poll Domaining's version of March Madness - Who is the best registrar in the business? 2020 Edition

[equity78]

It's time for the domain industry's version of March Madness

The best registrar in the business for 2020

Registrars that got less than 2 votes from last time were not included, Uniregistry being acquired by GoDaddy is not included.

the last big poll here.

Can NameSilo defend their crown? Will Epik finally come through and attain the top spot? GoDaddy always a contender. Any surprises?

 

[bmugford]

If this was a political campaign, we would expect candidates to show up and debate. Right?

If this was a talent contest, we would expect candidates to perform. Right?

If this was a chili cook-off, we would taste the chili. Right?

So, perhaps set aside your normalcy bias, and just think about the utility of Ray's thread. It is an order of magnitude more useful when the vendors provide some perspective.

Other than that, have a great day and remind your favorite registrar to show up.

Perhaps quit spamming. There are rules.

If you want to self promote take that to the right section.
Quit spamming the general discussion with self promotion.

You posted a $6.99 promo, and promos about name brokers, name liquidate, and now your escrow service.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

I mean even the support has changed to hidden.

Which is a major part of the issue. They have basically made the mods immune from accountability for poor decisions and actions.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Whatever Rob says is perceived as “spam”

I see passion; he’s been true word, since day 1

If you havent made an epik, missing out.

Samer

When you are posting obvious self promotion it is self promotion.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

There is a section for that, and it is not the general discussion.
If you keep abusing that, then it becomes spam.

This thread had been completely taken off track with Epik spam.

Brad

 

[SuperBrander]

At this point in time, IMO there's only one registrar that's truly domainer friendly and directly caters to domainers' interests and needs. I voted Epik. Epik engages, listens to feedback, implements changes (often quickly), innovates, challenges the other registrars to improve, offers great promotions, provides the best customer service and lets you get things done, including Escrow transactions, even during the weekend. No other registrar is currently even close to offering domainers what Epik does.

As for self promotion in unrelated threads- I prefer an engaged CEO to a non engaged CEO BUT I'm definitely not a fan of self promotion where it shouldn't be. For the purpose of this pole- I set that aside because it's irrelevant to the question. Who's the best registrar? Epik is my answer. The rest is related to NamePros and can be debated or decided by NP's mods. For the record, I'll mention that I'm not an Epik employee and will never be. I'm just a customer who has used all major registrars and thinks Epik provides the best overall value by far.

 

[BrandChimp]

If only epik.com dashboard was mobile friendly

 

[johnn]

Whatever Rob says is perceived as “spam”

I see passion; Rob true 2 his word, since day 1

If you havent made an epik, missing out

Samer

Read read and read and stop being a Monster A$$ Kisser all the time.
To you everything Monster said is right and anyone else disagreed with Monster is wrong.
Did you notice that a lot of people ignored your posts?

 

[Rob Monster]

If only epik.com dashboard was mobile friendly

Coming up real soon --- @Ala Dadan has a preview.

In the meantime, iOS app is live. Android app is in test mode.

 

[7363824]

Coming up real soon --- @Ala Dadan has a preview.

In the meantime, iOS app is live. Android app is in test mode.

Any chance I could get on to beta test the Android app for you?

 

[Ja Kai]

Coming up real soon --- @Ala Dadan has a preview.

In the meantime, iOS app is live. Android app is in test mode.

OMG - This is NOT the thread to continue self promotion.....

I'm going to scream!!!

 

[7363824]

OMG - This is NOT the thread to continue self promotion.....

I'm going to scream!!!

Seriously? He was responding to someones post. Not everything is self promotion just because you don't like it.

 

[equity78]

Which is a major part of the issue. They have basically made the mods immune from accountability for poor decisions and actions.

Brad

Whoa, to be fair and I did this job (UNPAID) for 12 years. They went to the system they went to because of scumbags and psychopaths threatening them. If people start sending you messages they know where your kid goes to preschool and other nonsense like that, for this bullshit, thankless job?

