I have read blogs, searched HN, and it seems it's time again to find a good registrar. Seems about once a year someone steps in and offers the same as everyone else plus more, and is regarded great for tech support.<p>I am in need to park 30 or so domains ( now, much more later ) all in various forms of expiration, some just renewed at places like the top 5 ( GoDaddy etc. ) and others are at obscure registrars as I inherited them that way from a client or other source.<p>I have about 6 that are up for 30 day renewal right now. One is the domains where I have domains@example.com so I want this to be as smooth as possible.<p>I have managed DNS/bind/named for years, though it has been years since I have. Now it is just troubleshooting with dig and other tools.<p><i>What is your favorite registrar only, or colo/shared/hosting/ISP and why?</i><p>How are they with SSL certs, changing, and keeping up on keeping TLS secure and doing it all right.<p>I do need good DNS on their end, though I can't say I have ever had issues with an SOA case, it's always at the DNS level on some remote server somewhere. Though these days I find managing DNS in most registrars browser control panels sufficient. GoDaddy is stupidly convoluted. I am not making mass changes of 1000 domain files at a time. Just one off, add an MX, add DKIM, etc.<p>If they make setting up any of the above simpler, note that too.<p>Which ones to stay away from and why.<p>Thanks for any pointers.<p>Oh, any that will take current registration time plus what you buy is going to work better for me. I just renewed a large batch with a terrible registrar, and want to move them, but don't want to lose out on those 11 months I just paid for. Some registrars offer "rollover" like that, where you get 11 months plus your year or more you just signed up for.
I have been using Namecheap since 2004 which is I beleive around the time they started and way before they were popular.<p>I was lucky enough to buy a ton of EMD's before the dot com bubble. Have let a lot of them go, held on to dome. My portfolio is huge, thousands of domains personally owned, clients, former clients, projects, etc (like you)<p>That said I do stand behind Namecheap. I've never had an issue with them and any issue that comes up are promptly squashed.
My company uses Gandi, and personally I use iwantmyname.com.<p>Gandi is a no-nonsense service:<p>* Seems very security-minded, and overall serious and professional. Nothing like GoDaddy.<p>* Their UI is conservative and well-organized; not as modern as iwantmyname.com, but not as antiquated as EasyDNS and Namecheap (and not a jumble of different, conflicting, confusing UI styles like the latter is).<p>* Supports (in fact, requires) zone versioning so you can always undo.<p>* Supports raw "BIND"-format zone files so you can quickly edit in your favourite text editor, rather than a cumbersome web form.<p>* Lets you share the same zone file across multiple domains. If you need more automation (eg., lots of very similar domains with a slight tweak here and there), just use the APIs.<p>* Great APIs.<p>* 2FA account security.<p>* Also provides SSL (cheap, toplevel CA) and very good, reasonably priced virtual hosting (US and Europe).<p>iwantmyname.com has a more minimalistic, modern UI, but lacks things like zone versioning, raw editing, and they're still working on an API. Also, their 2FA is apparently SMS-based, won't work with a standard authenticator app.<p>We previously used Namecheap and EasyDNS. No significant complaints, but their UIs are horrible.
FWIW about 13 years ago when I needed to register some domain names I chose inww.com which is really Melbourne IT.<p>Why them? Simple. Read the terms of service you are agreeing to. At the time a lot of them were very very biased against the consumer. Melbourne IT was different, they were one of the few who had a reasonable policy.<p>Note that these terms are different for each registrar. I'm not talking about the common ICANN rules which all registrars also require consumers to agree to.<p>I don't know the current situation, for all I know Melbourne IT now has the worst terms of service in the world! Simple inertia has kept my accounts from moving.<p>Just something to think about when picking a registrar.
I've been using iwantmyname.com for the past two years -- just take a look at the front page, that's the clear, uncluttered design you'll get for your control panel.<p>And yes, they let you keep your paid term for transfers.
I used to work for MarkMonitor so i have great insights into this. Google is becoming a registar and they will hands down be the best in the new gtld space. Use MarkMonitor if you can afford it- they are the industry gold but if you can't, google will absolutely crush it in the domain space.