# Best free DNS hosting?



## vpsnewb (Jun 9, 2013)

Whats the best free DNS hosting for low traffic sites?
 

I have a small VPS that will be used for just some static content and dont wish to run my own dns server. Don't want to use cloudflare for DNS either. Anyone wanna recommend free DNS hosting?


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## SkylarM (Jun 9, 2013)

Could always find a vps provider that includes DNS options. What's wrong with cloudflare?


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## wdq (Jun 9, 2013)

I use one of the http://cloudns.net premium accounts.  They also have a free version, but it only supports three domains.


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## drmike (Jun 9, 2013)

Rage4.  250k lookups per month free.  $0 invoice.  

http://rage4.com/


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## Awmusic12635 (Jun 9, 2013)

Well there is cloudflare, rage4 as well(we include this for free).


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## SeriesN (Jun 9, 2013)

They have kinda stupid network, made my site inaccessible from half of asia.



wdq said:


> I use one of the http://cloudns.net premium accounts. They also have a free version, but it only supports three domains.



Love namecheap


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## wdq (Jun 9, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> They have kinda stupid network, made my site inaccessible from half of asia.


 

Really? The free name servers they have get DDoS attacked quite frequently but I haven't had any issues with their premium servers.


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## SeriesN (Jun 9, 2013)

Guess it was my luck than. But pretty sure ddos has nothing to with complete country/region block.


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## vanarp (Jun 9, 2013)

I am happy with rage4 for my simple needs. For serious needs I am already Fliphost customer and that gets me unlimited lookups for domains added through them.


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## Magiobiwan (Jun 9, 2013)

You can use Cloudflare for DNS only (if you don't enable the Cloudflare Cloud), and it's pretty nice. There's also Rage4, which I just moved my IRC Network over to for DNS (to get people onto the nearest server to them). 250k lookups per month free


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## drmike (Jun 9, 2013)

One note about Rage4 via resellers/partners.  At last check, end users didn't have access to features like the geo-balancing.  WHCMS module didn't support it.

If you need that functionality, then go Rage4 directly vs. the partner included feature.


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## nunim (Jun 9, 2013)

dns.he.net <-- Reliable, backed by a major operation, free

I've been using HE for my DNS for awhile now and I can't say I've had a single problem.

dns4.pro <-- Looks nice, haven't switched my DNS yet because no GeoIP support, but they do support DNSSEC

Rage4 seems okay but without a way to actually track your own queries I don't like their billing model.


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## drmike (Jun 9, 2013)

nunim said:


> Rage4 seems okay but without a way to actually track your own queries I don't like their billing model.


Curious here about the "way to track your own queries"... How else would you actually do that anywhere else? I am an audit freak when paying for anything by billable units, so share the criticism, but it applies to most real DNS providers.

The billing model is rather nice if you pick up the provider pricing.  For instance, 75 domains with unlimited queries is 15 euros a month.  

I changed over to that for fixed billing sake and actually reduced monthly costs since queries were high enough.


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## vpsnewb (Jun 10, 2013)

Thanks guys, I'll check some of those out!


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## wlanboy (Jun 10, 2013)

I am using dns.he.net quite a long time. Their web frontend might look outdated but the subjacent service is rocket solid.


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## bbb (Jun 10, 2013)

wdq said:


> I use one of the http://cloudns.net premium accounts.  They also have a free version, but it only supports three domains.


Same here, thoroughly recommending these guys. Helpful staff, and the prices for premium are great.


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## thuvienvps (Jun 10, 2013)

cloudflare, pointhq.com , rage4. I use cloudflare for most of my domains.


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## blergh (Jun 10, 2013)

dns4.pro is the best free solution i've seen so far.


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## vanarp (Jun 10, 2013)

blergh said:


> dns4.pro is the best free solution i've seen so far.


 

Is this project run by someone we know at LET/VPSB? Unless I know who is behind it, cannot put my domains on it. There is no info on the website.


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## SkylarM (Jun 10, 2013)

vanarp said:


> Is this project run by someone we know at LET/VPSB? Unless I know who is behind it, cannot put my domains on it. There is no info on the website.


Everything is owned by ColoCrossing. *EVERYTHING*


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## D. Strout (Jun 10, 2013)

wlanboy said:


> There web frontend might look outdated but the subjacent service is rocket solid.


_Their _web frontend might look outdated but the _underlying _service is _rock _solid.

FTFY

Seriously, though, while I have used HE.net DNS and agree that the service is good, the interface leaves so much to be desired that I've decided not to continue using them.


