GoDaddy is the king of bad usability and tacky marketing, but until now I've been okay with this because they're cheap. But when I heard that their DNS servers are slow I decided I'd be willing to spend a little more to get a good registrar.<p>What registrar would you recommend? I've heard a lot of good things about Gandi.net, but I can't find any new reviews of them here on HN. Are they still a good registrar, and are there other good alternatives to GoDaddy?
If your domain needs are limited to classic tdls (.com, .net, .org) I'do go with nearlyfreespeech [1].<p>They are one of the few bullshit-free hosting/registrar companies out there.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net</a>
If price is not an object, I would recommend Gandi.net - absolutely no nonsense domain hosting ( I even received a free SSL certificate, though I don't know if that offer is still on.) . Another good option is Mediatemple, who are giving away $5 domains as long as you're with them (that's a really great deal).<p>You can find HN archives on domain names here:<p><a href="http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html#domain-names" rel="nofollow">http://remembersaurus.com/askhn.html#domain-names</a>
<a href="http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#toc34" rel="nofollow">http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...</a><p>NearlyFreeSpeech an NameCheap are great alternatives as well.
I've been using easydns.com for my registration and DNS hosting needs. They have an excellent feature set, as well as reasonable prices.<p>I haven't done any particular stress testing of their DNS servers, but their documentation suggests it should perform well. I have noticed no problems empirically.
I've been using <a href="http://register4less.com/" rel="nofollow">http://register4less.com/</a> for a few years. The price might seem higher than some others, but it includes whois privacy protection that godaddy charges extra for, as well as a dns zone editor and a nice UI.
For .com, .net, .org, and .info, I like Fabulous.com. For everything else, namecheap is a good alternative.<p>HOWEVER, I wouldn't use them or Godaddy for hosting or DNS or anything else. If you're fine with Godaddy as a registrar, use an alternative DNS and hosting service.
We've many sites running on domains registered with GoDaddy
(but hosted elsewhere) and have not noticed any problems.<p>Still, if you're looking for an alternative, try:<p><a href="http://www.moniker.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.moniker.com/</a><p>HTH
I've used Namecheap and Dreamhost recently for domains. Dreamhost offers free privacy (Namecheap too but it's implied that's only free for the first year). Both are $9.9x.<p>Mediatemple were doing domains for $5 and I'm sure they're reliabe enough.
Fabulous was recommended by another poster. My favorite registrar but they require you to either pay a lot ($30 retail) or own a lot of domains to get an account. They cater to portfolio holders.<p>If you don't fit, checkout NameCheap.com.
<a href="http://www.hover.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hover.com/</a> I haven't used it but some of my friends have. They do private registration, DNS management, and forwarding for $15/year.
We used to use GoDaddy and MediaTemple but have since switched to eApps. It may be a little pricey but their support service is phenomenal and uptime is 99.9%....we're pretty happy with it
I like <a href="https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new</a> because they do privacy on whois by default.