13 Popular & Best Domain Name Registrars for 2021 (Compared)

Do you want your own domain name? Are you confused about which are the best domain name registrars? Then fear not, we got you covered.

Getting your website out on the internet requires you to get a domain name. To do that, you go to a domain name registrar. In a brief, domain name registrars are companies who’ll register and manage your domains for you.

But, be careful while choosing a domain name registrar. Some might seem good at first but might be bad in the long run. So, this is where we come in; to help you choose the very best registrars.

Let’s begin!

What is a Domain Name Registrar and What it Does?

Before we go into the best domain name registrars, you need to understand what a domain name registrar is and what it does. Let’s dive into it.

A domain name registrar is a company through which you can purchase and register your domain name. It’s a granted authority by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organization that manages all domain names on the internet.

Now let’s get into what a domain name registrar does. Of course, it provides domain names to websites on the internet. But, there’s a lot of information hidden behind domains.

Domain names give websites a simplified identity on the internet. In case you don’t know, the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your server gives you an identity on the internet. But, that address is a series of hard-to-remember numbers.

That’s where the domain names come in. They replace the number series with characters that are easy to remember.

For example, Google uses the primary IP address of 8.8.8.8. Wouldn’t it be easier to just type in google.com instead of having to type in Google’s IP addresses? 

To conclude, domain registrars are companies that provide domain names like ‘google.com’ or ‘sitenerdy.com’. 

How to Choose the Best Domain Name Registrar for You?

Different domain name registrars have different features and prices. For example, some domain name registrars can only sell specific extension domain names. (.us, .nz, .np, etc.)

Other domain name registrars might have cheaper pricing than their competitors. So, if you’re looking out for a domain name registrar by yourself, you should focus on the following things.

i. Pricing

Pricing is the most important thing to look out for while choosing a domain name registrar. So, it’s important to choose the one that falls under your budget.

ii. Registration Period and Domain Transfers

Secondly, you should focus on the registration period for your price and whether you can transfer to other domains or not. If the registration period doesn’t fit your interest, then you shouldn’t register through that registrar.

You might also want to transfer to other registrars very easily. In case you don’t like your current domain name registrar, you’ll look to switch to another registrar. Similarly, if this option isn’t available, you shouldn’t choose that registrar.

iii. Expiration Policies and Add-ons

Expiration policies should always match your interest. Once a domain name has expired, it can be taken by someone else. Generally, you’d want a registrar that has an automatic domain renewal policy. Likewise, you don’t have to worry about someone else taking your website’s identity.

Add-ons are extra services provided by a domain name registrar. You don’t want to grab them early on but might want them in the long run. Some add-ons include email marketing services, website builders, etc.

Even with this information, it might be difficult to choose the best domain name registrar for you. So to help you with that, here’s our list of the best domain name registrars.

13 Best Domain Name Registrars for 2021

In this list, we covered the best among the best domain name registrars. From where you can buy your domain name and make your own website.

1. Name.com

This Platform takes the number one spot on our list because of its flexible features and pricing for those features. Founded in 2003, it has become a giant in the domain name business.

This has over 300,000 customers and owns 2 million domains managed by the Right Side Group, its parent company.

It offers a wide range of features that helped it make it to the top of this list. Also, you can transfer your domain from Name.com to any other domain name registrar.

It also has email marketing services, a website builder, and some web hosting options. Those options include WordPress hosting and Name.com’s own hosting plans.

You will also have access to technical support that includes email support for low priority support and live chat support for critical issue support.

Now let’s look at some pros and cons of Name.com.

Pros

Cons

• Domain Transfer Cost: While its cheap domain pricing might be a pro, but it’s transfer price is definitely a con. In fact, the cost of renewing domains is comparatively higher than its competitors. You need to pay $12.99 to transfer your domain from Name.com. That’s even more than buying one.
• Extended Domain Search: We talked about how wide Name.com’s domain search is. Well, it is overwhelmingly wide. If you’re a first-timer on the website, then you will need some time before you know what’s going on.
• Technical Support: Having readily available technical support doesn’t mean it’s good technical support. Also, a lot of negative reviews about Name.com were all about bad technical support. Technical support is readily available, but you get less support than they actually should.

2. Domain.com

The Domain.com registrar is our choice for second place because of the wide range of services it offers. It was founded in 2000 and has been selling domains ever since.

This has the same services as Name.com – email marketing services, web hosting services as well as technical support services.

What brought Domain.com to number 2 is solely the users’ preference. For now, let’s look at its pros and cons.