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## vanarp (Jun 10, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Seriously, though, while I have used HE.net DNS and agree that the service is good, the interface leaves so much to be desired that I've decided not to continue using them.


You are building your own, right?


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## nunim (Jun 10, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Seriously, though, while I have used HE.net DNS and agree that the service is good, the interface leaves so much to be desired that I've decided not to continue using them.


What is so difficult for you to accomplish using their web frontend that you had to cease your usage?



vanarp said:


> Is this project run by someone we know at LET/VPSB? Unless I know who is behind it, cannot put my domains on it. There is no info on the website.


Yes, although I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember who.  I had a long talk on IRC with it's creator who took the time to answer my silly questions. 



buffalooed said:


> Curious here about the "way to track your own queries"... How else would you actually do that anywhere else? I am an audit freak when paying for anything by billable units, so share the criticism, but it applies to most real DNS providers.   The billing model is rather nice if you pick up the provider pricing.  For instance, 75 domains with unlimited queries is 15 euros a month.


 Well, I thought you had said that with "provider" deal you couldn't use the neat features such as GeoDNS and such?

 Without hosting your own DNS servers there is no way to accurately track your query usage.  The maker of DNS4.Pro explained to me that essentially it takes more resources to track the queries then it's worth so it's simpler just to answer them, DNS isn't a heavyweight system so unless you were using a truly massive number of queries per month the resulting bandwidth bill would be modest.  

I just don't like the idea of services with potentially unknown charges and no way for the end user to track their own usage reliably to see if they are being cheated.


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## drmike (Jun 10, 2013)

SkylarM said:


> Everything is owned by ColoCrossing. *EVERYTHING*


Funny  But not true once you stop looking at the LET/LEB sewer for everything.


Rage4 isn't on any CC server.


HE's free DNS, ditto for that.


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## SkylarM (Jun 10, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Funny  But not true once you stop looking at the LET/LEB sewer for everything.
> 
> 
> Rage4 isn't on any CC server.
> ...


It was just a joke


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## blergh (Jun 10, 2013)

vanarp said:


> Is this project run by someone we know at LET/VPSB? Unless I know who is behind it, cannot put my domains on it. There is no info on the website.


It is. You can use the AS-number to get a technical contact + email + adress.


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## Shados (Jun 11, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> _Their _web frontend might look outdated but the _underlying _service is _rock _solid.
> 
> FTFY
> 
> Seriously, though, while I have used HE.net DNS and agree that the service is good, the interface leaves so much to be desired that I've decided not to continue using them.


Subjacent is a dictionary word. Mad props to him for using it, actually.


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## drmike (Jun 11, 2013)

nunim said:


> The maker of DNS4.Pro explained to me that essentially it takes more resources to track the queries then it's worth so it's simpler just to answer them


 

The problem I have with DNS as a billable item is it can quickly get out of control.  I've had unexplained bursts in DNS lookups to the tune of 10's of millions a month above "normal".   If you were for instance to have someone spidering, mirroring, etc. or a DDoS style attack where lookups were occurring in mass = ugly.

Even a log of the lookups has no real info of what and why the increase existed.  No attachment to an end user/customer.

Essentially Rage4's graphing of use shows you the totals and while that's not an audit stream, can see some issues and take actions to slow/stop.



nunim said:


> Well, I thought you had said that with "provider" deal you couldn't use the neat features such as GeoDNS and such?



Yes, I said that.  It's a bit confusing.

So the provider deal as you would get as customer freebie at say Prometeus or Fliphost, that is the very same provider deal/account type I subscribed to.  The difference is WHMCS plugin on their end.  It doesn't support everything.  Haven't tested it myself, but asked a provider about the geo-DNS functionality and was told not currently supported.   Probably other things that aren't in the control panel/API interfaced software (pretty sure the API supports  it - just not the WHMCS plugin.

With a provider account, you can still log into the every man website control area and configure things.  So this is how with the provider plan I am able to utilize the geo DNS features 

Hope that helps.


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## wlanboy (Jun 11, 2013)

Shados said:


> Subjacent is a dictionary word. Mad props to him for using it, actually.


Thank you. I like http://www.synonym.com/ to expand my active vocabulary.


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## wlanboy (Jun 11, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> Seriously, though, while I have used HE.net DNS and agree that the service is good, the interface leaves so much to be desired that I've decided not to continue using them.


So what feature is missing?







You can even set the TTL to 5 minutes.


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## Shados (Jun 12, 2013)

wlanboy said:


> So what feature is missing?
> 
> 
> 
> You can even set the TTL to 5 minutes.


Anyone else notice that Linode DNS TTLs default to 5 minutes? What's up with that?


