I have a set of domains that I renew every year and this year I decided not to renew them at NameSilo.
As a registrar, I’ve never had an issue with NameSilo. However, their service has some things that irritate:
Welcome to the 1990s: The NameSilo user interface looks like cPanel circa 1998. It’s functional, but has never heard of creature comforts such as AJAX. Everything you do in it is a post-and-response cycle, which makes it slow. When you are transferring a domain, for example, that’s a click to go to the domain manager, a click to go to the domain, a click to go to the auth code, a click to have it mailed to you, a click to back out, a click to unlock, a click to confirm, a click to go back out…that’s a lot of page refreshes.
Overloaded Servers: I have sometimes found the NameSilo interface very slow, with page refreshes taking 30-40 seconds. Added to the previous item and transferring a domain can take quite some time. This is not always true but during the day, NameSilo can be a time sink.
Batch: Speaking of the 1990s, I think NameSilo must run on an ancient mainframe or something because many things on their site are done via some kind of batch process. The one that hits me is DNS updates. It’s usually a good 15 minutes before they show up. Every other registrar I’ve ever worked with has published DNS updates nearly instantly.
Now for most users, little of this matters because they buy a domain, set it to their web host, and never visit NameSilo again except to process the renewal. But I have a (bad?) habit of using my registrar as my DNS provider. Even for 192.168 stuff on my home network, I put it in my registrar’s DNS (and yes, doing DNS lookups that resolve to private address ranges works just fine – at least, it has for 25+ years for me). If I really loved NameSilo and wanted to fix the DNS issue, I could, of course, just run my own DNS but why?
So…where did I go? Porkbun.
Porkbun is a newer player (well, compared to the original wave of registrars). Although I find their name distressingly whimsical, that’s probably my old-school nature that would prefer something like First International Domain Registration Corporation.
Their interface is fast and pleasant, and very modern. I find I can get in and out very quickly. And their DNS updates instantly.
I first tried Porkbun back when they had one of those “get 10 years on a domain for $10” or something. I registered the infamous lowend.party which I use for all my tutorials.
And of course, I like to support providers in our community.
So who do you use? Why? Let us know and if I agree, maybe I’ll switch again next year!
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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I movred ALL my domains to Porkbun a few years ago and love them. Support is top notch, and pricing is very reasonable. the UI is not the greatest but once you get used to it then it is really nice. I was using name.com for most things and their UI is amazing. The interesting thing is that Porkbun and Name have a VERY VERY close history.
Transferring away most of my domains to CloudFlare. Anyone charging less than CF?
I have some domain name with NameSilo and I have a good experience with them, with their support. Truly the good prices, good support, working services is more important to me than the interface, design. However they interface is probably outdated but transparent and work well.
I not prefer CloudFlare, because (if i’m not wrong) they not allow to the registrants to use their own nameservers with their own domain names. (just with only CF NS)
I wonder when will that “get 10 years on a domain for $10” or something be back?
I moved most of my domains to Epik, I have maybe 25% at Porkbun. I agree, Namesilo is slow and requires several clicks to get things done. I am still moving domains over, 10 or so at a time. With 250+ domains, it takes time.
I also noticed NameSilo went down the hill since they got acquired by another company, I don´t know if it is related or not.