Who's the best domain registrar that isn't godaddy?

July 8, 2005 7:46 AM

What's the best domain registrar in terms of service and price not including godaddy.com?

I don't want to support godaddy's pro-torture CEO.

With Dreamhost now supporting Ruby on Rails, I'm considering moving my account there. I think they have free domain registration, so that woud be pretty cool.

posted by bryce to Computers & Internet (23 answers total)

I've never used them, but you are going to get numerous people saying Joker.com/.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:56 AM on July 8, 2005

On reading the more inside, I do infact use Dreamhost, and they are great.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:56 AM on July 8, 2005

this was asked before - i searched for the old thread just last week and after reading it, switched to gandi. they seem fine.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:04 AM on July 8, 2005

If you know what you're doing and understand general DNS policies, Gandi.net is good.

If you need more hand holding from support, I'd recomend PairNIC
posted by alana at 8:13 AM on July 8, 2005

Dreamhost++

Though I host my site with them, I did the registration through Dotster, about whom I've got no complaints.
posted by mkultra at 9:02 AM on July 8, 2005

Dreamhost indeed has free registration of domains. Your domain remains free as long as you host with them.
posted by dobbs at 9:08 AM on July 8, 2005

I've got most of my domains with Dotster.
posted by mrbill at 9:13 AM on July 8, 2005

I registered a domain for a friend with 1and1, and overall I'm impressed. They're cheaper than almost anyone; they don't try to sell you 50 different things between selection and checkout; and their administrative interface is nice and clean. Unless someone new comes along, I'm planning to do any future registrations with them. Note that the only ones I've used are 1) Network Solutions, 2) GoDaddy, 3) 1and1 and 4) the free one that came with Dreamhost, so I'm hardly authoritative.
posted by boaz at 9:36 AM on July 8, 2005

one more vote for dreamhost. They're big, so if you don't mind shared hosting, it's pretty cool. Never had any problems with them.
posted by menace303 at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2005

My domain is with domainmonger and I actually host through DreamHost. Very happy.
posted by Medieval Maven at 9:46 AM on July 8, 2005

After 7 years of Network Solutions and watching them evolve into a behemoth megacorp with SBC-like customer service, I moved all my domains to Dotster. After two years I can say they've been superb and it's been a snap to make changes.
posted by rolypolyman at 10:01 AM on July 8, 2005

DotDealers and ArborDomains are good, cheap (~$10/yr) and reliable domain registrars I use or have used in the past.

There is absolutely no reason to use any registrar that charges over $20/yr, IMHO, when options like those two and others mentioned here are just as valid.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 10:08 AM on July 8, 2005

I just transfered mine to RegisterFly for the same reason. Their interface sucks, but I just set it and forget it. They sent me an email with a coupon code for $5.50 transfers. The code is:

FLY5PROMO

It may expire today or tomorrow. I'm not sure. But $5.50 transfers them over and adds on a year. That's cheap!

Incidentally, has anyone found a good email address so I can email GoDaddy and tell them exactly why I am switching. Just leaving is completely ineffective without letting them know why.
posted by AaRdVarK at 10:54 AM on July 8, 2005

Dotster is good and so is Gandi.net ... I don't usually tell clients to use gandi.net, but it's great for geeks.
posted by SpecialK at 11:07 AM on July 8, 2005

After the godaddy debacle on MeFi, I moved all my domains to NameCheap (based on recommendations from comments on the original post). Good so far. And a nice clean interface, none of that up-selling crap that goDaddy shoved down your eyeballs.
posted by misterbrandt at 11:19 AM on July 8, 2005

never thoght of dyndns for permanent names. damn. bet i would have saved me some money, since i pay them for other stuff already. thanks, odinsdream. next year...
posted by andrew cooke at 11:46 AM on July 8, 2005

Yep, I'm pretty happy with Dreamhost too.
posted by bshort at 11:56 AM on July 8, 2005

$6.95 Hostway
posted by banished at 1:12 PM on July 8, 2005

I switched three domains to NameCheap just last night. Best price I could find, albeit with only a bit of looking, and the best policies. The process was quick, easy, straightforward and they didn't try to push products on me so right there, they're better than GoDaddy, whose security certificate could never be validated by Safari anyway, which left all images unavailable.

I have a couple of other domains with Gandi, but they'll be coming stateside soon, largely because I can't see particular difference regarding ownership rights now and why pay for the weakening of the dollar against the Euro if I don't have to?
posted by Dreama at 1:17 PM on July 8, 2005

I've used Namecheap for a few years now and have never had any problems. They have inexpensive hosting at Peoplehost but its nothing special.
posted by Mekon at 2:38 PM on July 8, 2005

Gandi's been great for me, and I'm not even a geek.
posted by languagehat at 3:51 PM on July 8, 2005

I third gandi.net - cheap and good, if you know what you're doing.

On preview: I fourth gandi... ;-)
posted by benzo8 at 4:32 AM on July 9, 2005

Response by poster: update: I settled on Dreamhost after someone tipped me off about a coupon code ("777") that deducts $100 off of the price. Their hosting plan provides for one free domain registration or transfer in addition to the actual hosting.

Besides my domain transfer, I also ended up getting 120GB transfer, 2.4GB storage space, ssh, mysql, php, and rails for an entire year for only $9.24 (for the year... not per month).

Disclaimer: The link above for Dreamhost is an affiliate link. Also, I'm not sure how long the coupon code will be valid. It worked for me today (July 11, 2005).
posted by bryce at 8:06 AM on July 11, 2005