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## drmike (Jun 12, 2013)

Shados said:


> Anyone else notice that Linode DNS TTLs default to 5 minutes? What's up with that?


 

What's wrong with 5 minute TTLs?  Typically I push mine for steady projects up to an hour (non geo located services).


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## Leyton (Jun 12, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Essentially Rage4's graphing of use shows you the totals and while that's not an audit stream, can see some issues and take actions to slow/stop.


 

You can view more detailed information by downloading the logs of the past 90 days:



And if you're looking for actual single-request logs, Piotr has been more than happy to provide me with the exact request logs as a TXT file at any time; including the IP address of the requester, and their request.

On the note of this topic, I am very happy with both CloudFlare and Rage4, although Rage4 has been taking the edge for me recently - more than happy to use it internally and to roll out to our managed clients.


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## Chronic (Jun 12, 2013)

Here are some that haven't been mentioned yet:


https://entrydns.net/

https://www.dnspod.com/
http://xname.org/


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## Asim (Jul 4, 2013)

Rackspace CloudDNS (free) with unlimited domains and queries. Default TTL is 5min (although you can change it). Interface is sleek

http://d.pr/i/trvM

http://d.pr/i/H6K1

http://d.pr/i/sEt0

The only catch may be that you may need to add a credit card that is never charged. Basically RS CloudDNS is for their customers. But I have no services still im free to use it


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## vanarp (Jul 4, 2013)

Asim said:


> The only catch may be that you may need to add a credit card that is never charged. Basically RS CloudDNS is for their customers. But I have no services still im free to use it


 
Yes, we need to sign up with RackSpace with a CC to be able to use this free service. Something that concerned me was that they show email address in the TXT record of the domains we add. Of course we can give a fake one too.


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## Asim (Jul 4, 2013)

vanarp said:


> Yes, we need to sign up with RackSpace with a CC to be able to use this free service. Something that concerned me was that they show email address in the TXT record of the domains we add. Of course we can give a fake one too.


Probably that was the past, I dont see that now


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## vanarp (Jul 4, 2013)

Asim said:


> Probably that was the past, I dont see that now


 
I was wrong. It is the SOA record that is showing the email address (domain's admin email as entered).

I just realized that even Rage4 displays email address in SOA record of the domains added


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jul 4, 2013)

vanarp said:


> I just realized that even Rage4 displays email address in SOA record of the domains added


The hostmaster email is required for SOA.  Rather than use your personal account (or using fake emails), just use a legitimate account created for handling your domains.  That way you still get any important notices, and don't risk your personal account going public.


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## D. Strout (Jul 4, 2013)

Aldryic C said:


> The hostmaster email is required for SOA.  Rather than use your personal account (or using fake emails), just use a legitimate account created for handling your domains.  That way you still get any important notices, and don't risk your personal account going public.


I have the address [email protected] set up for this sort of stuff. It's actually an alias for my main address, but I can remove the alias and change it when necessary if it starts getting spammed too much from WHOIS or SOA.



nunim said:


> What is so difficult for you to accomplish using their web frontend that you had to cease your usage?


Nothing _difficult_, I just find the interface is awkward, so I'm making my own. AJAX-based, looks good for a change, and has all the features that I actually need. I mean seriously, who here uses NAPTR records?


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## blergh (Jul 4, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> I mean seriously, who here uses NAPTR records?


I do!


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## NodeBytes (Jul 4, 2013)

I do as well. 

Check out Amazon Route 53, I'm currently transitioning all my sites over there. 

Edit: Sorry, not free, but darn cheap.


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## Kris (Jul 5, 2013)

vanarp said:


> I just realized that even Rage4 displays email address in SOA record of the domains added


*Granted, but you can choose the email to use at domain creation, doesn't default to the account address*:



I had an issue with an unused DNS vanity domain getting 1million+ queries per month, with no explanation. Higher TTL, nothing. I got IP logs, but they didn't quite help. I ended up just getting a partner plan as I was going to anyway.

I do wish the logs were more descriptive - I got 1MB+ all I saw was 'wow that's a lot of IPs... so what the *** do I do?

I ended up deleting that domain and moving it back to Zerigo. For the most part I'm happy with Rage4.


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## peterw (Jul 5, 2013)

After trying some of the DNS services I moved my domain to dns.he.net.

No limits, no CC information and no public email needed to use this service.


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## mrrob32 (Jul 12, 2013)

I would not recommend using a free DNS service. That's just asking for trouble. You should look into DNS Made Easy, they are prices much lower than all of their major competitors and offer a level of service and security that you would not find with a free provider. Hope this helps.