Pros

• Fast Loading Times: It has one of the fastest loading times in this list of registrars. That’s because it has its domains cached in its Domain Name Servers (DNS).
• Pricing: This Platform falls under the relatively cheaper domain name registrars on the internet. That is, you can get a standard .com domain at $9.99 per year. Also, prices will vary according to the extension required.
• Security: It provides the best security features a domain name registrar can provide. It has cloud backup enabled by default and it has domain expiry protection, which is a week of uptime before your domain expires. So, this gives you enough time to renew it.

Cons

• No Guaranteed Uptime: While Domain.com has a very fast load time and top-notch security features, your domain isn’t guaranteed uptime. This rarely happens but it is still a loss for you if it happens to your domain.
• Expensive Add-ons: Domain.com’s add-ons are very expensive. For example, the whois query protection costs $18.99 per year. Other services like renewal and email marketing services on Domain.com are also relatively expensive.
• Technical Support: It also has its problems with technical support. From user reviews, we got to know that there are a fair number of complaints on technical support.

3. GoDaddy

Founded in 1997, GoDaddy makes it to number 3 on our list. That’s because of its consistency over the years.

GoDaddy is used by over 17 million people all over the world, and it manages over 73 million domain names. This makes GoDaddy the world’s largest domain name registrar.

Similarly, GoDaddy provides a wide range of features similar to what we’ve discussed above; web hosting, security, domain transfer, and such. Plus, GoDaddy provides a professional email powered by Microsoft and online marketing tools as well.

Now, let’s get into the pros and cons of GoDaddy.

Pros

• Easy to Start: At GoDaddy, you have a wide range of customizations that aren’t overwhelming. Generally, everything is clean which makes newcomers easy to start getting their domains.
• Pricing: GoDaddy offers the cheapest .com domain name for you, starting at $1.43 for the first year. Furthermore, this is one of the cheapest domains available on the internet.
• 24/7 Live Support: What’s more, GoDaddy offers live chat and telephone support 24/7. Users have credited GoDaddy for their high-level technical support. Also, it has one of the best customer supports among the ones on this list.

Cons

• Pricing: While GoDaddy’s pricing might be low, $1.43 is only for the first year. Moreover, you need to have a mandatory two-year subscription. The second-year billing is $17.32. If you want to go all the way with GoDaddy, this is a little pricey but it’s still a good offer.
• Difficult Help Navigation: User reviews on GoDaddy did report of excellent technical support but the process of getting to technical support is very difficult. There are all kinds of information on the help tab and it’ll take some time for newcomers to get used to it.

4. Namecheap

This platform takes our number 4 spot on this list because of its user reviews.

Founded in 2000 and has over 3 million customers. They also manage over 7 million domains. According to Lifehacker, it was the best domain name registrar in the years 2010 and 2012 respectively.

It provides a wide range of features like app integration, whois privacy protection, domain transfer, and so on.

Let’s get into the pros and cons of Namecheap:

Pros

• Pricing: This has one of the cheapest prices of all domain name registrars. Also, all the prices are fair because it doesn’t charge you any extra money. Hence, You can get started with a .com domain at $8.88 per year.
• Two Factor Authentication: This is something that not every domain name registrar has in their plans. It offers two-factor authentication security so your domain stays safe.
• Excellent technical support: Users have reviewed it as having the best technical support. Namecheap provides email as well as live chat technical support 24/7. And there’s no hassle getting to the help tab as well.

Cons

• No Cloud Backup: While it does have two-factor authentication enabled for its users, it doesn’t have any cloud backup services. This will be an issue if you accidentally delete something.

5. Bluehost

Bluehost rightfully takes the number 5 on this list because of its popularity.

It was founded in 2003 and has over 500,000 customers. They manage over 2 million domains. Also, this is also recommended by WordPress.org as their choice for domain and hosting services.

This platform is primarily a hosting service but it offers a domain name registration service as well. Under the domain name registration service, it offers the same services as other registrars discussed above.

It provides a free domain with each hosting package. So, if you host your website through this platform, you’ll get a free domain name registered.

With that, here are the pros and cons.

Pros

• Pricing: This offers a no price (free) domain. But you need to host your website through Bluehost to get this offer. The hosting costs $2.95 per month.  Otherwise, expect to pay around $11 for domain only.
• Good Uptime: It offers excellent uptime as compared to other domain name registrars. This is also backed up by WordPress.org’s recommendation.

Cons

• Bad Technical Support: This platform has been reported to have poor technical support. Furthermore, user reviews suggest that it has inconvenient technical support and is slow at times.
• US-only Servers: You don’t have the option for any other server except for the United States. This means your website will load comparatively slower if your visitors are from other regions.

6. HostGator

While primarily being a hosting provider, HostGator has domain registration services as well. Founded in 2002, it has over 400,000 customers and manages over 9 million domains.

