domain registrar

This article is a stub. You can help the IndieWeb wiki by expanding it with relevant information.

A domain registrar is an organization that will register domain names for your personal domain for an annual fee. A domain can be pointed at a website and/or as a domain-based handle as in ATProto.

Considerations

Configurability - You should be able to set up all record types (A, CNAME, MX, TXT) for as many subdomains as you'd like/need.
Email forwarding - does the registrar offer free email forwarding? This is useful if you want an @yourdomain.com email address that forwards to an existing account.
Auto-renew - it's easy to accidentally let a domain name registration expire; some registrars let you set up email reminders or an automatic renewal to prevent this from happening.
Domain Privacy - Note that most domain name registrars will make your personal information (name, mailing address, phone number and email address) publicly available via whois lookups. Some registrars offer domain privacy options, so that instead of your personal details the registrar's details will be in the whois directory. Only use domain privacy if you fully trust the provider of the service -- disputes about domain name administration or transfers may get tricky if you are not listed as the legal owner of the domain.
Bundled hosting? Shop around for the best registrar and best host for your needs. They do not need to be the same.

Opinions & Recommendations

Note: Listed in alphabetical order.

Active Registrars

alldomains

https://alldomains.hosting/en/index.html — servers in Munich, Germany

Used by: a few IWC NUE 2026 folks, Add yourself here… (see this for more details)

Cloudflare

Main article: Cloudflare

https://domains.cloudflare.com/
Used and recommended by Nickgray.net, Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
A bit complicated UI, but the pricing is set at-cost

DNSimple

Main article: DNSimple

https://dnsimple.com
Used by: Jacky Alciné, Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
- Jacky Alciné 30 Nov 2019: Excellent UX, 2FA support

Freenom

Freenom, a provider of many free domain names
Used by fluffy (for some ancillary sites), Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
Allows IDN registrations (including emoji)
Domains are private by default
You can also opt to pay for a domain if you want an ownership guarantee
Downside: used by a lot of spammers; don't use a free domain for your email address if you want people to actually read it

Gandi

Main article: Gandi

(to be (re)created, currently a redirect to this section)

https://gandi.net
Used and recommended by rascul, Hans Gerwitz, Ryan Barrett, Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
Dr. Matt Lee used them but their prices went up significantly so I moved to Porkbun.
Simple UI, great service, ethical European company.

Gandi Criticism

Criticism of Gandi.net for poor handling of snapshot backups (on same machine and disk!), backpedaling on snapshots being backups despite marketing/sales copy claiming they are, and continued defensive responses on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreaganduglia/status/1215199147701231616
- "So you have lost out data and distrupt our services and now it's our job recover from backups? Are snapshots available?
  
  @gandi_net @gandibar @gandinoc" @andreaganduglia January 9, 2020
More criticism (see whole reply-context thread up) of Gandi.net poor handling of snapshot backups and how they responded: https://twitter.com/andreaganduglia/status/1215290652742823936
- "You wrote in clear words that snapshots are backups. Today we find out that you keep backups on the same data filer (don't do that it's an industry wide knowledge).
  
  I have my data backups, but without snapshots I have to face the manually reinstall of all my VPS on that filer." @andreaganduglia January 9, 2020