferred my domains to Google Domains. I tried serveral
registrars over the years (Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc), but was tired of them
trying to upsell me on a bunch of stuff I didn't want, plus their cluttered
UI. So far working great; straightforward interface, fair pricing.

I still use Cloudflare as my DNS provider, mostly for its additional features.

ps: disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on the Domains team, and no
relationship other than as a personal customer.

~~~
saagarjha
I don't work at Google and I use Google Domains, so there's that. $12.00 a
year, no nagging, and I can do some nice things like email forwarding for a
hundred email address from the domain and the ability to share administration
with other people à la Google Docs. Just point a A record at GitHub and you
get Pages to host there too.

~~~
everettcaleb
I use Google Domains for work and personal stuff. It works, rates are
reasonable, GSuite integration is nice, and I can administer DNS easily until
I need to scale to a better DNS provider.

------
conqrr
Namecheap. Me domain discounts for students.

------
15characterslon
[https://www.inwx.com](https://www.inwx.com). I am using them for about 5-10
years now (had ~30 different domains over time) and I was never disappointed.

\- Pricing is fair and uncomplicated.
[https://www.inwx.com/en/domain/pricelist](https://www.inwx.com/en/domain/pricelist)

\- Lots of extra features, e.g. whois privacy, glue records.

\- DNS hosting (in case you need it) is included, DNS servers are located in 5
different datacenters. (Although I prefer Cloudflare because they are the
fastest according to [https://www.dnsperf.com](https://www.dnsperf.com) .)

\- You have full control over your domain. It's even possible to update tech-c
and zone-c (many domain providers do not allow this).

\- You can manage everything through their web interface and an API. (Many
domain providers I've had to use require you to contact support for things
like custom name servers, domain transfer, change of domain contacts, and so
on, which is completely insane.)

The only exception I've found is DNSSEC, if you want to use it you need to
contact support and send them your values.

------
chrisgoman
Namesilo for the following reasons: (1) pricing does not change (goes lower
once you hit 50+); (2) free privacy and (3) free 100 email forwarding per
domain. Have not tested their DNS yet.

For hosting, you guys really need to get on DigitalOcean instead of doing the
shared hosting. For $5/mo, you can put 10,000 domains/websites there with
Letsencrypt (free SSL) instead of paying $5/mo/domain

~~~
zie
with hosting I agree, but I'd recommend vultr, so you can run openBSD :)

------
bmarquez
Currently use Namesilo.com for free Whois privacy.

I used to use Namecheap but they charged extra for Whoisguard, and I wasn't
happy that they pulled the Daily Stormer (yes I hate Nazis, but IMO censorship
should be handled by court orders not CEO's opinions.)

Used Gandi.net back in the day, had no complaints other than the price.

~~~
joering2
I switched from Namecheap to Namesilo and been very happy - same solid price
all the time, plus included free guard.

If a disgruntled employee knows your domain name, they can call Namecheap and
claim its theirs. I had such trouble at one of my companies - while they
didn't get a hold of the domain, upon validating company name, address and
domain name, Namecheap opened the ticket for them and kept our domain on hold
for 30 days before the situation got resolved. They did not shut it down, but
we were unable to access it or change any DNS records. From my understanding,
anyone upset at you enough can contact them and claim the domain is theirs and
you stole it from them. That experience made me move out to Namesilo for USA
domains, and Marcaria for international.

Source: I'm holding about 50 domains in general since circa 1999.

------
kingrolly
Porkbun - cheap, fast and support is quick to reply. AFAIK their policy is to
charge $1 above the cost price for the domain. Free whois protection as well.
Interface is fairly intuitive and as a beginner at the time, they answered all
of my questions to the degree of detail I needed.

------
fgeiger
I found Hetzner's domain robot to be easy to use and cheap:
[https://www.hetzner.com/registrationrobot](https://www.hetzner.com/registrationrobot)

The major downside is the limited range of TLD's it allows you to register:
.de, .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .eu and .at (other domains are available
through Hetzner's normal webshop)

With domain robot have full control over handles, name server entries, auth
codes, etc. Annual fees are low (from EUR 3.28 to EUR 12.90) and don't
increase year over year. The only additional cost are if you use their name
servers (0.50 Euro/year).

Automation is only available through email interface.

