In the past, I always bought my domains from Google Domains. However, seeing as they were sold to Squarespace, I recently found myself in need of a replacement. I did a bit of looking around and figured that I would share what I learned in case it's helpful to anyone else.
Best domain registrars
There were a few registrars that kept showing up more often than any others. They usually had glowing reviews, and few to no complaints. Here they are in approximate order of how commonly they were recommended:
Cloudflare
Namecheap
Porkbun
Hover
One catch with Cloudflare is that you are locked into using their DNS.
Dishonorable mention
Most people recommended avoiding GoDaddy due to poor customer service and scummy business practices such as price hikes and buying up domains that people search for.
Final thoughts
Instead of looking on a registrar, you can use ICANN Lookup to check domain availability.
Feel free to share your experiences with these registrars or add any options I may have missed in the comments.
Farewell, Google Domains :(
Edit: Removed Gandi from the list because of unpopular decisions such as drastically increasing prices after being acquired by Total Webhosting Solutions.
Edit 2: Do not trust anyone recommending Dynadot under this post. They keep spamming the comments with obviously fake reviews. I've asked the mods to lock new comments.
How do I buy a domain name?
A domain registrar service will let you quickly search for available domains. Once you’ve chosen one that you like, the service will walk you through the checkout process and offer guidance on how to connect your domain to your site.
How do I permanently buy a domain name?
The short answer is: You can’t. Domain registration is more like a rental or leasing service. Most domain registrars allow you to register your domain for up to 10 years at a time, and they’ll usually offer an auto-renewal service, so you don’t lose your domain.
What factors define the best domain registrar?
Videos
Canadian domain registrar and email hosting.
What are good domain name registrars?
Free toplevel domain name provider
I’d just grab a domain on one of the Freenom TLDs and use an external DNS provider. dns.he.net has always worked great for me, full record support and they allow 50 domains on an account.
More on reddit.comBest Domain Registrars for 2023-2024
I’ve been using GoDaddy as my domain registrar and Zoho for my email hosting. Are there good Canadian alternatives to these US-based companies?
Thanks!
I have not yet tested many registrars, but from what I've heard those are good:
gandi.net joker.com godaddy.com (seen a lot of bad reviews too), registrar.amazon.com, Googledomains.com (now Squarespacedomains), gkg.net Misk.com ait.com dynadot.com
MarkMonitor.com ComLaude.com (Corporate Domain Name registrars)
What I've used:
Cloudflare, NameCheap, NameSilo, SpaceShip
I liked NameCheap and Cloudflare but the thing that annoys me about Cloudflare is that I can't change nameservers with them.
NameSilo is good but I can't set up domain defender due to me having signed up with my google which sucks.
I personally don't like SpaceShip's UI but they are cheap asf.
I am unsure what I should choose there are so many good domain name registrars, and TrustPilot reviews aren't that helpful.
EDIT: I fixed a sentence due to it being confused but what I meant Cloudflare Name servers aren't changeable.