Domain names seem expensive in comparison. The cheaper VPS that I use for playing around is just $10.29/year.
I thought I’d get a domain name from RackNerd as well, but they’re $24.95/year + I think $4.99 for privacy.
I’ve checked Namecheap, and that seemed great, until I found that renewal prices are often through the roof.
I don’t really care about it being nice. For now, mostly I just want to use the VPS as image host for Lemmy, since Imgur and Catbox are both a bit problematic.
And without a domain name, the images only show as link posts in the default LemmyUI (though it seems to work elsewhere). Plus it makes migration impossible.
Porkbun is pretty solid
I got a .cc domain at Porkbun for about $35 for 10 years. That was the best deal I could find.
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My name registration with porkbun is cheap enough that I don’t remember exactly. Had no issues with them.
$11.08 for a .com. Source: just renewed.
@Zak @nymnympseudonym buy as much as you can as .com is increasing again this year and next.
Cloudflare has been excellent for me since I switched away from (puke) GoDaddy years ago. They don’t try to upsell you bullshit like most of the other places, either. I have three domains with them.
I do not use any other Cloudflare services. There are no additional costs or services required (beyond the domain fees) to use them as your registrar.
I don’t have a big problem with CloudFlare (and use their service myself for some things). But so much of the internet infrastructure is already consolidated with them. There are so many good options for domain registrars. Let’s spread things around a bit.
As far as I know, you can not change the authoritative name server for domains registered with cloudflare (probably not a big issue for most people)
Looks like they allow it, but only if you’re an enterprise customer.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/zone-transfers/cloudflare-as-secondary/
I’ve got a few domains. I use Porkbun as registrar. They’re awesome, and the domains were pretty cheap. Under $10 a year each.
A .com domain should be under USD $12 a year with WHOIS privacy included. If someone is charging more than that, they are ripping you off. Most web or VPS hosts will charge a significant markup if they sell domains. Make sure you check the renewal price too. Some registrars will give you the first year cheap, then charge significantly more to renew it.
Cloudflare is the cheapest, but they force you to use their DNS servers. Porkbun is a dollar more, but you can use your own DNS if you want to.
I have my domain with Cloudflare too, and at this point, I’m not aware of these DNS servers. Can someone explain it a bit? I know what DNS is, but I don’t understand what’s the use case for having them elsewhere. I’m not to argue, just didn’t know where to register a domain, so I went with them. I’m concerned with the future of the domain either, but don’t understand the issues at this early point.
The DNS authoratative servers are what hold all of the records for your domain. With Cloudflare, you are stuck with theirs. As for why you want to use a different one, maybe you need more than the 200 records Cloudflare limits you to. Maybe you don’t like the way their API works for automating updates. Maybe you don’t want to set up all of your records all over again if you transfer your domain to another registrar. Maybe you just don’t like Cloudflare.
Thanks! Now it’s a bit more clear now.
To contribute to the discussion, I remembered that with Squarespace (my previous registrar), I had unlimited redirects, which I used heavily. I am not really sure about the unlimited part, perhaps that was hidden somewhere in the interface, and they have limits, and I just never saw them. But I remember Cloudflare communicated I have like 10, so I decided to not use it for nice-to-have but not really needed things. E.g. I used a subdomain for a blog, and created redirects for typical misprints in my name. Was handy, but not really needed. I should have document this, but I was too busy at the time, and now, almost a year later, I don’t really remember. There were differences with Cloudflare and Squarespace.
Here is a somewhat simplified explanation
When you are registering a domain you are essentially just creating a NS record:
mydomain.com NS <nameserver ip or name>
Then when a resolver is asked a question like what is the A record for myserver.com it goes and asks the tld server (.com) what is the NS record for mydomain.com. the tld then responds with the nameserver ip. Then the resolver will query the nameserver directly for the A record of mydomain.com
In practice there is a ton of caching going on here, but that’s the broad strokes
Thanks! I haven’t thought of com as being the real TLD, actually!
I’ve been on Namecheap for years.
The “hard no” list is GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and anything owned by EIG. They are literally the worst. Probably Ionos (formerly 1&1) too.
Namecheap is going downhills recently… They were sold to a private equity on September, .com starts at $18.
I recommend transfering to Cloudfare, since they have guaranteed wholesale price (no added fees, and only what the tld owner and ICANN asks), so they should be cheapest (since anything less is selling at a loss for the registrar, at least ifI understand right).