No one needs to know the identities of Mods imo, plenty of forums, have names that are not real names, or just use Admin and Mod1, Mod2, Mod3.

I agree with you on accountability and just so long as ownership knows who they are that's all that's important in my opinion.

 

[bmugford]

Whoa, to be fair and I did this job (UNPAID) for 12 years. They went to the system they went to because of scumbags and psychopaths threatening them. If people start sending you messages they know where your kid goes to preschool and other nonsense like that, for this bullsh*t, thankless job?

No one needs to know the identities of Mods imo, plenty of forums, have names that are not real names, or just use Admin and Mod1, Mod2, Mod3.

I agree with you on accountability and just so long as ownership knows who they are that's all that's important in my opinion.

I agree. Obviously people should not be threatened.

At the same time I don't think this mod team whatever format is really cutting it. It also seems like the mods are much slower to act since this structure started.

For instance in this thread involving threats how long did it take moderators to actually act?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/sharjil.1173644/

The answer is entirely too long.

Even if individual mods had some type of generic handle, I think that is a decent middle ground.

Brad

 

[equity78]

I agree. Obviously people should not be threatened.

At the same time I don't think this mod team whatever format is really cutting it. It also seems like the mods are much slower to act since this structure started.

For instance in this thread involving threats how long did it take moderators to actually act?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/sharjil.1173644/

The answer is entirely too long.

Even if individual mods had some type of generic handle, I think that is a decent middle ground.

Brad

More mods are needed, I agree and have said it. You cannot have a forum this big that has no mods online for 8 to 12 hours. I think you need a schedule where there is always at least one moderator online.

 

[equity78]

For the take that it doesn't matter or the biggest would always win,

The biggest didn't win last time, NameSilo won and if it was going to always be the biggest with the most accounts, (who on Namepros doesn't have a GoDaddy account) GoDaddy would win each time.

It also helps registrars to see where they stand, why did we come in second one year and then plunge the next? The last poll should have been an eye opener for Uniregistry with just 4.9% of the vote compared to 11.2% the previous poll.

Hell BusinessInsider had the press release NameSilo put out about winning last year, https://markets.businessinsider.com...-wins-namepros-best-registrar-2019-1028264340

Doesn't matter? Some people would beg to differ.

 

[Peak.Domains]

I voted for Porkbun, and it's nice to see a few others have joined me so I'm not the lone vote anymore haha.

They aren't the most feature-rich, but I just find the process to be really pleasant with them. It's kind of an intangible thing, I went with my gut instinct. If I'm buying a name to develop or keep for myself, and there aren't any great promos elsewhere, I'll default to Porkbun which is why I voted for them.

There are some registrars that have better features, but the user-interface and experience feels a bit janky with a lot of them, and others feel like they're half-janky and half-redesigned and it just puts me off. It shouldn't, but it does. I want to see professional-looking design that isn't from the early 2010's (The same way everyone here says that a @your-domain.com email is more trustworthy than a gmail, some of these registrars site design feels like the equivalent of using gmail for dominating.)

Porkbun are few bucks less than I've seen elsewhere for premium .co's as one quick example, and their normal prices for .com's are just as competitive as anywhere else.

I don't use them for names that I'm selling tho which is a big caveat, but I would if they added support for Afternic's fast trasnfer etc (It seems to me they don't support this - why wouldn't a registrar integrate that? Maybe I'm wrong tho.)

Anyways, from a domainer POV my answer might look different, but just from the point of view of "I need to buy a .com right now, where am I going?" It's Porkbun. Now, I'm not about to change my sig to "Porkbun's biggest fan" and post in every thread that mentions them, but it's a start ya?

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

I voted for Porkbun, and it's nice to see a few others have joined me so I'm not the lone vote anymore haha.

They aren't the most feature-rich, but I just find the process to be really pleasant with them. It's kind of an intangible thing, I went with my gut instinct. If I'm buying a name to develop or keep for myself, and there aren't any great promos elsewhere, I'll default to Porkbun which is why I voted for them.

