A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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What's up with everyone in this comment section shilling registrars with abysmal customer reviews? Lol. The only one that even has remotely good reviews is Mythic Beasts.
Anyways, I'd like to recommend IONOS (German). Their service has been flawless so far, and I haven't seen any reports of bad customer either.
Been using Strato (subsidiary of IONOS) for a few years now as well and got no complaints. Plus its only 12€/a for a .de or .eu domain.
I can highly recommend Mythic Beasts (UK).
There is no upsell or variable pricing and they make money by charging a flat rate on top of the cost from their supplier. See this blog post for more info
Does their final price already include WHOIS protection?
Yep
Nice. Cheers!!
Canuck here. I've been moving all my domains from porkbun over to OVH. I still use desec.io for the DNS since they're based in Germany and like to keep it separate from the registrar.
If OVH plays its cards right they're going to be getting a lot more business from those looking to dump GCS, AWS, and Azure.
I found OVH quite confusing. Do they upsell you like crazy (e.g. is WHOIS protection an upsell)? I don't want to create an account on purpose just to find out.
No upselling. Yes they might have something in the order process. Like when ordering a VPS you can add windows os or some control panel type software. I didn't pay anything extra and my domains all have private whois details when lookups are done. The one thing they did offer in the order process for domain transfer was something to do with anycast DNS, but it was just a box on the page and wasn't in your face or annoying.
No annoying emails either. I only get emails from them related to services I purchased from them which include changes to whois contacts(also usually get a email from CIRA for my .ca domains), bill PDF being ready for download, or additional IP is available and ready for use etc.
No upselling.
Bullshit. Within minutes of registering just to look at some stuff I got spammed with all sorts of bullshit via email. Custom one-off throwaway email alias.
Thats unfortunate. I simply shared my experience. Been a customer for over 5 years so maybe they've changed their on boarding of new customers and the emails that are sent out.
Understood 🫡 thanks for that. I am generally happy with IONOS however their DNS propagation seems to take forever. I have a new domain I bought a couple days ago and my email provider's DNS still hasn't propagated... I thought we were past the 72h propagation era, but I guess not with everyone.
OVH no problems for years.
BUT choose domain that is also maintained by non-US organization.
Like national TLDs from the EU, or fancy like one., cloud., ...
I use INWX (based in Germany). Prices are consistently low (not always the cheapest, but fair). The web UI is a bit rusty, but it works perfectly and you can manage everything there.
ovh is french and has quite the following in Europe
OVH here, both domains, dedi server and a VPS.
Has an API to get an cert you want, even for non internet facing stuff
they also have good free tiers for hosting services i think? see them come up at a lot as an alternative to oracle for hosting small svcs
Hello!
I was a 20 years old customer of GANDI. My advice is now to use Bookmyname or OVH.
Hey I just bought a domain for the first time, from Gandi. Could I ask you, what made you take that decision?
Keep an eye on the price. I recently switched my .be domains from Gandi to Dynadot. 36 vs 6.8 euros per year, I had no idea such a difference was possible. Fuck Gandi.
Non-US, afaik DD is in California
Wow nice catch. I assumed they were local due to the low prices.
Gandi got sold 2 times
Basically the company went from “no bullshit” to “just another asset for some capitalist fund who only cares about extracting as much value as possible”
It would be so good to have a no profit owned or cooperative European domain seller
I use https://njal.la/ it's based in Sweden started by the co founder of Pirate Bay
Those reviews don't look very inspiring, not gonna lie. Also, their About page says their service is run from Costa Rica?
Ultimately I don't think these "privacy-first" domain registrars are a great choice, which is a rare thing to say about an internet service.
But you're dealing with private property here and being ICANN-accredited (which Njalla isn't) is kind of important if you're gonna do something serious with your domain. You want those protections that excessive privacy won't permit having.
Njalla is what you use if you don't want your name plastered all over the domain for various reasons
Its also what you use if you want to have your domain stolen, apparently.
People have had bad experiences and the founder of Njalla hasn't helped. There are other Domain registrars with a similar strategy to Njalla if you prefer them instead. One can't deny that not having your name on a domain allows for one to host... err, sensitive stuff
Their trust pilot page is a shitshow, but I've had few problems in the 7 years I have used them. I have 9 domains registered, one of which is not possible to get back since I'm required to provide proof that I live in Sweden (.se domain). Wasn't the case when I initially bought it in 2018.
I've had few problems in the 7 years I have used them[...] one of which is not possible to get back since I'm required to provide proof that I live in Sweden [...] Wasn't the case when I initially bought it in 2018.
Sounds like a severe case of Stockholm syndrome to me. /s
Anyways, you do you buddy. I don't trust them at all after those reviews. Especially when IONOS exists.
PS: kinda funny that a supposedly privacy-focused registrar demands an official document of your place of residence. Sounds like the promised privacy is just a gimmick (or, something that all registrars offer by default as long as you choose the WhoIS guard option).
They don't offer .se domains anymore for this reason. IONOS looks good, thanks for that info.
I'm quite happy with EuroDNS. They even include free email housing if you want it.
inwx.de
https://www.infomaniak.com/en Swiss based. I'm very happy with mine, never add issue :)
I was going over a bunch of alternatives last week and ended up creating an account here too. Haven't bought anything yet, but hopefully I will move my namecheap domain here. Seemed to be the one with most available domain extensions with a price tending to be cheaper and even some discounts. Looked and joker and inwx but either didn't have some interesting domains or were quite expensive. Specially inwx which only understood after creating and account that on top of each domain price I would need to add 5€ for basic whois privacy protection. On infomaniam it seems to be 2.5€ which combined with cheaper prices doesn't sound so bad.
I really wish there was a simple provider that only did one thing: sell domains in europe, with all domains possible and cheap enough prices.
I moved all my domains over to FullHost.ca from NameCheap and they’ve been pretty good so far. As far as I can tell, they’re just a reseller but their support has been really good.
https://www.gandi.net/en/about-us
I use these guys, french
Great service and prices, I always use them too. Didn't even know they are french!
Same tbh, positively surprised :)
I've been a happy customer with joker.com (Germany) for at least 10 years.
Like the best kept secret of domain registrars
I use IONOS.
I just wish more of the non-US ones supported .ca domains. :(
Easydns.ca