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.
Hover.com is my favorite. Good prices and no shenanigans.
I’m paying about $22 on Porkbun, they’re pretty good
I Just transfered over to porkbun after namecheap decided to raise renewal cost again, wish id done it sooner.
Porkbun is goated
I’ve been on Namecheap for years.
The “hard no” list is GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and anything owned by EIG. They are literally the worst. Probably Ionos (formerly 1&1) too.
I recommend transfering to Cloudfare, since they have guaranteed wholesale price (no added fees, and only what the tld owner and ICANN asks), so they should be cheapest (since anything less is selling at a loss for the registrar, at least ifI understand right).
Namecheap has started overcharging me like 20+$ 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.
Namecheap is going downhills recently… They were sold to a private equity on September, .com starts at $18.
Not the cheapest, but I quite like Njalla.
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.
I have entirely too many domains at namesilo.com. Privacy is included for free in the majority of circumstances – not for .org. .com renewals for me are down to $8.85 year because of the aforemented “too many.” I also have some .social and other newer TLDs and those are stupidly expensive.
I use nothing else from namesilo. For domains I use I don’t even use their nameservers. But for what I need, their UI is sometimes awful, but it does what I need.
Namesilo used to be the standard for inexpensive domain registration. They keep raising their rates, however, and now they are expensive compared to the alternatives. Being a registrar takes next to no work. Do not accept expensive registrars. You can safely avoid Namesilo.
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.
Is there a reason to be concerned about the blocking anywhere besides email? I can’t think of any, but I might not be thinking of some usecases
Some will let you pay for up to 10 years at the 1 year price, so if you get a deal on a particular tld (as long as it’s not an abused one like .xyz) you can pay upfront and save a decent amount of money.
From memory you should try and avoid 10 year renewals since you can’t transfer to a new registrar for the first year of the new renewal.
You’ll probably want WHOIS privacy support, so make sure the tld supports it.
I paid $10.44 USD to cloudflare last year in May for a year of my .com domain. I have no complaints.
I’m using ovh for my domains, it’s €13.5 I think for a .com renewal and that include whois privacy, a 15Go mail address and a 100mo website hosting.
Nearly Free Speech https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains
Find the best prices for domain names here, from registration to renewal an transfer: https://tld-list.com/
Privacy should be free and by default.
Thanks a lot :)
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters CF CloudFlare DNS Domain Name Service/System VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
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