redjard

Also seo, I’ve sadly seen 4 year abandoned random forks rank as the first result and the actual project way below, just because it was on a self-hosted git. iirc that was the freedesktop one, so definitely not small, new, or low volume either.

njalla. Privacy is their point and they have a simple to use api.

That’s interesting, what tld was that on? That has to be done by the domain authority right?

If your registrar goes rogue there’s not much you can do. Custom NSs may buy you 12h.
This separation gets you that it either breaks 100% or 0%. You’re safe from ongoing enshittification until they kill custom NS.

Yes, they do have a contract with you, and do have phenomenal reputation, but they are a second entity with technical ability to take your domain, in addition to the regular registrar they run through.
In practice their status and contract with that partner probably makes it less likely your domain will be taken for for example legal reasons, compared to a typical registrar end-user contract.

Others let you set custom NSs, so you can fuck off from their bullshit. You are stuck with cloudflares lineup here.

Issue is you are locked into the cloudflare system that is gradually enshittifying. Apparently NS changes are blocked, so you are stuck with them. This is not the case for other registrars.

Also for .com they are below wholesale, so they are banking on that enshittification.

xyz get you on renews, it’s a scam. Once you are set up with the domain and it’s hard to switch, prices explode. This is enforced as tld pricing.

It’s below wholesale for .com
(this is because you’re part of the price)

cloudflare sells below cost, so expect to be nagged by “features” and have trouble e.g. using your own nameservers to get away from them.

Also they don’t sell the truly cheap stuff like .eu because they’re not nonprofit.

For .xyz they do make a good compromise, but xyz itself is a bad choice to start with.

xyz isn’t that cheap (and shady (in reputation and pricing practices)), you might wanna pick a better tld.
I don’t see a wholesale price so it’s hard to judge with certainty, but xyz might be around 14$/y. Dynadot is selling .com at a loss, so I assume they do the same for xyz. Don’t use them, they will make that money off you some other way.

Wholesale for .com and .org is 11$; I recommend njal.la who charge 15$ and for those 4$ add the by far best privacy available for domain registration.

For a cheap reliable tld, maybe .eu is a good pick. From the looks, the wholesale price is 0, so legitimage registrar’s costs can get very low. .eu only allows non-profit registrars.