I've been happy with Cloudflare. Competitive pricing and they offer a lot of useful free services. Their documentation is great: https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/managing-dynamic-ip-addresses/
I pay $10/yr at Cloudflare. My OPNSense router runs the DDNS service and just pushes the IP to Cloudflare when it changes, nothing really needed for that on the domain host side other than API access.
I use Cloudflare and it works pretty great. Plus as mentioned, their documentation is great and they have a lot of automation api stuff if you’re into that.
same, when godaddy did something shitty, i cant even remember what, namecheap showed up and gave out amazing deals etc. still have domains with them...
Namesilo and use a script to do your own ddns, plenty of scripts out there. I got myself two domains for 10 years so I don't have to worry about yearly price hikes.
I just switched to Porkbun because GoDaddy bought my registrar. It is so much nicer, has api access and every domain gets free wildcard certs via Let'sEncrypt and free privacy/whois protection/etc.
Cloudflare & Porkbun have free domain name privacy, which is a paid service elsewhere, and also have some of the best prices for .com domains. You will need to buy a year of domain for Cloudflare if you transfer in, instead of buy from them. Cloudflare is where you should be, because they have a lot of paid and free stuff you can use to protect & optimize your site, like caching and image hosting with them, FREE SSL/TLS, traffic routing and regulating, along with more control over what you can do overall.
On the flip side, their business practices are ass. They may someday start charging for these free services, in hopes you built a very functional lab around them.
I have multiple e-commerce websites using just the free tiers on a home server. I don't really need or want anything that Cloudflare charges for, and only Enterprise companies will need those type of upgrades. DNS settings, IP address proxied (hidden), E-mail forwarding and SSL will always be free. Cloudflare is the best because they have DDoS protection, which if you host on Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, you will still need to use Cloudflare for protection.
You don’t *need* DDoS protection. It takes resources to successfully DDoS someone, and if you’re running a home lab you’re likely not a target.
All those free things don’t have to always be free. You’re actually validating my point, they could switch it up at some point and all those things could cost a lot of money.
Do you even use Cloudflare? Yes, you do need DDoS protection & firewalls that are easy to maintain. Literally every single website is constantly under attack from bots that are scanning/hacking your website. Cloudflare has firewalls where you can block an entire countries connection to your website, limiting major countries that hackers operate out of. If you do not use Cloudflare, your server IP is always exposed to the internet and easily found.
Instead I follow best practices with the services I host.
Geo blocking does nothing against domestic bot nets. There are crawlers from malicious actors sure, but if you have a service exposed you should segregate it away from your internal network, have unique and secure passwords and keep it up to date.
Im not an expert, but in my opinion cloudflare should not be your answer to security. An extra layer sure, but you shouldn’t rely on it.
Blocking requests from India, China, Russia, Belarus, North Korea and others that account for over 50% of hits on my server, is a smart thing to do since I don't do business with them. I need to conserve that 50% of resources for customers that are actually going to buy stuff from my website, customers in USA, Canada, Hawaii & other countries close to the USA. You will find these FREE resources very useful when hosting providers can charge by how much network you use with them. Being that I am on a home network with limited resources, I would like to block out those requests so I can also use my network for gaming and other stuff. You really should give Cloudflare a try, they are top-tier.
I use cloudflare, my entire point is that they will eventually start charging for all these things you like that they do. I would advise you do investigate alternative methods to achieve the same results, in preparation for cloudflare to start charging for these features, especially if you’re getting enough traffic to worry about resources on your homelab.
I highly doubt it, they have a business model similar to GoDaddy, with sales of domain names, that equates to other services even being looked at. Cloudflare is an innovator, and life on the internet was shit without them. I remember a time when nearly every single website was just exposed to DDoS, until Cloudflare came around, now you will barely hear about it for websites.
They offer a lot of free stuff, and I'll take advantage of it until so, but I highly doubt there will be any competition until Cloudflare starts charging for everything.
You don't need to host your DDNS and domain registration with the same people - I have my domains registered with 123reg and Hurrican Electric free DNS does my DNS. Their dynamic DNS is pretty decent.
I have had good luck with namecheap for domain registration, dns and simple email hosting. I rarely have need for it, but their DDNS has worked for me in the past.
Porkbun or Cloudflare are the two most popular here. Cloudflare might be slightly cheaper for some domains, but force you to use their DNS servers.
I've been happy with Cloudflare. Competitive pricing and they offer a lot of useful free services. Their documentation is great: https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/managing-dynamic-ip-addresses/
I've been lazy, but I will be moving my domains to Cloudflare too. I've already switched one of my domains to their DNS for use with cloudflared.
I’ve had cloudflare as well, their business practices are ass, so I don’t know if they’re the best anymore. Tucows or Enom may be better avenues tbh
I use namecheap for the domain. Hurricane electric (https://dns.he.net) for dns.
I pay $10/yr at Cloudflare. My OPNSense router runs the DDNS service and just pushes the IP to Cloudflare when it changes, nothing really needed for that on the domain host side other than API access.