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## Zach (Jul 12, 2013)

By the way, HE.net's DNS is now limited to only 1 domain, just saw that today.


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## Marc M. (Jul 12, 2013)

mrrob32 said:


> I would not recommend using a free DNS service. That's just asking for trouble. You should look into DNS Made Easy, they are prices much lower than all of their major competitors and offer a level of service and security that you would not find with a free provider. Hope this helps.


I don't like DNS providers that nickel and dime customers, DNS Made Easy being one of them.


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## Dylan (Jul 12, 2013)

mrrob32 said:


> I would not recommend using a free DNS service. That's just asking for trouble. You should look into DNS Made Easy, they are prices much lower than all of their major competitors and offer a level of service and security that you would not find with a free provider. Hope this helps.


My problem with DNS Made Easy is that their prices, while reasonable at first, increase outrageously if you go above your plan's included number of queries. They're definitely competitively priced if you stay within those limits, but if you go over just once or twice Amazon Route 53's flat pricing ends up being the better option.

As for free services, I don't think CloudFlare can be beat. You can disable the CDN and use them purely for DNS if you want and then you get a very fast (trading places back and forth with Dyn in most comparisons lately) totally free anycast service.


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## wlanboy (Jul 13, 2013)

mrrob32 said:


> I would not recommend using a free DNS service. That's just asking for trouble. You should look into DNS Made Easy, they are prices much lower than all of their major competitors and offer a level of service and security that you would not find with a free provider. Hope this helps.


Level of service for DNS? You're kidding. For me it is all about location/uptime. Not a lot of providers can beat he.net



Zach said:


> By the way, HE.net's DNS is now limited to only 1 domain, just saw that today.


Where?


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## NodeBytes (Jul 13, 2013)

@wlanboy - new accounts are probably limited to 1 zone.


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## Ruchirablog (Jul 13, 2013)

Linode DNS <3


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## Amfy (Jul 13, 2013)

Hi guys,

 

I've seen some of you have mention my service dns4.pro and I really have to thank you all. We're (Yes, 'We' - someone joined me about two months ago helping me with the new panel, he is also well known to the LEB/LET/VPSB community) really happy about that.

 




'nunim said:


> Without hosting your own DNS servers there is no way to accurately track your query usage.  The maker of DNS4.Pro explained to me that essentially it takes more resources to track the queries then it's worth so it's simpler just to answer them, DNS isn't a heavyweight system so unless you were using a truly massive number of queries per month the resulting bandwidth bill would be modest.


Right, that's what I said to you on IRC and I still have that opinion. However, since so many asked for GeoDNS, this already needs more resource than usual dns, I decided to write something small to be able to provide stats to our users. This will be available in the new version!

 




'vanarp said:


> Is this project run by someone we know at LET/VPSB? Unless I know who is behind it, cannot put my domains on it. There is no info on the website.


Yes, this is run by me. I'm new to VPSBoard, but I think many of you still remember me from LET and the #LEB IRC Channel.

 

As I've already mention, we're currently developing a new webinterface, are there any features you'd like to see there? (Besides GeoDNS and stistics where we are already working on). Regarding our network: If you're often in the #LEB IRC you might have already noticed me talking about it: We do now have 18 locations that are online, another two (or three) will come next week. To ensure the best redundancy, I've setup some internal routing system with iBGP, so behind each PoP are more servers that receive traffic.

 

Also I've seen lots of users sign up with us, adding domains but not switching them completely to us (aka they have not changed the nameserver for their domains), if there is anything we can help with (dnssec is a bit difficult to use and understand in the beginning), feel free to send me an e-mail.

 





'nunim said:


> dns4.pro <-- Looks nice, haven't switched my DNS yet because no GeoIP support, but they do support DNSSEC


Thanks for mention!

 




'blergh said:


> dns4.pro is the best free solution i've seen so far.


Also thanks for mention!


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## mikho (Jul 13, 2013)

I've been using namecheap mainly but I guess it's time to check dns4.pro


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## vanarp (Jul 13, 2013)

*@Amfy*, Thanks for joining VPSB and making the post.

 

I was quite excited about dns4.pro when I first knew about it, but there is always hesitation to switch to it.

 

Basically there are questions like these in my mind that stop me from switching to your service:

 

- Who is exactly behind this and with what intentions?

- Will I ever be kicked out for some unknown reason?

- What practical limitations does this service has?

- What happens if they suddenly change mind to charge for the service and I am not prepared enough for it?


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## Zach (Jul 13, 2013)

wlanboy said:


> Level of service for DNS? You're kidding. For me it is all about location/uptime. Not a lot of providers can beat he.net
> 
> Where?


