
Ask HN: Is .io domain unstable? - katzeilla
After searched on HN, I found many people were not satisfied about the stability of .io domains.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?q=.io+domain<p>So, should I use a .io domain for my site? Or I should use something else?
======
mike_d
The DNS for .io is (now) operated by Afilias on their anycast network. It is
the same network of servers that are operating .org, .info, and a few dozen
other TLDs.

Despite any support or administrative issues you may encounter, the technical
infrastructure is sound.

------
Hydraulix989
How are some TLDs less stable than others? Isn't DNS distributed? (I'm not a
networking engineer.)

~~~
mey
Each Top level domain has an administrator responsible for running that tld.
Including running it's DNS. The root domain ".", routes the request to the
correct TLD DNS server. So technically, first you ask the root server for the
DNS server of .com, then ask .com for google.com, etc. (Technically the DNS
entry is google.com. )

.com is administrated by Verisign.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_d...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_domains) has more info.

------
sandstrom
They’ve had multiple large DNS outages during the past couple of years.

Stable is relative, of course, it’s still going to be online more than 99.9%
of the time, but compared to e.g. .com or the myriad of other ccTLDs they’ve
been fairly unstable.

We ended up switching domain for our service, because they (.io) caused our
only two outages during a one-year period.

------
vfc1
I've been using it for years and never noticed anything. But I think it's a
good idea as a precaution to leave only things like landing pages in the IO
domain, and setup the API or dashboard app in a separate .com domain.

I remember reading in some comment here on HN I think that their support does
not reply on weekends.

------
WhiteOwlLion
Good article on keeping DNS resolution more stable: * Longer TTLs * Secondary
DNS

[https://medium.com/@brianarmstrong/youre-probably-doing-
dns-...](https://medium.com/@brianarmstrong/youre-probably-doing-dns-wrong-
like-we-were-6625efaed390)

------
wolf550e
The io cctld authoritative dns servers are not very competently run. There
have also been security issues like [https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-
taking-control-of-all...](https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-
control-of-all-io-domains-with-a-targeted-registration/)

'tptacek would add that a cctld that is under control of the five eyes
governments is less secure because the registry can be interfered with more
easily than .com, though I think that's kinda theoretical.

------
em-bee
there are now hundreds of top-level vanity domains. plenty of good ones that
rival .io. pick any you like.

~~~
kzzy
Any suggestions?

~~~
mustntmumble
Check out this list as a starting point:
[https://www.namecheap.com/domains/new-
tlds/explore/](https://www.namecheap.com/domains/new-tlds/explore/)