This offers a wide selection of extensions, domain privacy, and DNS tools. Also, the domain management interface is clean and beginner-friendly.

Let’s look at its pros and cons.

Pros

• Pricing: It has fair pricing among the ones on this list. You can get started with one domain at the cost of $5.95 per month. The renewal price for one domain is $8.95 per month, after one year.
• Flexible Subscription: It provides flexible plans. You can choose to get a domain for 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, or 36 months. This makes it easy for you if you aren’t sure if you’ll take HostGator for a long time.

Cons

• Bad Uptime: his has really bad uptimes. We looked at user reviews and most of them were about server crashes and their domains not working as intended.
• Poor Backup: It doesn’t have a reliable backup in case something happens to your domain. They only have server backup which isn’t very assuring.
• Missing advanced features: It doesn’t have the advanced features all other registrars on this list do. Features such as two-factor authentication, email business services, etc. are missing.
• Unreliable Support: It has very unreliable customer support. You’d have to wait a long time to even get any customer support at all.

7. Google Domains

Although only in the beta phase, Google Domains has made it to our list in 7^th place because of how much it has to offer. Google Domains is here solely because of how much it has provided in this short amount of time.

Launched on January 13, 2015, by Google themselves, Google Domains has already proven to be one of the best domain name registrars of 2020. Let’s see why.

Pros

• Wide Range of TLDs: Google Domains has a wide range of top-level domains you can choose from. This makes for greater customization of your very own domain.
• No Hidden Fees: Unlike other domain name registrars, Google Domains doesn’t have any hidden fees. Almost all extensions cost $12 per year and the renewal price is also $12 every year. That’s it. There are no extra fees for anything.
• Interactive UI: The User Interface (UI) on Google Domains is beginner-friendly and interactive. So, this helps in getting to tabs you want quickly and makes everything you do a less of a hassle.

Cons

• Uncertainty: major downside is that Google Domains might just not be there for a long time. Likewise, Google has other efficient ways of making money and if Google Domains don’t earn them as much money, they can just end it.
• Beta Stage: Since Google Domains is in its beta stage, there are a lot of bugs and security flaws that come with it. Although Google has been working to fix them, it isn’t completely safe.

8. Register.com

America-based Register.com was founded in 1994 and has been active ever since. It currently manages over 2.5 million domain names.

Register.com is also a web hosting company and a domain name registrar, as most companies are on this list.

Similarly, its features include domain expiration protection and domain privacy protection with other basic features as discussed above.

Let’s see what Register.com has in store for us.

Pros

• Pricing: Register.com has fair pricing that starts with $5.95 per month. What’s better is that you can get your money back guarantee if the services don’t run as intended.
• Uptime: Register.com claims to have 99.9% uptime. User reviews also suggest good uptime.

Cons

• Difficult to Use: Based on user reviews, Register.com is very difficult to use. It’s not beginner-friendly at all. Also, you’ll have a hard time on this one if you’re new to domain name registrars.
• Hidden Prices: The prices on Register.com don’t seem to be monthly. Rather it’s a weekly price of $5.95 for four weeks. So, in some cases, you might have to pay for 5 weeks as well. Moreover, the renewal price isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website.
• Bad Customer Support: As it is with other registrars, Register.com also has its fair share of bad customer service. Customer service is difficult to reach because of wait time and even after that, the personnel isn’t qualified enough.

9. DreamHost

This platform makes it number 9 on our list for domain name registrars for 2020. DreamHost isn’t only a popular domain name registrar but also a popular web hosting platform.

It doesn’t offer any more special services than what we’ve already discussed. So, let’s get into its good and bad sides.

Pros

• Pricing: It’s very affordable as the lowest subscription comes at just $7.99 per year. Similarly, the renewal price is $15.99 after the first year. They also offer a money-back guarantee of 97 days if you aren’t satisfied with the service.
• Performance: It has consistent uptime and fast loading speeds. You don’t have to worry about your domain going down or anything like that.

Cons

• US-only location: This only provides common extensions and .us extensions only. But, if you want any other country’s extension, it isn’t available on this platform.
• Missing Advanced Features: Many features like two-factor authentication and cloud backup services are missing. It doesn’t even have email registration in the first place. You need to pay separately to register your email, starting at $1.67 per month.
• Customer Support: It has its fair share of bad customer support. Likewise, poor support service and delayed request responses make this platform number 9 on this list.

10. OnlyDomains

This Platform is a US-based global web hosting company and domain name registrar. It has over 150,000 customers and manages over 1 million domains.

It has basic domain name registrar features so let’s get into its pros and cons to see how good it really is.