There are some registrars that have better features, but the user-interface and experience feels a bit janky with a lot of them, and others feel like they're half-janky and half-redesigned and it just puts me off. It shouldn't, but it does. I want to see professional-looking design that isn't from the early 2010's (The same way everyone here says that a @your-domain.com email is more trustworthy than a gmail, some of these registrars site design feels like the equivalent of using gmail for dominating.)

Porkbun are few bucks less than I've seen elsewhere for premium .co's as one quick example, and their normal prices for .com's are just as competitive as anywhere else.

I don't use them for names that I'm selling tho which is a big caveat, but I would if they added support for Afternic's fast trasnfer etc (It seems to me they don't support this - why wouldn't a registrar integrate that? Maybe I'm wrong tho.)

Anyways, from a domainer POV my answer might look different, but just from the point of view of "I need to buy a .com right now, where am I going?" It's Porkbun. Now, I'm not about to change my sig to "Porkbun's biggest fan" and post in every thread that mentions them, but it's a start ya?

Earlier this year I tried Porkbun, the control panel and site seem to be clean. I am yet to need their support so not sure how quick they respond, however, they seem to be nice.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Whoa, to be fair and I did this job (UNPAID) for 12 years. They went to the system they went to because of scumbags and psychopaths threatening them. If people start sending you messages they know where your kid goes to preschool and other nonsense like that, for this bullsh*t, thankless job?

No one needs to know the identities of Mods imo, plenty of forums, have names that are not real names, or just use Admin and Mod1, Mod2, Mod3.

I agree with you on accountability and just so long as ownership knows who they are that's all that's important in my opinion.

I agree. Obviously people should not be threatened.

At the same time I don't think this mod team whatever format is really cutting it. It also seems like the mods are much slower to act since this structure started.

For instance in this thread involving threats how long did it take moderators to actually act?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/sharjil.1173644/

The answer is entirely too long.

Even if individual mods had some type of generic handle, I think that is a decent middle ground.

Brad

Back when I was a mod here, such things used to be common, receiving a PM of people being not happy, name calling etc. On some situation what the mods here or me at the time with stood was really amazing. I believe with every decision making position in life, you will receive such things. So for that I actually support the fact that they had to create accounts that show absolutely no names though if you dealt with the mods before, you would know who is writing what since everyone writes different.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

For the take that it doesn't matter or the biggest would always win,

The biggest didn't win last time, NameSilo won and if it was going to always be the biggest with the most accounts, (who on Namepros doesn't have a GoDaddy account) GoDaddy would win each time.

It also helps registrars to see where they stand, why did we come in second one year and then plunge the next? The last poll should have been an eye opener for Uniregistry with just 4.9% of the vote compared to 11.2% the previous poll.

Hell BusinessInsider had the press release NameSilo put out about winning last year, https://markets.businessinsider.com...-wins-namepros-best-registrar-2019-1028264340

Doesn't matter? Some people would beg to differ.

So far I see GD got 12 votes if we exclude 1 vote by staff. I did not expect them to get so low votes really.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

@equity78 Why didn't you add Amazon to the poll? Or do you believe Google is bigger when it comes to domain registrations?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

If I were allowed two votes, I know where they'd go.

After doing some thinking, I feel my one vote might be better impacted elsewhere. #spreadthelove

Not a representation of one company doing anything to change my vote, purely a, hey guys, I just noticed my choice for the Cinderella of this years bracket, and I want to voice my support for them.

I initially voted for Epik.

In my opinion, they had a very strong 2019 recruiting class, that carried over into the early 2020 games; clearly one of the #1 seeds in this years bracket.

If the match-up tightens up, I might flop my vote back to Epik.

But, if Epik continues with a clear margin,

I'll keep my current vote for my Cinderella of this years bracket, Sav.com!

Standing firm at 1 total votes, as of now.

Sav.com too, had a strong 2019 recruiting class, having paid for feature advertisements on NameBio and other avenues, they're positioned well in the discount game, once offering below cost $5.95 registrations and backorders, now still below cost, at $6.95 per .com registration or backorder.

