Selfhosted
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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+1 porkbun. $1.60 for a .top whois privacy. 2FA with security key. Even let me host my own nameserver, so I can have separate internal and external views.
Any registrar allows you to host your own nameservers. You just point to your server from the registrar console.
+1 for Porkbun. They are exceptionally unexceptional.
Porkbun works good for me
In the process of moving all my stuff to porkbun as well. It's the best.
Recently moved over to porkbun after dealing with a couple billing issues with namecheap and not getting the best customer service. Been pretty happy so far.
I moved all of my domains to Porkbun when Google Domains started to close down or become SquareSpace or whatever they were doing.
No complaints so far.
I've been with Porkbun for over a year now. No complaints.
I've been using Porkbun for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. I switched from a mix of Google Domains and Namecheap.
Namecheap for registrar and Cloudflare for the name servers. Always keep those services separated so if one dies, you can still get into the other service to fix it.
If a registrar goes out of business, ICANN transfers the domain(s) to another registrar.
If a name server business fails, you change name servers through your registrar.
You can't really fix registrar services in your name server, nor name server problems through your registrar. (Unless, of course, your registrar is also your name server.)
If your registrar goes down but the NS are on a different provider, the root servers will keep that NS record and all will be well. You can go to a different registrar and transfer it over, but in the meantime it'll be fine and you can do whatever you need with your DNS.
If the DNS provider goes down, you can go to your registrar and quickly change the NS to another provider. It'll quickly be back up on your new DNS servers.
Believe me, I've done this for 3 decades because one or the other have gone down on me more than once and I've had minimal downtime with this separation. Even when I was running my own NS, I kept more than one NS outside my server farm so if my connections went down, I could pop the farm up on a backup colo and point my tertiary accordingly.
CloudFlare
Yup, they don't mark up prices, they allow you to proxy traffic though them, and they have a WAF that you can set up 5 (I think) firewall rules for your traffic for free.
~~Google Domains because I have a Google account and buying a domain on it was easy when I needed it. I'm still on Google Domains but you've reminded me I need to continue the transfer to Cloudflare before I get forced over to Square Space because they don't support Dynamic DNS.~~
Cloudflare.
Same, Google was easy and as cheap as anyone else. Now Cloudflare
Cloudflare for support (tooling), Njal.la for privacy (run by the pirate bay founder), porkbun for a happy medium and for the cool kids.
Namecheap because I pay 88 cents a year for my domain.
Which TLD?
(Numbers).xyz
I only use it for stuff for me. If you do a real name it’s more.
Namecheap bc I typed where to buy cheap domains and that was the first one.
Namecheap, cheap, easy to use, easy to setup DDNS, helpful support staff. I have heard horror stories of them selling popular domains out from under their owner but none were recent.
Same. I buy all my domains there. And in case someone needs a proper API and support for the dns challenge, host your DNS at DeSEC.
I have mine on Namecheap, but i’ve moved the nameserver to Cloudflare. Been using them for a while, can’t complain at all. Am also paying for their email service on the same domain
Cloudflare, because my understanding is that they typically renew at basically cost, and that’s where most of my other DNS stuff is anyway.
I typically buy domains at whatever registrar is cheapest at the time for initial purchase, which most recently was namecheap IIRC.
Namecheap.
It wasn't GoDaddy.
Namecheap because they've lived up to their name. The DNS for my domains is all on Cloudflare though as I can automate my letsencrypt renewal that way that I couldn't on plain old namecheap.
I'm on name cheap and all my letsemcrypt renewals are automated easily.
njal.la is without a doubt one of the better ones if privacy is number one priority.
Cloudflare cause they already had my DNS and google domains was on its way to the google graveyard. Not sure how privacy respecting they are but they do offer some kind of partial whois redaction. Surely better than google though?
Njal.la. They buy the domain for you and let you control it. They also don't give whois information by default.
Namecheap because it’s easy and quick to use. They have good prices on new domains as well. Their prices are less attractive in renewals though, so I’d suggest transferring your domain after buying it to Cloudflare or NameSilo or PorkBun or the like.
I rent a domain from namesilo
We usually just say that we're registering a domain name, or renewing the registration.
Renting a domain usually refers to something different entirely. It's when someone owns a valuable domain name, and someone else pays them a monthly or yearly fee to use it, like renting a house. It's sometimes done with premium domains that would be very expensive to acquire outright.
Porkbun because it was super easy, one of the cheapest, and has rest good guides for noobs for how to connect various hosting sites (like, using Google sites but owning the domain from porkbun)
OVH, reasonably priced, API for DNS management and existing certbot integration
Some European ones because the domains have European TLDs. .eu for example is only available by EU registrars IINM. But also, I do my best to keep the money local where I can.
I don't think that's true anymore. I moved my .eu to porkbun (which is an American company) and it works. Also, I just tried registering a new .eu domain with them and it works - and they have very good prices! (I'm not affiliated with them)
The first registrar I used was DomainSite, around 20 years ago. They still exist but are called Name.com now. They're a pretty good registrar.
I have most of my domains at Porkbun these days. They're great too, and a bit cheaper.
In terms or privacy-respecting, most registrars will mask your WHOIS info for free, to comply with laws like GDPR. Never pay for "WHOIS privacy".
Cloudflare and Namecheap. I would use Cloudflare because of cost
I'm using my local registrar. 10 years ago, when I registered my first domain, it was one of few options I was familiar with, and they had offered a discount. I could find something cheaper, but we're talking about 8EUR/year. It doesn't really matter.
I'm not super knowledgeable on this, but I chose Dynadot because it's cheap and WHOIS privacy is included.
I've been using nearlyfreespeech.net for a very long time. They're a small, reliable, outfit that's been around forever and definitely respects your privacy.