------
losvedir
iwantmyname.com, I think originally because I wanted to register my name, and
they got me with their domain name. It's been straightforward enough with good
service and no upsells that I've since registered other domains with them. I
think they're based on Germany, which may be a positive for some folks here.

------
gremlinsinc
I don't know why so many people love namecheap... Name silo is 8.90/year and
it comes with free privacy.

Any domain provider who doesn't have free privacy, or a bundle for < $9.00
isn't worth it. I've been w/ namesilo for a few years and they're top-notch,
and have a good api as well.

~~~
herbst
Namecheap does provide free privacy and (i assume you talk. Com) is usually
around $9.66 or so.

I agree that their API is horrible tho.

------
andrewl
I took Paul Graham's advice a number of years ago and went with EasyDNS:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565)

And I think it's also a good idea to use separate hosting companies and
registrars.

------
epc
PairDomains.com – boring UI, strong passwords allowed, two factor
authentication via TOTP or SMS. Cover most of the popular TLDs but not many of
the crazy new ones nor country based TLDs. Zero upsell, zero scammy lockins so
far.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Namesilo is like $5/cheaper for .coms, and has free privacy, it also has
2-factor auth. I highly recommend them.

------
mstaoru
I live and work in China, so I use Aliyun, which is Alibaba's cloud arm,
similar to what AWS is for Amazon. Aliyun itself bought 万网 (Net.cn aka
HiChina) in 2013, and it's still a bit fractured, but works well enough.

For .com domains, it's ¥55 (~$8.8) per year with ¥20 discount for the first
year (surprisingly transparent). One of the great things is the ability to pay
¥676 (~$107) for 10 years and forget about it.

For .cn domains, it's just ¥29 per year (also -¥20 first year), but you need
to through the verification procedure to be able to use it, which requires a
Chinese citizen or Chinese company credentials.

------
sidcool
Google domains. Very simple to use and good integration with blogger.

------
itake
GoDaddy, 1&1, or porkbun.com - cheapest choice

I have so many side projects that only last a year, so I typically just choose
the cheapest option (which is often $1.14 )

------
wrs
I've used Dynadot for many years -- no BS, no upsell, reliable, easy to use.
Also gandi.net for certain TLDs that Dynadot doesn't cover.

~~~
ivm
Dynadot is awesome, they also have free WHOIS privacy nowadays.

------
oblib
Well, I'll admit I didn't do a ton of research on it, but I moved all my
domain names to "NameCheap.com" a few years ago and I've been happy with their
services. They had a pretty sweet deal to move them over too.

I'd been using "Verio" for probably 15 years before and the last 5 of them
were just awful. I should've never waited as long as I did to ditch them.

~~~
timbit42
Take a look at NameSilo.com

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tscs37
I registered it here and there over the years. My first registrar was a local
german firm, they were a bit on the cheaper side in both features and price.
Atm I'm moving to OVH domains, which are sometimes a tad more expensive but I
want everything under one roof and OVH is european + offers an API that is
somewhat widely supported.

------
blindfly
eNom (although prices have been slowly climbing over the years but I don't
think that's unique to them specifically)

~~~
timbit42
NameSilo.com is quite a bit less expensive.

------
softgrow
Gandi.net for 16 years. Not sure why I chose them but stayed with and bought
more domains because of role separation between owner and technical contact.
Also the free email hosting, web redirection and email redirection are useful
and it is annoying how much some registrars charge for these (Gandi doesn’t do
.au domains)

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spondyl
I use iwantmyname for the reasons mentioned by the others. I originally met a
bunch of the team at a hackathon in Wellington, New Zealand which is where
they're based. They're a nice lot with no upsell and reliable service. As
mentioned in another comment, they focus on doing on thing well which is nice.

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cgtyoder
joker.com - it is a Swiss company, and presumably would be harder to have my
domains taken away than if it were a US company (not that I am expecting any
such thing! but...). No tricks on pricing, the UI is decent but could be
better organized, offer easy registration of just about any TLD, and they
offer 2FA.

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cyberpip
Surprised no mention of [http://www.freenom.com/](http://www.freenom.com/)
yet. Granted, I'd doubt anyone would want to run a business domain off this,
but it's great for little projects and personal sites/experiments.

