Who is a great domain registrar company?

Question

I have used numerous domain registrars in the past, including Godaddy, 1&1, Host Monster, IX web Hosting, the list goes on. (not talking about hosting)

I currently use GoDaddy, however, I'm not to happy with them. I need a great registrar! One who:

• makes transferring easy
• registration pain free, no up-selling
• has great domain management
• has amazing customer service

Maybe such a company does not exist. I don't know. Do you know of one?

Solution 1

Gandi comes well recommended. I just moved some of my domains over there, it was a pretty straightforward process.

Solution 2

I really like Namecheap.

Transferring is easy. Domain Management is easy. There is no upselling, you buy domain, it's yours, Apply WhoIsGuard if you want stop personal details being revealed if someone does a WhoIs on your domain.

Can't testify with regards to customer service though.

Solution 3

Going through the checkout process at GoDaddy is a horrific experience. This is thankfully not the case with https://www.hover.com/

Solution 4

Name.com - I'm hearing many good things from others who have switched to using them.

Solution 5

Dreamhost is a great hosting company. I've been using them for like 5 years now with out a single complaint.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

"List of X" questions like this one should be made community wiki. I converted this question.

[Admin]

Ugh, I accidentally voted to close as 'Off-Topic' - my apologies please ignore the close vote

[Admin]

I've never had a problem with GoDaddy, but I just use them for registration. Every other aspect of the domain, including nameservers are handled by other parties. What issues do you have with GoDaddy?

[Admin]

I do not like their customer service, some people know what they are doing and some do not. Also, they make buying a domain a pain. I want something straightforward. I do not want an up-sell on a domain, maybe on a car though.

[Admin]

I agree, I want to register a domain not search through the see of spam pages until I find register button.

[Admin]

I think this question should is on-topic, shown by the fact that it's useful and the answers are great.

[Admin]

I like Namecheap, NameSilo and Hover. A review of them: medium.com/@JohnBeardslee/…

[Nat Ryall]

Seconded, great service and management tools without the constant spamming of advertisements.

[Grant Palin]

I'm on DH as well, and the on-site shopping for domains is quite useful. A pity they only offer so many TLDs...

[Bryson]

I use them for hosting, but GoDaddy for registration. If I should leave them as a host, I would be uncomfortable leaving my domains with them after the fact.

[robjmills]

unfortunately its very hard to ignore their upselling - its everywhere and very intrusive imo.

[The Pixel Developer]

I contacted support once and it was a good experience. Highly recommended.

[Virtuosi Media]

Upselling is a part of the business. I've used GoDaddy quite a bit and I've never had any problems.

[Steve T]

I just feel that it's rather easy to ignore.

[Joe Phillips]

I've had some pretty horrible experiences with GoDaddy. I can't really think of any advantage they have over other registrars besides promotional pricing.

[Greg Bray]

I have used two other companies for purchasing domains, both of which went out of business or were bought out and changed their prices (Registerfly and EnomCentral). Godaddy tries to upsell, but otherwise they are a very stable company. I've been burned twice by small companies and have given up trying to find a better registrar.

[Harv]

Slogan 'no bs'. :) Their domain registration is a little expensive.

[intlect]

Gandi is so extremely expensive, though... But they're great if you're an American trying to "off-shore" your domain assets.

[intlect]

Please read some of the horror stories up on nodaddy.com before actually using GoDaddy. Between the upsell, the control panel made to make you buy more useless crap almost by accident and want to go hang yourself because you can't find what you're looking for, the lock-ins they try to enforce, the enormous price for their Domain Privacy option, and the really dazed customer support reps, I found myself wishing for a $79/year option to remove all crap from their CP...

[intlect]

I too used NameCheap a lot in the past. Thing is: 1. Namecheap is not a registrar. (OK, it is an accredited registrar, it just doesn't use its accreditation for domains you buy via namecheap.com) Namecheap is an Enom reseller. And Enom isn't exactly the best of registrars. It may have one of the best APIs in the business, but it has a lousy track record [google: enom sucks]. 2. Customer service: usually, morons with a script (with some exceptions, of course). Nice thing is it's live chat. Side note: they've never been able to actually help. Email support seems to be better though.

[Lèse majesté]

Why? Godaddy is a webhost too. And Godaddy is known for shady business practices whereas DreamHost prides itself on sharing a "Don't be evil" policy like Google. At least DreamHost's domain registrar doesn't work with domain squatters.

[shashank]

i found easyDNS costly than godaddy

[Chris W. Rea]

Yes, easyDNS costs more than GoDaddy. Like I said, they are not the cheapest. I recommend them for their service and responsiveness.

[John C]

+1 for moniker. Their tools make it easy to manage a bunch of domain names at once. Been with them for years.

[Matt]

I think one of the upsides of PairNIC is the fact that you can VERY easily transfer domains between pairNIC accounts. Comes in handy when a client needs to have access to their domain and you need to migrate it out of your main holding account. They also allow for easy transferring to other registrars.

[JannieT]

I like the full control over the DNS records that they offer

[DisgruntledGoat]

Just to add to this thread, Godaddy has come under huge fire recently for supporting SOPA, the controversial anti-piracy bill. Tens of thousands of customers have left them in the past couple of weeks.

[Steve T]

Agree with all the comments. I've since moved all my domains to NameCheap.

[Lèse majesté]

FYI, which registrar you use doesn't have any impact on DNS propagation speed since all registrars submit nameserver changes to the same TLD registry, from which propagation begins.

[user1264904]

Put off by one of their URLs: moniker.com/buyerauthenication/test.jsp They also don't seem to recognise Australian IP addresses when trying to purchase..

[Oli]

Their non-profit and bulk discount rates are very reasonable though. And they don't charge to keep a domain's information private (something that other major registrars charge a considerable amount for).

[firedfly]

I'm no longer a fan of Dotster. My domain just expired. I never received an email alert from them. I had to wait for my email to stop working before I noticed. Also, they changed my dns servers to a parking service. Once I renewed, they did not restore my dns settings...

[Roger Heathcote]

Personally I would never use a company that doesn't offer 24hr phone support and gandi.net, good though they otherwise look, don't seem to offer this.

[Steve]

@technicalbloke - a bit old now, but do you REALLY need 24/7 support for domain registration? Hosting, for sure, but what can be so desperate about domains that can't be sorted yourself or fixed when they are open.

[Roger Heathcote]

@Steve - YES I absolutely do need that, especially if I'm not the only person who might change the DNS records. If your DNS is wrong or otherwise broken then your clients may have no website or email at all. In those situations I don't want to have to sit picking through zone files myself with an 8hr email turnaround for my questions to the support team (more like 24hr with 123-reg). I'm not a DNS expert so when things go wrong I want to be able to call someone who is and get some answers or reassurance immediately. I have found domainmonster (9am to 11pm) phone service is decent enough.

[thatonepixel]

Gandi is a good registrar, but they take your domain ownership seriously, it is good if you manage a lot of countries TLDs but beware, they take it little bit too serious, change of ownership even with EPP registry domains like .com, .net ... costs about 6 euro, most of registrar offer these kind of changes for free. On the other hand, when I needed to change ownership of .fr domain, it was worth the money, because only they did it right withing the big registrars.

[iDevlop]

does their registrar offer include DNS hosting and management ?