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Looking to move away from Porkbun DNS hosting. What's the current state of other DNS providers?
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Looking to move away from Porkbun DNS hosting. What's the current state of other DNS providers?

muddymuddy Member

My monitoring has been giving me " DNS lookup failure " as an increasingly common reason for outages with my services. When I'm getting a couple dozen emails, texts and phone calls because of this (and services are still actually up), this becomes a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" situation when a flurry of alerts come in and wake me up multiple times a night a couple nights in a row, for example. I want my monitors to mean something.

Porkbun has confirmed that they are dealing with some DDoS issues which may be corresponding with my reported DNS outages. I know no provider is fully immune from outages, but it seems a bit excessive to me.

So, I'm considering moving my name servers to another provider.

I don't necessarily want to go with CloudFlare, as I suspect they will eventually remove the free DNS service. DNSMadeEasy looks really good and is probably my current leading contender. DNSimple looks pretty good as well. I'm happy to pay in the neighborhood of $5/month for a reliable service that has decent support when needed. My current needs aren't super complex and are otherwise served just fine by Porkbun's offering. I like the idea of DNSMadeEasy's failover records, but don't know that I'll heavily use that at this point.

Should I just go with DNSMadeEasy and call it done?

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Comments

  • varwwwvarwww Member

    CloudFlare is awesome. The free global CDN for static assets + free DDoS mitigation is unmatched.

    Thanked by 1lentro
  • emgemg Veteran
    edited July 2022

    I am following this thread with interest and hope others post their recommendations and experience.

    I have been having similar issues with DNS propagation from one domain registrar's DNS server. I looked at Cloudflare, Porkbun, and NameSilo for low cost domain registrars that I could trust.

    I created a Cloudflare account and moved one domain registration there. Cloudflare is the lowest cost registrar - they pass through their cost with no added profit. The catch is that you must use their DNS services. I made that move yesterday, so the jury is still out.

    I ruled out NameSilo after seeing the thread here about their lack of due diligence or process when someone complains about domain abuse to them. I ruled out PorkBun after reading that they are partnered with a Chinese company. It is that partnership that concerned me.

    My hope was to find a trustworthy, low cost registrar that had DNS propagation that works. I am still looking. I don't make DNS changes often, but they should work when I do.

  • @muddy said: I don't necessarily want to go with CloudFlare, as I suspect they will eventually remove the free DNS service.

    As in all of a sudden and without notice? Not going to happen. Just like Google won't remove
    free Gmail. This is a way to get people introduced to the product. If they announce their
    plans to stop offering it, whoever had a working service will still be able to use it at least for
    a reasonable time to migrate.
    There are many options (CloudNS, etc) but none seem to be simple and reliable as CF.

    Thanked by 1nick_
  • DNSMadeEasy is excellent used them for years for DNS, last year switched all my domains over to Cloudflare their renewal prices are hard to beat and there DNS interface makes it easy to adjust your domains.

  • I am using Cloudflare DNS. If they remove the free service, I will use Google DNS. Their geo routing is cheap and fast. Google DNS is pay as you go service

  • nick_nick_ Member

    CloudFlare is my go-to DNS provider. DNS updates are instant and a huge part of the internet heavily depends on them.

  • muddymuddy Member

    Maybe I'll just give CloudFlare a try. I try to avoid behemoth platforms when I can for a variety of reasons. But perhaps in this case my reasons are outweighed by the benefits of CF. As several of you have pointed out, I can always elect to switch to a different provider if CF future pricing, reliability or features don't match up to what I need.

  • vyas11vyas11 Member
    edited July 2022

    click to view

    Since the "Free" word was discussed and mentioned-

    1984 is a web hosting company that offers a FreeDNS service through its easy-to-use web interface. Apart from normal DNS records, they also allow web redirects.

    Hurricane Electric Internet Services provide a 100% free DNS hosting service with strong connectivity worldwide. Their network is made up of over 60 POPs and supports IPv6 everywhere. If you are looking for a solid DNS provider, we recommend trying this one.

