These are for ten years on a 1.1111b xyz domain
Godaddy $17 (unsure if includes protection) Dynadot $11.50 (with whois protection) Xyz $19.90 (with whois protection)
Its all very confusing. I just want to get a domain for my server as cheap as
An .xyz automatically puts you block lists if you decide to use it for email. Just sayin.
Just moved from Gandi to a local one. Bill went from like €70 to €12 for a single .com! I used to love Gandi and recommend them but over half a decade they went so expensive for some reason
Same for me, I quit when I saw my bills incrinsing a lot and I found very good and cheap one ( planethoster ).
Just to go against the grain here, fuck Cloudflare. They are too big a part of the internet already. I would never use them.
Agreed. I don’t trust them at all and hate how much stuff uses them.
Them and Amazon Web Services. Every single “83c92b227da1a9e337ef305b1f99f42418af47e96edb2960d01a7ed26d35eec.us-east-1.prod.service.minerva.devices.a2z.com” and “awstrack.me” URL. They’re so heavily integrated.
You can .onion for 100% free, but it’ll be really slow and only people with the right browser would be able to visit your site
Try porkbun
When I tried Porkbun, they asked me for selfie+ID before I could buy a domain there. I think is a random flag, but just a heads up.
Certain domains stipulate user verification. Porkbun has to legally comply with this
I doubt that was my case. I saw comments from Prokbun’s CEO on r/selfhosted that they have a random flag system, and the discussion included my TLD. Plus Cloudflare let me buy it just fine without that intrusive step.
Try https://tld-list.com/ for comparisons.
They don’t seem to be very accurate, or check availability… Amazon.com for ~$5 ?
I’ve been using Porkbun for years. No complaints.
I second porkbun
I tried signing up and they wanted a copy of photo ID or something ridiculous. Noped out of there. Is that just a UK thing or what?
That wasn’t pork bun
I think ID for new customers is widespread now because of the growth of scams. I enrolled at Porkbun from the US a number of years ago without ID (before they started asking for it) and they haven’t asked me for it retroactively, so I don’t think it’s required, it’s just something they do as an anti-scam measure. I’ve never tried for a UK or other national domain from them.
I’ve registered domains at namecheap, transip, ovh, even cloudflare once I think, and not once have I ever had to provide an id.
I registered porkbun 3 years ago and they didn’t ask for it either
Nominet manages the .UK domain, and they’re a bit funny about proof of residence. Not sure I had to give Porkbun any photo ID, but the did temporarily suspend my domain. Took forever to clear up.
IMO the moral if the story is avoid ccTLDs (though now I have it I’m sticking with it for as long as I can).
I have a .uk via Cloudflare and never needed to give proof, but I did buy it several years ago
I had no issues when my domain was registered with GoDaddy. It was shortly after switching to porkbun that the issues started. Porkbun blamed nominet and nominet blamed porkbun. Not sure what actually happened, but it does seem related to nominet’s policy about who can hold a .uk domain
If you want the cheapest, go with Cloudfare. They guarantee to ask for the wholesale price, which is the price the registrar pays to the top level domain owner, so they can’t go lower without footing the bill.
What most of registrars do is foot the difference for the first year, so you get a domain for super cheap, then add 50%+ cut on top, so you pay i.e 5$ for the first year for a TLD that has wholesale cost of 10$, while they loose 5$ on that sale, and then you pay 25$ for the second, so they now gain 15$ on holding your domain hostage.
Cloudfare guarantees that they will sell you that domain for 10$, and only raise it when the TLD owner raises the price.
I’m not aware of any other registrar that guarantees wholesale prices, but LMK if anyone knows any.
If you want to get the best deal, buy your first year (or maybe 10 years, if they let you buy 10 for the sale price) with the scammy registrar, i.e get the 5$ sale on Namecheap, and before it expires transfer it to Cloudfare so you don’t pay extra for the second year and can continue with the (much lower now) wholesale price.
Each TLD has a different wholesale price, but every registrar pays the same to them for selling the domain to you. The differences you see is exactly in how much are they willing to foot the bill at first (most have a massive sale on first year, then huge markup on renewals), some just add a flat fee and have markup from the start.
Cloudfare just states “you will pay wholesale”, and don’t do any sheninegans. At least that’s how it was last time I checked.