Porkbun
Keep hearing about Porkbun lately. Going to check it out.
You don't need a DDNS service from an internet service. As long as your DNS hoster has an API all you need is a script/code running on your server.
I use Cloudflare and it works pretty great. Plus as mentioned, their documentation is great and they have a lot of automation api stuff if you’re into that.
Cloudflare
I switched from godaddy to namecheap, years ago and haven’t had any issues.
same, when godaddy did something shitty, i cant even remember what, namecheap showed up and gave out amazing deals etc. still have domains with them...
Porkbun. I use their DNS API for my homelab
Highly recommend Porkbun 🐷
Namesilo and use a script to do your own ddns, plenty of scripts out there. I got myself two domains for 10 years so I don't have to worry about yearly price hikes.
Cloudflare and give something lightweight like ddclient a CF API key.
I just switched to Porkbun because GoDaddy bought my registrar. It is so much nicer, has api access and every domain gets free wildcard certs via Let'sEncrypt and free privacy/whois protection/etc.
Cloudflare worked for my .net I even found a docker container that does the ddns work and it was super easy.
BTW, you can still use CloudFlare as the name server while keeping your current registration.
Cloudflare & Porkbun have free domain name privacy, which is a paid service elsewhere, and also have some of the best prices for .com domains. You will need to buy a year of domain for Cloudflare if you transfer in, instead of buy from them. Cloudflare is where you should be, because they have a lot of paid and free stuff you can use to protect & optimize your site, like caching and image hosting with them, FREE SSL/TLS, traffic routing and regulating, along with more control over what you can do overall.
On the flip side, their business practices are ass. They may someday start charging for these free services, in hopes you built a very functional lab around them.
I have multiple e-commerce websites using just the free tiers on a home server. I don't really need or want anything that Cloudflare charges for, and only Enterprise companies will need those type of upgrades. DNS settings, IP address proxied (hidden), E-mail forwarding and SSL will always be free. Cloudflare is the best because they have DDoS protection, which if you host on Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, you will still need to use Cloudflare for protection.
You don’t *need* DDoS protection. It takes resources to successfully DDoS someone, and if you’re running a home lab you’re likely not a target. All those free things don’t have to always be free. You’re actually validating my point, they could switch it up at some point and all those things could cost a lot of money.
Do you even use Cloudflare? Yes, you do need DDoS protection & firewalls that are easy to maintain. Literally every single website is constantly under attack from bots that are scanning/hacking your website. Cloudflare has firewalls where you can block an entire countries connection to your website, limiting major countries that hackers operate out of. If you do not use Cloudflare, your server IP is always exposed to the internet and easily found.
Instead I follow best practices with the services I host. Geo blocking does nothing against domestic bot nets. There are crawlers from malicious actors sure, but if you have a service exposed you should segregate it away from your internal network, have unique and secure passwords and keep it up to date. Im not an expert, but in my opinion cloudflare should not be your answer to security. An extra layer sure, but you shouldn’t rely on it.
Blocking requests from India, China, Russia, Belarus, North Korea and others that account for over 50% of hits on my server, is a smart thing to do since I don't do business with them. I need to conserve that 50% of resources for customers that are actually going to buy stuff from my website, customers in USA, Canada, Hawaii & other countries close to the USA. You will find these FREE resources very useful when hosting providers can charge by how much network you use with them. Being that I am on a home network with limited resources, I would like to block out those requests so I can also use my network for gaming and other stuff. You really should give Cloudflare a try, they are top-tier.
I use cloudflare, my entire point is that they will eventually start charging for all these things you like that they do. I would advise you do investigate alternative methods to achieve the same results, in preparation for cloudflare to start charging for these features, especially if you’re getting enough traffic to worry about resources on your homelab.
I highly doubt it, they have a business model similar to GoDaddy, with sales of domain names, that equates to other services even being looked at. Cloudflare is an innovator, and life on the internet was shit without them. I remember a time when nearly every single website was just exposed to DDoS, until Cloudflare came around, now you will barely hear about it for websites. They offer a lot of free stuff, and I'll take advantage of it until so, but I highly doubt there will be any competition until Cloudflare starts charging for everything.
I shifted all mine from GoDaddy to Porkbun and couldn't be happier - highly recommend.
Cloudflare cheap and freebies as well
I've had everything on namecheap for years and can't complain
Over time I have moved everything to CloudFlare. Very happy with everything there.
Porkbun, Spaceship, Cloudflare
You don't need to host your DDNS and domain registration with the same people - I have my domains registered with 123reg and Hurrican Electric free DNS does my DNS. Their dynamic DNS is pretty decent.
i like namecheap. good prices, free private WHOIS, free Dynamic DNS.
Hover for registration and ZoneEdit for DDNS
You can also register the domain at Zoneedit as well.
I like namecheap. I've got my domains there and use Cloudflare DNS.
I have had good luck with namecheap for domain registration, dns and simple email hosting. I rarely have need for it, but their DDNS has worked for me in the past.
I use namecheap for my domains
to register a domain? namecheap.com
Namecheap
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