------
HelenePhisher
I use OVH for all of my domains because you can register probably any TLD on
the planet with them. It is quite cheap as well - and they offer free
(minimal) hosting and email forwarders as well. DNSSec and full control of
everything.

------
ryanbertrand
AWS. I like the integration with Route53. Don’t care much about the price
differences.

------
anonymouslee
I've been using
[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net) since
2007 and haven't had any complaints thus far. No-frills but cheap & reliable.

------
dsacco
I used to use name.com and iwantmyname.com.

Now I use domains.google because it's simple to manage DNS records, the user
interface is very clear and straightforward, and it's automatically integrated
with my existing GSuite account.

------
indigodaddy
Surprised that there has only been a couple of mentions of Namesilo. Cheap,
straightforward/easy interface, but still plenty of options. Don't think there
is any cheaper reputable registrar is there?

~~~
timbit42
Agreed. None that I've found and I've been looking.

------
misterhtmlcss
What's the cheapest domains to buy and hold? I'm not into investing just
building crazy stuff and putting it out there for giggles. So I'm open to any
domain that's wins out as the cheapest.

------
Something1234
I like google domains. I think that I get the fastest DNS service through
them. The administration interface also feels very fast. They cost a little
bit more than most, but the faster DNS is very nice.

------
twovi
hover.com, super simple and easy to use.

~~~
stephenr
Hover (owned by Tucows) lost me as a customer when they refused to support
DNSEC (Registrars are _required_ to support it), using "But Hover just resells
Tucows, we aren't a registrar" line, and then when pushed, offered it as a
$500-per-change option.

------
stephenr
I'm pretty happy with NameSilo.

My only "gripe" is they have a smaller range of ccTLD's, and they don't
(currently) offer .au domains, which is likely what I'll need next.

------
megamindbrian2
Route 53, Amazon. I like the UI, fully featured, better than godaddy, I trust
it's transferrable if clients part ways from my services.

------
pera
> _I am simply tired of $5.99 domain register fee that turns $59.99 a year
> later_

Unfortunately this seems pretty common with a lot of new gTLDs.

~~~
timbit42
At NameSilo.com, registrations, renewals, and transfers are all the same low
price.

------
b34r
I’m surprised no one has mentioned uniregistry. Their interface is great and
they offer both DNS and private registration for free.

------
ksutariya
NameSilo

They've got competitive pricing, free privacy (WHOIS guard), a straight
forward interface, and an API for those who need it.

------
mattdennewitz
namecheap. switched during last the major godaddy fiasco. cheap enough, easy
enough.

~~~
joering2
[http://www.whtop.com/review/namecheap.com](http://www.whtop.com/review/namecheap.com)

[https://medium.com/@alexandernst/from-successful-to-zero-
tha...](https://medium.com/@alexandernst/from-successful-to-zero-thanks-to-
namecheap-d392c76b2ffd)

[http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1678818](http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1678818)

------
tyingq
Internet.bs for their low prices and simple email notifications of expiry
dates.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I use Namecheap to register my domains and Google Cloud Platform to host my
DNS.

------
gkop
pair Domains. They’re independently owned, price competitive, and don’t
upsell.

------
dustingetz
aws - first class aws integration (obviously) and transparent price

------
marklyon
name.com - they offer consistent discounts for those of us with numerous
domains and their control interface isn't as frustrating as the one at
namecheap.

------
ojuara
Namecheap. A friend told me that there is really cheap. :P

------
Rjevski
Gandi & DNSimple.

------
cjbprime
Namecheap now, used to be GoDaddy but they were trash.

~~~
alexandernst
Consider switching to anything else: [https://medium.com/@alexandernst/from-
successful-to-zero-tha...](https://medium.com/@alexandernst/from-successful-
to-zero-thanks-to-namecheap-d392c76b2ffd)

------
vaygr
Uniregistry.

------
herbst
Namecheap

------
rubatuga
Canspace

------
twovi
hover.com, super simple

~~~
timbit42
But quite a bit more expensive than NameSilo.com which is also simple to use.

------
beezle
transip.eu

------
blindfly
eNom

------
gmays
GoDaddy has improved significantly over the last few years. It's nice to have
everything in one place.

~~~
timbit42
Having everything in one place isn't a good thing. If you have a problem with
GoDaddy, your domain is there too and you can't just up and leave. With your
domain elsewhere, and a backup of your site, you can leave at any time.