Issue is you are locked into the cloudflare system that is gradually enshittifying. Apparently NS changes are blocked, so you are stuck with them. This is not the case for other registrars.
Also for .com they are below wholesale, so they are banking on that enshittification.
Thank you for a detailed and thoughtful reply.
I think I just don’t know enough about this. I like the xyz 1.1111b because its $1 a year. But I have no idea what type of things I need to consider before buying one
I thought it was basically just buying a URL name but it seems its more complex than that
xyz get you on renews, it’s a scam. Once you are set up with the domain and it’s hard to switch, prices explode. This is enforced as tld pricing.
Even.the $1 a year ones?
All are that the first year. I had someone in person tell me how they were put on a severely increased price despite being on a domain that should be very cheap. Sadly I don’t recall who it was, so I can’t ask them for the details.
The jist iirc was their domain got popular (due to their website), so xyz decided it belonged to a higher price category.
This was definitely not 1.111b specifically, but with a short search there I found reports that xyz has apparently decreased the scope of the 1.111b category before, making the minimum length 6 instead of 3, and then refused renewals for people that had 3-digit domains under the old price.So I would expect arbitrary price increases on 1.111b too, it’s not something I’d rely on. xyz always has the right to charge whatever they want, so you are one policy decision away from switching everything with no notice or shelling out whatever they think they can charge.
Compared to say .com, where there is a rigid contract of what verisign can charge, mandating a single price category, a set number of price increases with a set maximum increase, no difference between first year and renewal, …
Or .eu which is free and only has registrar fees, so you could just migrate to a different registrar.Edit: 1.111 not 1.1111
Adding that you can also pre-purchase quite a few years, (up to 9?) to lock in their rock bottom price.
xyz isn’t that cheap (and shady (in reputation and pricing practices)), you might wanna pick a better tld.
I don’t see a wholesale price so it’s hard to judge with certainty, but xyz might be around 14$/y. Dynadot is selling .com at a loss, so I assume they do the same for xyz. Don’t use them, they will make that money off you some other way.Wholesale for .com and .org is 11$; I recommend njal.la who charge 15$ and for those 4$ add the by far best privacy available for domain registration.
For a cheap reliable tld, maybe .eu is a good pick. From the looks, the wholesale price is 0, so legitimage registrar’s costs can get very low. .eu only allows non-profit registrars.
Do note that njalla isn’t a real registrar like all others. With normal registrars you are the legal owner of a domain name and your registrar has to follow ICANN rules. If you rent through njalla they own the domain and can do whatever they want with it.
Yes, they do have a contract with you, and do have phenomenal reputation, but they are a second entity with technical ability to take your domain, in addition to the regular registrar they run through.
In practice their status and contract with that partner probably makes it less likely your domain will be taken for for example legal reasons, compared to a typical registrar end-user contract.
Cloudflare sells domains at wholesale prices. Protection included.
It’s below wholesale for .com
(this is because you’re part of the price)As with all domain sellers.
Others let you set custom NSs, so you can fuck off from their bullshit. You are stuck with cloudflares lineup here.
And you should always separate NS from registrar so if one goes rogue or tits up, you can recover your domain.
If your registrar goes rogue there’s not much you can do. Custom NSs may buy you 12h.
This separation gets you that it either breaks 100% or 0%. You’re safe from ongoing enshittification until they kill custom NS.You can usually do a domain transfer from a non-responding registrar if you can prove you have DNS control. It’s a manual process, but I’ve had to do it. It’s proved it’s worth to me to have them separated. Now, you might be down for a while, but you don’t have to go through a lengthy documentation process if you have DNS control.
That’s interesting, what tld was that on? That has to be done by the domain authority right?
I like and use Cloudflare but it’s worth mentioning you must use their dns for domains you purchase from them.
I dunno about an xyz domain specifically but njal.la has good privacy protection with domains starting at 15€ annually.
edit: sorry nevermind just noticed you said ten years somehow my brain skipped over that.
Cloudflare has the cheapest prices and the fastest DNS record changes there is no reason to use anyone else.
cloudflare sells below cost, so expect to be nagged by “features” and have trouble e.g. using your own nameservers to get away from them.
Also they don’t sell the truly cheap stuff like .eu because they’re not nonprofit.
For .xyz they do make a good compromise, but xyz itself is a bad choice to start with.
Cloudflare won’t even allow you to use your own nameserver. Avoid them like the plague.