Huh, strange, yesterday it was saying I was only allowed to have 1 domain.  They must have changed it.  But yeah, HE.net dns is probably the best DNS solution and with low TTL's too.


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## Amfy (Jul 13, 2013)

Hi @vanarp,

 

Thank you very much for your interest and question.

 

I can initially understand some of your worries about the service dns4.pro, on the other site take a look what that project already required...

 

However, please let me clearify a few things: I also started as you all with only wanting (or able to) to spend a few dollars for internet stuff like a few VPS from LEB. That already shows that I'm not going to charge people using the dns service for private usage an arm and a leg. But of course, on the long term I have to finance this thingy, since operating such a network isn't done by buying the cheapest $2 VPS. Also this is not just a hobby done on one weekend. This project has its own ASN, it's own /24, it's own /48. Getting IP Space these days is extremely difficult; operating an proper anycast network within a low budget is even more difficult. I've spend months of work into this project. I had a lot of issues that I had to go through. There is and will be no reason why I should take it offline.

 

Now back to your questions:

 




'vanarp said:


> - Who is exactly behind this and with what intentions?


I think the question who is behind this project, is already solved by my last post and the first paragraph of this one. And my or our intentions? Getting more experience, it's a awesome project where we can learn a lot from and on some point it might even make some money for our hard work.

 




'vanarp said:


> - Will I ever be kicked out for some unknown reason?


Definitely not for 'unkown reasons', if there will be an issue we have to take care of, you can be sure that we're going to find a solution and at least tell you why we need to take your domain offline.

 




'vanarp said:


> - What practical limitations does this service has?


There are no special limitations, besides the usual things you always have, like the content must be within the law, etc. If you think we might not be happy hosting your domain, just contact me upfront to prevent any issues 

 




'vanarp said:


> - What happens if they suddenly change mind to charge for the service and I am not prepared enough for it?


Hm, I guess that's something I can't answer, however, take Google Reader, even projects from *so big* companies like Google sometimes disappear. But again, I'd like to refer back to the first paragraph. The next version of our panel includes a Zone export which offers the ability to make a backup of your Zone(s).

I'd also like to note that we'll really try to stay with that "5 domains for free" plan and only charge for additional domains. If we're going to change that (which I absolutely do not think) on some point, we give our users enough time to make a decision or move away 

 




'mikho said:


> I've been using namecheap mainly but I guess it's time to check dns4.pro


Sounds good, if you need any help or have further questions, please let me know admin (at) dns4.pro


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## bdtech (Jul 13, 2013)

Shados said:


> Anyone else notice that Linode DNS TTLs default to 5 minutes? What's up with that?


You can change it in linode to any default TTL you like per domain. Also cloudflare defaults to 5 mins as well


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## peterw (Sep 4, 2013)

Does someone has a list of DNS hosters that support geodns/failover?


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## MannDude (Sep 4, 2013)

peterw said:


> Does someone has a list of DNS hosters that support geodns/failover?


I know Rage4 does, unsure about others.


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## drmike (Sep 4, 2013)

peterw said:


> Does someone has a list of DNS hosters that support geodns/failover?


Rage4 has this functionality.  Mind you the failover part may require 3rd party and / or API style access to make it work.

This is a list (incomplete) of Rage4 partners.  I think all of them give you access to Rage4 with their services.

http://rage4.com/Home/Partner


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## peterw (Sep 4, 2013)

MannDude said:


> I know Rage4 does, unsure about others.


I only found http://www.geoscaling.com/


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## drmike (Sep 4, 2013)

Geoscaling I've not seen before.

The list "competitors" here:

http://www.geoscaling.com/competitors.html


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## ultimatehostings (Sep 4, 2013)

Rage4 looks impressive based on the features they provide even for a free account, worth giving a shot I guess.


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## Echelon (Sep 16, 2013)

I'll put a vote towards CloudFlare (CDN Disabled) and PointHQ. I've used both of them before, and have had little to no issues with either or in regards to DNS hosting.


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## uplinkvps (Sep 23, 2013)

Cloudns is great, ive used it alot before in the past.


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## jarland (Sep 23, 2013)

I primarily use name.com for my DNS. They may put ads on 404s by default, but when you call you (and feel free to ignore this if you live outside the US) you get an English speaking American and small business style customer service. They earn the money I spend on domain registration.


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## n1kko (Dec 11, 2013)

If I used a free dns service such as Cloudns for my VPS. Would I have to manually add clients domains to Cloudns?


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## NodeWest-Dan (Dec 11, 2013)

I use rackspace cloud DNS for a small vps I have.  it's free and works great.

http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/dns/


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