Which registrars are recommended by engineers around the world?
The sale of Google's domain registration service ``Google Domains'' to Squarespace was completed on September 7th, and domain migration will occur over the next several months. For those who don't want to use Squarespace for some reason, Gergely Orosh, who publishes a newsletter for engineers, uses X (formerly Twitter) to ask, ``What registrar (domain registrar) do you recommend?'' We conducted a survey.
Domain Registrars which Developers Recommend - The Pragmatic Engineer
The acquisition agreement for Google Domains was concluded and announced on June 15, 2023. You can get a better understanding of what was announced at that time by reading the article below.
Google plans to sell its domain registration service 'Google Domains' to Squarespace and transfer all users, what will happen to users who have already purchased the domain? -GIGAZINE
In addition, Mr. Orosh prefaces by saying, ``I am in no way opposed to Squarespace.'' Squarespace became a domain registrar in 2020 and already has a track record of managing over 1 million domains. However, unlike many domain registrars that resell domains at near-wholesale costs and make a profit on ancillary services such as hosting, Squarespace makes a profit on the sale of domains itself, resulting in higher registration costs. There is a tendency.
Before looking at the survey results, check the global share based on the number of domains managed, as shown in the figure below. Only 'GoDaddy' has a share of more than 10%, followed by 'Namecheap' in second place with 2.8%, and 'Tucows' in third place with 1.7%. Google Domains was in fourth place with 1.5%.
If you exclude the small businesses displayed as 'Other' in the graph above, and compare only the large businesses, the result will be as shown in the figure below.
The results of Mr. Orosh's questionnaire are shown below. GoDaddy, which had an overwhelming presence in market share, disappeared, and three services, Cloudflare, Namecheap, and Porkbun, gained support of over 10%.
Mr. Orosh explains the reason why the three services gained support of more than 10% as follows, including the voices of engineers.
◆Cloudflare
About Cloudflare, ``Email forwarding is free and ready to use, and redirection rules are easy. It also includes HTTPS endpoint protection.'' ``What I realized after using Cloudflare is that it's more than just a DNS service.'' There were positive comments such as, ``We sell at cost price, so there are no price increases or fees charged. It also comes with WHOIS protection, DNSSEC, 2FA, and other protections. What's more, you can use Cloudflare's network to boost your site.'' It was submitted.
Since there were many references to Cloudflare, Mr. Orosh said that he actually tried using Cloudflare. It is described as 'a clean interface that reminds me of Google Domains.' Another important feature is that it comes with built-in protection against DDoS attacks.
When Orosz asked Cloudflare if they were seeing an influx of users from Google Domains, he received a response from Dane Knecht, senior vice president of emerging technologies and incubation.
According to Mr. Necht, traffic from Google Domains has increased significantly. Mr. Knecht says that the reason for this is that many users want to avoid bait-and-switch tactics that charge a high price for renewal even though the initial purchase is cheap.
Cloudflare sells domains at actual cost, so you can purchase and maintain a domain for the same price regardless of initial or renewal time, but on the other hand, the more domains you purchase, the more Cloudflare will be in the red. Regarding this point, when Mr. Orosz asked, ``How will we continue the business by increasing profits?'', Mr. Knecht said the following.
'We have taken a similar approach to our registrar service as we did with SSL in 2014. We decided it was strange for users to have to pay to have encryption online. In 2014, Cloudflare became one of the first services to declare encryption available at no additional charge, even on its free plan.
'We've seen the same thing happen with domain registration. There's a cost to running a TLD, and we're passing that on to our customers. But what we're actually doing is There's no reason for customers to pay more than the wholesale price, as it's just a ping to the API and the cost is minimal. We will never charge more than that, and we intend to keep that promise.”
◆Namecheap
The message from an engineer who recommends Namecheap is as follows.
'It's an outdated UI from the 2000s, but to me that's a positive sign. It means their core business is solid enough that they don't need to arbitrarily invent unnecessary new features.' It shows
'My reasoning is simple: it's their day job and they're highly trusted in the Hacker News community.'
'I've been with Namecheap for about five years. I love it.'
Many developers have been using Namecheap for years without any problems. Another positive point is that
◆Porkbun
Porkbun's unique feature is that its official website is catchy and uses comical characters.
Additionally, each TLD has its own unique illustration of a piglet.
Mr. Orosh also asked Porkbun about the inflow situation from Google Domains. After announcing the sale to Squarespace, Porkbun responded that traffic from Google Domains had increased 50 times compared to a year ago. Porkbun also states the following reasons why it has received support from developers:
'We were the first registrar to offer free SSL certificates through Let's Encrypt, and our overall value is second to none. In response to industry needs and customer feedback, we In the race to incorporate AI into domain name search, we were the first to release our AI Search Generator tool.'
'Plus, we can't ignore the importance of being friendly, fun and approachable. We don't take ourselves too seriously because our logo is a pig's butt.'
Porkbun sells domain names cheaply, which is good for users' wallets, but the sustainability of the business is questionable. So, when Mr. Orosh asked Porkbun how confident the users were that Porkbun would not go out of business, he received the following reply.
“Porkbun was originally launched as a new TLD registry and had .wiki, .ink, .design, .gay, and .tattoo. However, after its launch, Porkbun became like GoDaddy. We realized that the major registrars weren't selling these domains the way Porkbun wanted, so we launched our own.'
'Registry services were making $33 per .design registration, so we asked ourselves how much Porkbun services needed to make. Standard domain margins remained the same, less than $1.'
'There are a few places where we can point to our lean nature impacting our product. We don't yet offer 24/7 support. We have no desire to expand into other countries or ccTLDs. We have relied on word-of-mouth growth and marketing to operate our service.”
Porkbun ended the conversation with a sarcastic response, comparing his company, which continues to operate on a small scale, to Google Domains, which was backed by tech giants but was sold.
“I would like to point out that Porkbun and Google Domains both started in 2015. Google Domains has much higher profit margins and has grown to be the fourth largest registrar in the world. We are committed to our customers for the long term. We recognize that we are in an industry and emphasize that we as a registrar are not going away anytime soon.'
The services that received 4th place or lower support are as follows.
・AWS Route 53
It's an obvious choice for those who already use AWS.
・Gandi
French provider, especially popular in Europe. AWS uses Gandi internally on many domains.
・iwantmyname
A provider that supports over 400 domains and has been operating for 15 years.
・GoDaddy
It's interesting that relatively few engineers recommend this giant company, given its dominant market share.
・Hover
Comments from respondents who recommended Hover in the survey are as follows.
'I've been using it for many years. The controls are excellent and the knowledge is very extensive, which is very helpful when you need support.'
・Namesilo
A popular registrar around the world.
・DNSimple
This provider has been around since 2010.
・Name.com
It's been around since about 2003.
・Dynadot
Established in 2002.
・Vercel
A popular front-end cloud platform company for front-end infrastructure, offering domain registration within their services.
・INWX
German registrar.
・Hetzner
German cloud provider and registrar.
・OVH Cloud
French cloud provider and registrar.
・Inonos
German company founded in 1988.
A forum related to this article has been set up on the GIGAZINE official Discord server. Anyone can write freely, so please feel free to comment!
• Discord | 'Which registrar do you recommend?' | GIGAZINE
https://discord.com/channels/1037961069903216680/1158330455549038655
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