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Comment by CoffeeDregs | Hacker News Reader

Okay, I use godaddy for domains and DNS. Never had a problem with them. But these 'godaddy sucks' posts and the godaddy buyout are starting to worry me. Who would you recommend as a replacement for registration and DNS?

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The usual suspects are (in no particular order):

    Namecheap
    Name.com
    Moniker
    DNSimple
    Gandi

I think i might be missing a few but these are the most popular i remember off the top of my head.

My local ISP is a Tucows reseller. Domain names aren't generally attributed to Local Business, but you might want to ask around your local user groups and organizations to see if there is a small company near you that does the same. My ISP charges a flat $10.00 USD for initial domains, renewals, and transfers, and they're nice people.

I can't recommend DNSimple enough (http://dnsimple.com). Pretty straight forward pricing, nice one-click integration with stuff like Google Apps and they'll even give you a discount if you transfer domains off GoDaddy.

Looks nice, but it seems to have a significant price premium over GoDaddy (seems to be $14/domain/year + $120/year for DNS). Is the benefit worth the premium?

You can use something like Amazon Route53 for your name servers at much lower than that. It's $1/mo per domain + a small cost per unit of traffic

Actually, I've been using Cloudflare for the last couple of weeks and have been pretty happy with it so far.

Side benefits, CDN caching and threat detection/protection.

I'm not sure how many domains you handle, but in my case I have less than 10 domains so I pay $36 yearly + 8 per domain transfer from GoDaddy (or $14 as you mentioned). With one click you get stuff like Google Apps or Heroku setup for you.

After dealing with registrars for a long time I've realized that paying extra $5 per domain per year is totally worth it if you don't have to deal with companies like GoDaddy.

I'm not familiar with the Amazon service, but if it's $1 per domain per month then you'd save $0.7 for every domain using DNSimple.

EDIT: I should link to another HN discussion on the subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753471. One comment that resonates by jbyers: "Read your registrar's terms. See if you still want to save that $6 a year".

So you have to pay DNSimple for the service plus whatever each domain costs per year? I'm not understanding their pricing scheme very well, it seems.

There are two separate costs: one is the domain registration and the other one is the hosted DNS solution.

With the hosted DNS solution you get access to stuff like the one click setups I mentioned earlier, API access, domain forwarding, vanity name servers and who knows what else. Keep in mind you can use their DNS service even if you don't register your domains with them.

Ah, right. I use Linode's panel, but I could use some one-click Google Apps DNS records, thanks.

I've used http://www.1and1.com/ for registration ($10/yr normal prices) for some time. The UI is awful, but aren't they all, and I basically never need to use it once it's set up, so it's OK by me.

The commonly named alternatives seem (all for .com): Namecheap $10 Name.com $10 Moniker ??? DNSimple $14 Gandi 12,00 € (~ $17) Joker.com $12.80

Name registration is a commodity. I go with the cheapest provider.

Its not hard to find viable alternatives. There was a big thread on it about a year ago if I remember correctly.

I use name.com and have been very happy. A lot of people here use namecheap. I bet other people will reply to this comment with more options.

Shameless plug. My new startup Coffee & Domains does domain registration, free private whois, and DNS control for $10 per year.

https://www.coffeeanddomains.com

The site looks nice, in general.

But "$10 dollars"?

"Click here to start a transfer. Just $10 dollars. As painless as possible."

So is Coffee & Domains a reseller for GoDaddy (or another registrar) or did you put up the escrow money with the registries to become a full-fledged registrar?

EDIT: I see you answered this already in another comment (Key-Systems): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2752284

BTW, I live 3 blocks away from you in Herndon. Pretty small world!

Any plans to allow purchases from Non-US countries?

I just tried to buy a domain but can't fill out the form.

Really? Damn. I was considering trying someone new for domain management and put this on the list.

I use joker.com. Free DNS and mail forwarding. Simple UI. Lots of email accounting of changes and such. I've had no issues in 10 years.

I am using combination of dynadot.com (domain registration) and pointhq.com (dns), so far so good :)

namecheap.com

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