    The free plan from ClouDNS offers 4 DNS servers, 3 Zones, Dynamic DNS, round robin, native IPv6 support, and no limits or restrictions on the records or requests. They also recently introduced premium plans with DDoS protected servers and GeoDNS.

    Rackspace offers free DNS hosting and management for current customers. They feature automated migrations, IP Anycast routing, load balancing, and flexible access via their cloud control panel and RESTful API.

    GeoScaling offers FREE (up to 1 Million DNS Requests per month) managed DNS services with unique features. Redirect your users by country, AS number, uptime, server load, and custom rules, at the DNS level. Low TTL and support for most types of records, including SRV. Dynamic DNS support and the ability to upload, paste and import BIND Zone files.

    BuddyNS is a free secondary DNS service and is probably one of the easiest services to use. They feature automatic synchronization with master within 10 minutes or immediately with SyncNOW! and NOTIFY. BuddyNS boasts a 100% uptime since inception with 8 POPs worldwide. They even have cPanel/WHM integration.

    FreeDNS offers Free DNS, Dynamic DNS hosting, static DNS hosting, as well as domain hosting. They have been operating since 2004 and have a long history of providing solid free DNS hosting. Their entire network routinely processes over 7 billion DNS requests per month.

    Source
    https://www.keycdn.com/blog/best-free-dns-hosting-providers

    Some providers on LE also offer free DNS hosting - if you know where to look. Best wishes

    Thanked by 1szarka
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    Cloudns is excellent. Using registrar DNS is too often a recipe for intermittent outages.

  • I am using CloudNS and it is too good.

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    ClouDNS \o/

  • pkrpkr Member

    My 2 cents:

    Free DNS service of Hurricane Electric DNS. Its DNS Lookup is fast in the USA and Europe only.
    If your traffic is from Asia, Africa, or South America, CloudFlare is the best.

  • I used several dns services in recent years, see below.

    1. dns.he.net, control panel is old, no dnssec (in a normal zone), no api. However they’ve been doing this for more than a decade, and completely free. Slave zone is quite useful for me.

    2. Cloudflare, everyone uses it, modern features included and quite fast (ofc cloudflare network). I do not like them because they might silently add unexpected CAA records or issue SSL certificates for CDN, even if you don’t use their CDN. I’m not sure if they are doing other things off the stage so I just stopped using.

    3. ns1, my primary dns host now. I’m now on their free developer account which included everything I need like dnssec and api. Their network is really fast to my region. Note that they want your credit card when signing up.

    4. cloudns, another common choice here. Looks comparable to ns1, but their free tier does not include dnssec support. I might consider using a paid plan if I run a business website in the future, but not this moment.

    5. AWS, their dns service is paid but still extremely cheap. Note that they might charge a lot more if you use dnssec (amazon key management blablabla). A trustworthy big player.

    6. Rage 4, rich choice of record types, fast network but too expensive (€2/mo for just 28 record slots, quite tight if you configure mx/dnssec/dkim/etc. )

    Thanked by 1dev077
  • muddymuddy Member

    thanks, all. I'm going to give cloudns a shot first. if that doesn't work for some reason during the 30 day trial, I'll go with CloudFlare.

  • tjntjn Member

    Cloudns and CF are both excellent.

  • using CloudFlare with wildcard subdomains and rewrites rules at the edge

  • Cloudflare also offers the ability to host static pages for free (via Pages and Workers featres), if that is some added value for you

    Thanked by 1johnnyquestion
  • I've been using Cloudflare for years now and I love it. The DNS service is excellent and supports CNAME flattening, plus all the other features (CDN, security, email routing) make it truly awesome.

  • BTW I also think Cloudflare free plan is here to stay. They are introducing new ways of monetizing the platform all the time and I think it's better for them if they keep a free tier.

    Thanked by 1Wolveix
  • muddymuddy Member

    Just got my invite for Bunny DNS. Might want to try that out as well as I've had great experience using their CDN. So far, Cloudns has been solid, though.

  • I am using CloudFlare. Transferring my domains to CF is saving me some bucks.
    I have used CloudNS (both paid and free). The service was good.