Namecheap has started overcharging me like 20+$ on a renewal compared to CF. So, transfering after a first year (which is where registrars like Namecheap take a loss and give you a discount) is probably the cheapest way how to go about it.
I use mythic beasts. They are not the very cheapest, but they offer predictable pricing and just charge a fixed increase compared to the price they pay their supplier. You can trust that they won’t mess around with the renewal price or arbitrary extra fees.
For my .org domains I pay ~£15 per year, but if you don’t care about the tld, you can get some for ~£6 per year (the costs on the website exclude VAT, but if you buy multiple years at a time, the amortised cost including VAT ~= the price excluding VAT).
I Just transfered over to porkbun after namecheap decided to raise renewal cost again, wish id done it sooner.
Porkbun is goated
Don’t remember the cost, but namecheap is not a lie. It’s cheap, hazzle free, and overall a great service. I have quite a few domains with them.
Sadly, they just got bought out by a big, stupid VC firm. Only time will tell what effect that’ll have on their day-to-day operations, but it does make me nervous. Not nervous enough to switch just yet, though.
Same. And you can pay years in advance.
I generally get stuff from porkbun.com since I’ve been there for a while, prices are decent and they have some convenient features. But, I should try namecrane.com since they are run by online buddies of mine. They are sort of a spin-off of the original buyvm.net.
Price comparator: https://tld-list.com/
Yes they separate out renewal prices so make sure to take that into consideration. The high renewal prices are a marketing trick of the TLD holders. The resellers can’t really do anything about them.
A fantastic resource, thanks for posting this!
On CloudFlare, user224.com renews annually at less than $11
That’s where I got my domain (I was using them at the time, but it doesn’t matter), for that price, and that includes whois privacy.
It’s worth noting that if Cloudflare is your Registrar, you must also use them as your authoritative DNS provider. It’s not bad necessarily, it’s just a little unusual.
I see that, but what does it mean in practice?
That means you can’t host your own dns or have some other commercial provider do dns resolution for you. Typically the registration and dns service are two distinct things.
Cloudflare will control and see your DNS traffic unless you switch the registration to a new company. Right now you would pay $11/yr for registration and $0/yr for DNS service. They could change that $0/yr to something else.
It’s only noteworthy because it deviates from the norm. For some reason they really want to handle your traffic.
I paid $12 (USD) for a .in and $32 for a .nu with Namecheap, $20 (AUD) for a .au and $59 for a .email with VentraIP.
I can’t really recommend Namecheap though because you can’t count on getting support if you need it. A couple of years back I needed to change my account email with them due to Google being an arse and locking me out of my primary gmail account (namecheap required an email code to log in to the domain dashboard but I couldn’t view the email), put a support ticket in while logged into the same account in their support portal and they ignored me for close on a month. At that point I managed to get back into the gmail account so didn’t need their help anymore, I sent Namecheap back a message saying I was unhappy with their lack of help. About six months later they sent their one and only reply to my ticket, basically saying they were sorry I was unhappy but they didn’t see a problem with the time they took.
I must admit I still have domains with Namecheap because sometimes it’s just hard to get around to changing things, but I was reminded of their lack of competence literally this morning. They sent me an email saying I needed to update my domain contact info so I logged in and went to change it only to find their contact update form is broken and won’t submit…
VentraIP hasn’t given me any issues so far with either their domain or email hosting but I haven’t had to rely on their support so I can’t say how good they are with that.
I use two: Namecheap and omg.lol.
Admittedly omg.lol isn’t a traditional registrar, but they do give you a domain name and other stuff (I don’t use most of it), but it’s $20/yr
Namecheap varies, but last I checked it was a bit cheaper. Not by much, maybe $15/yr for my .monster domain?
Beyond just the registrar you pick, try not to pick some vanity TLDs. The ubiquitous ones (e.g. .com and .net) are fine. For example .xyz has a bad reputation (due to its initial low price to register, it became used for many spammers) and might be blocked in unexpected places. Others might lure you in with a cheap first year but charge much higher for subsequent years.
In addition to that, ccTLDs (country code) can be a wildcard, especially if you don’t live in the region served by it. Although rare, the country registry can seize your domain. Most commonly though, many, including .us, do not allow you to mask your personal information (WHOIS privacy). I’ve had a .me for a long time and even though they haven’t been much of a problem, they are also raising the price for renewal faster than an equivalent .com, and so I’ve been thinking of letting that domain go.
If you trust your country’s ccTLD registry and they’re reputable, that’s less of an issue, however.
Hover.com is my favorite. Good prices and no shenanigans.