They're new, so turnovers and are to be expected.

But boy, do they shoot them 3's!

And have I mentioned their ankle breaking razzle dazzle he's on fire alley oop slam dunks?

Young. Fearless. Small conference play. With a major upside. Watch out big network schools, Sav.com is here, and they're ready for your domain registrations!

I've heckled their customer service departments a few times. "C'mon Ref, are you blind?!" regrettable type of outbursts. namePros mods can likely and unfortunately imagine, as they too have encountered their fair share of heckling .

And despite such outbursts, Sav coaching department has always responded in a prompt and courteous fashion.

This is not to say I'm not appreciative of Epik portfolio management console and other offered services, of which I currently utilize epik nameservers for my Sav registered domains,

But when the opportunity presents itself to win a backorder for $6.95 (with $0 paid up front currently) does it make sense to add extra competition to my backorder, by backordering elsewhere such as Epik for currently $8.49?

Or since my only competition is myself, and registrants using other registrars/services, does it make since to backorder at both, and let them both compete against one another? I have had mixed results, placing the same backorder, at both registrars. Hard to say which backorder, if dual placed, will win.

Keep the momentum going @Rob Monster of Epik.com and @Nick R of Sav.com !!

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

If I were allowed two votes, I know where they'd go.

After doing some thinking, I feel my one vote might be better impacted elsewhere. #spreadthelove

Not a representation of one company doing anything to change my vote, purely a, hey guys, I just noticed my choice for the Cinderella of this years bracket, and I want to voice my support for them.

I initially voted for Epik.

In my opinion, they had a very strong 2019 recruiting class, that carried over into the early 2020 games; clearly one of the #1 seeds in this years bracket.

If the match-up tightens up, I might flop my vote back to Epik.

But, if Epik continues with a clear margin,

I'll keep my current vote for my Cinderella of this years bracket, Sav.com!

Standing firm at 1 total votes, as of now.

Sav.com too, had a strong 2019 recruiting class, having been paid feature advertisements on NameBio and other avenues, they also advertised below cost $5.95 registrations and backorders, now $6.95.

They're new, so turnovers are to be expected.

But boy, do they shoot them 3's!

And have I mentioned their ankle breaking razzle dazzle he's on fire alley oop slam dunks?

Young. Fearless. Small conference play. With a major upside. Watch out big network schools, Sav.com is here, and they're ready for your domain registrations!

I've heckled their customer service departments a few times. "C'mon Ref, are you blind?!" regrettable type of out bursts.

And despite such outbursts, their coaching department has always responded in a prompt and courteous fashion.

This is not to say I'm not appreciative of Epik portfolio management console and other offered services, of which I currently utilize epik nameservers for my Sav registered domains,

But when the opportunity presents itself to win a backorder for $6.95 (with $0 paid up front currently) does it make sense to add extra competition to my backorder, by backordering elsewhere such as Epik for currently $8.49?

Or since my only competition is myself, and registrants using other registrars/services, does it make since to backorder at both, and let them both compete against one another? I have had mixed results, placing the same backorder, at both registrars. Hard to say which backorder, if dual placed, will win.

Keep the momentum going @Rob Monster of Epik.com and @Nick R of Sav.com !!

Well, thank you for this review. You made me sign up and I see they even have better pricing then Epik. Amazing. The design seems to be very clean too.

 

[Rhinnnn]

Right now, my favorite registrars are (in no particular order) Porkbun, Epik, and Dynadot.

I voted Porkbun because they had way too few votes compared to the quality of their service and the hassle-free experience.

P.S.: I have not tried all registrars in the poll.

 

[equity78]

@equity78 Why didn't you add Amazon to the poll? Or do you believe Google is bigger when it comes to domain registrations?

No one here uses Amazon, I know people who use Google.

 

[Samer]

No one here uses Amazon, I know people who use Google.

What about Above? I'm just busting your chops.

Samer

 

[equity78]

What about Above? I'm just busting your chops.

Samer

I don't really care the registrars have been listed for those that don't like it, don't vote.