  • emgemg Veteran

    I am moving my domains from their current registrars to Cloudflare. Like others, I chose Cloudflare because they are the lowest cost for domain renewals. Cloudflare passes their costs to the customer with no added profit. You cannot do better than that, other than "loss leader" deals where the registrar makes up the losses some other way.

    The catch to using Cloudflare as a domain registrar is that Cloudflare requires you to use Cloudflare DNS for the domains that you register with them.

    My use of DNS is very basic. One reason that I am moving my domains is that my primary domain registrar's DNS is not propagating changes very well. I get that.

    I would appreciate a better understanding of why people need special DNS services that they pay for. Beyond reliability, what else do people here need that the basic free DNS services do not provide?

  • bdlbdl Member

    @emg do you have more info on Porkbun's Chinese company partnership? Did a few searches and only got recipes for actual Chinese pork buns :(

  • @emg said:
    I am moving my domains from their current registrars to Cloudflare. Like others, I chose Cloudflare because they are the lowest cost for domain renewals. Cloudflare passes their costs to the customer with no added profit. You cannot do better than that, other than "loss leader" deals where the registrar makes up the losses some other way.

    The catch to using Cloudflare as a domain registrar is that Cloudflare requires you to use Cloudflare DNS for the domains that you register with them.

    My use of DNS is very basic. One reason that I am moving my domains is that my primary domain registrar's DNS is not propagating changes very well. I get that.

    I would appreciate a better understanding of why people need special DNS services that they pay for. Beyond reliability, what else do people here need that the basic free DNS services do not provide?

    I think one thing lacking in free cloudflare is a secondary server feature, to allow another providers DNS to become authoritive if/when cloudflare has an outage. That may have changesd- I don't use it at such a level of complexity.

  • emgemg Veteran

    @bdl said:
    @emg do you have more info on Porkbun's Chinese company partnership? Did a few searches and only got recipes for actual Chinese pork buns :(

    Porkbun is owned by Top Level Design:
    https://toplevel.design
    https://toplevel.design/porkbun/

    Top Level Design has a Beijing office:
    https://toplevel.design/operation-in-china

    I know nothing more beyond the fact that it exists. I prefer to avoid companies that have this type of business relationship in China. That avoidance is based on past history and direct knowledge.

    Thanked by 2bdl mrTom
  • DazzleDazzle Member

    Not relying too much on registrar DNS. I primarily using Vultr DNS, it is free even if your domain not using their service.

    Otherwise if you didn't like Cloudflare, you can try gcorelabs DNS, free too.

  • emgemg Veteran

    @emg said: I prefer to avoid companies that have this type of business relationship in China. That avoidance is based on past history and direct knowledge.

    I wish to clarify this statement.

    The issue is not the "business relationship" per se. What I meant is "data relationship", where a company in China may have direct operational, network, or data access at the US partner. There is no way for me to know that such access exists or not. In addition, the US subsidiary may be unaware of covert actions that could be performed by its China partner.

    In China, companies must comply with requests in support of their government's strategic goals including espionage, data theft, intellectual property theft, and more. This is one reason why I prefer to avoid US companies who may have direct operational data relationships with their Chinese partners. (Note: I am not saying that similar cooperation between industry and government does not happen in other countries, including the US. They are less of a concern to me, however.)

    Repeating:
    I do not know that anything bad is going on between the US-based Top Level Design / Porkbun and their Top Level Design partner in China. The existence of the relationship is sufficient grounds of concern for me that I would not want to be a customer.

    Thanked by 1adly
  • lentrolentro Member, Host Rep

    @muddy said: I suspect they will eventually remove the free DNS service

    See 16:10

    • Serving everyone allows CloudFlare to get the scale they need to land enterprise customers
    • The increased scale gets them to lower unit costs
    • Lower unit costs lets them serve free customers
  • emgemg Veteran

    Can someone explain why Cloudflare requires you to use their DNS if you want them as your domain registrar?

    What is the value to Cloudflare from hosting your domain's DNS? Why is it so important to them?

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