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Comment by kevingrahl | Hacker News Reader

If someone has a suggestion for some reliable registrar that isn’t Namecheap I’d be happy to hear about them!

EasyDNS. Neither the cheapest nor apparently as well known these days, they seem to be sustained by a devoted customer base. I've used them for nearly 20 years.

The product lineup and administration interface is somewhat complex and confusing, IMO; perhaps an artifact of trying to appease long-term customers. I could never be bothered to figure it all out, but whenever I've looked for a feature I've never failed to discover something new to appreciate.

I'm interested what others have to say about them.

Most of the registrars have been acquired by other companies and are only the previous name for marketing purposes. I am not happy with any of the US or EU registrars beyond Mark Monitor, and MM are not meant for hobby domains/users.

Do you prefer US or EU? For US, you might try out Cloudflare or Amazon route53. I don't care for either of them, but others I know have been happy using them.

When you get your domains back and if you can afford it, you can pay for up to 10 years. Most registrars will give a discount. If they offer more than 10 years, don't do it. 10 years is the hard limit, which means you would have to trust that registrar stays in business more than 10 years and most will not.

Thanks for the input! I heard good things about MM and would love to use them but I’m not exactly their target audience.

I’d prefer an EU based registrar, any suggestions there?

As soon as I have my domain back (or a new one) I’ll definitely pay some years in advance from now on.

For EU, I've heard many good things about OVH, but I have never used them. Also quite a few folks here on HN have said good things about OVH in EU.

Gandi. Fairly low pricing, very FOSS friendly, often actually knowledgeable support that you don't have to hit with a baseball bat before they get a clue (unlike OVH).

I’ve had my domains on transip.eu (or .nl for me) for years and have never had any issues.

The predatory pricing of some registrars reminds me of the market for SSL certificates before Let's Encrypt.

I used OVH to register my domain names, and recently migrated them to Cloudflare. OVH is a totally fair choice, but their web panel is pretty papercutty and the whole experience is more OK than amazing.

I moved so I wouldn't feel like I'm at the mercy of my registrar. I want predictable pricing, not the half-expectation that somehow someday my domain will be mysteriously lost or held hostage.

At $dayjob we moved hundreds of domains to Hover.com a few years ago. No bullshit cross-selling, great service and documentation, well-designed site without “blinkenlights”.

Hover is definitely not the cheapest, but then again they’re not monetizing you to third parties or constantly up-selling. Privacy/locking/DNS are built in to reg cost so no surprises.

I moved my personal domains there too after it won our corporate evaluation process. Couldn’t be happier.

What about https://www.gandi.net/en ?

Gandi or GTFO, they're one of the few registrars that are fighting for the "good guys"

I have heard good things about https://www.inwx.com/

Thanks! You’re the second person to recommend INWX, already have it open in a tab to read up on them!

I use Hexonet for my .de. It’s made for big portfolios but it works and they’re German.

gandi.net has a good track record, a promise to not engage in any ethical "grey" areas, and is based in France.

Try Gandi, CloudFlare, or Hover.

Cloudflare!

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