Pros

• Easy to Navigate: It has only two pros and one is that it is relatively clean and easy to navigate through the website. This makes it beginner-friendly. You also have a relatively easier time registering your domain.
• Customer Support: This Platform has excellent customer support. They provide you with 24/7 live chat customer support.

Cons

• Pricing: It has a heavy price tag on its domains. Also, it depends on where you live. The prices range from $7.99 per year to over $100 per year. The renewal price is also more than twice the registration price. Moreover, this makes it one of the most expensive domain name registrars on this list.
• Hidden Prices: In addition to heavy registration and renewal prices, there are hidden prices that are taken in the name of “service charge” and “setup fee”.
• Only Yearly Subscriptions: There are no other plans except yearly subscriptions. So, the lack of flexibility in subscriptions is not preferred by beginners.

11. InMotion Hosting

This is also a web hosting company as well as a domain name registrar. They manage over 300,000 domains.

InMotion hosting is known for its fast servers and great uptime along with basic registrar features. They also offer automatic domain renewal services.

Let’s dive into the pros and cons to see why it’s on number 11 on this list.

Pros

• Fast Load Times: InMotion hosting is known for its fast load times. It has global domain availability as well.
• Free Domains: If you choose to host your website through InMotion, you will get one domain name for free. Otherwise, you will need to pay $15.99 per year for a domain name.

Cons

• Difficult Interface: The process of getting a domain and checking out is very difficult as the interface is outdated and isn’t very beginner-friendly. Furthermore, it might be a bummer going to that website every time you need help.
• Low Customer Support: The customer support for InHosting is based in the United States. So, it’s available only during working hours in the United States. If you live anywhere other than the US, you might find it difficult to reach technical support.

12. Shopify

It’s a popular eCommerce platform that allows anyone to start an eCommerce store without any technical skill. It’s also a popular domain name registrar.

With this platform, you can easily register your custom domain name and start your store on the internet.

Furthermore, they have basic registrar features along with domain name generators that generate available domain names for you.

Let’s compare its pros and cons to see what brought it to number 12 on this list.

Pros

• Wide Range of TLDs: It offers a wide range of TLDs at just $9 per month. They also have domain name generators for TLDs so you can get exactly what you like.
• Support and Security: This has one of the best support teams and security on this list of domain name registrars. Although support isn’t available 24/7, when it’s available, it’s great.

Cons

• Unusual Pricing: Although domains come at a fair rate of $9 per month, their pricing is very weird. If you don’t use Shopify Payments for payments on, you will need to pay some extra amount of money. Also, they have it labeled as “setup charge” and “transaction fees”.
• Lack of Advanced Features: Advanced features such as two-factor authentication and direct email registration aren’t available. If you want to register an email, you need to do it through an external source such as Office365.

13. 1&1 (IONOS)

1&1, founded in 1988 is the oldest domain name registrar on this list and our pick for the spot of number 13.

Also, it is a German company with excellent customer support, email marketing, and the cheapest first-year price.

Let’s dive deep into the pros and cons to find out why 1&1 made it to number 13 on this list.

Pros

• Pricing: The price of getting a domain from 1&1 for the first year is $1 per year. It is one of the cheapest domain name registrars on the internet. Similarly, there are no hidden fees to the first-year pricing as well.
• Customer Support: 1&1 has excellent 24/7 live chat, call, and email customer support service. In short, this is by far the best customer support service on this list.

Cons

• Pricing: While the initial pricing is only $1 per year, it costs $15 every year after the initial first year for a .com domain. Of course, prices vary with extensions and .com is the cheapest of them all.
• Missing Advanced Features: While it does have email marketing, 1&1 doesn’t have cloud backup or two-factor authentication. This means that should you lose your domain credentials; it’ll be a long ride trying to find it.
• Confusing Interface: 1&1 has a relatively confusing interface as you’d need to find your way through some walls of text to buy a domain and check out.

Our Recommendation

Of course, we recommend Name.com because that’s why it’s number one. But if you’re short on budget, then registration with HostGator is a good option. It’s also your go-to if you’re looking for monthly plans.

Otherwise, you can give Google Domains a try. It’s an upcoming domain name registrar and it can grow with your involvement. Also, it’s not expensive as well.

Conclusion

In this article, we compared the best domain name registrars of 2021 for you so you can choose the one for you. We hope you could decide on which domain name registrar you should subscribe to.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this article so feel free to comment on any queries or suggestions below.

Lastly, if you liked this article, do share it with your friends and colleagues.

Also, you can check our review of the 10 best domain name generators for smart and unique domain name ideas. Also, check our handpicked article on how to create a website.

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