Best domain registrar for side projects

Side projects accumulate domains. Most cost little in the first year and more every year after, and a registrar that is cheap to register with can be expensive to stay with. For a developer, the best registrar is the one with a fair renewal price, free WHOIS privacy, good DNS, and no friction when you want to leave.

This guide compares three registrars developers commonly use (Cloudflare Registrar, Porkbun and Namecheap) using their official pages. It is not based on hands-on testing, and the “best” choice depends on how you want to manage DNS.

What actually matters

1. Renewal price. You pay it every year for as long as the project lives. First-year discounts are a one-off.
2. Free WHOIS privacy. Your name, address and email should not be published. All three registrars below include it on eligible domains.
3. DNS flexibility. Can you use any DNS provider, or are you tied to the registrar’s?
4. Transfer terms. ICANN’s Transfer Policy lets a registrar refuse a transfer within 60 days of initial registration or of a previous transfer, and requires a 60-day transfer lock after a change of registrant unless you opt out beforehand. Plan moves around these windows.
5. Account security. Two-factor authentication and a registrar lock protect you from domain hijacking, which can take your whole app down.

Comparison

Cloudflare Registrar

Cloudflare sells domains at the price it pays the registry, with no markup, and includes free WHOIS redaction. It supports more than 430 TLDs, including .com, .dev and .app.

The trade-off is DNS lock-in: Cloudflare’s FAQ states that all domains on Cloudflare Registrar use Cloudflare nameservers. If you want to run DNS somewhere else, you have to transfer the domain to another registrar. For many developers this is not a problem, because Cloudflare’s DNS is free and fast and you may want its CDN anyway.

Porkbun

Porkbun’s .com page lists a single $11.08 price and states that “the price you see is the price you pay, year after year.” Free extras include WHOIS privacy, Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with auto-renewal, DNS management, up to 20 email forwards, and permanent, temporary or masked URL forwarding.

Namecheap

Namecheap is one of the most widely used registrars among independent developers. Its knowledgebase states that a free Domain Privacy subscription (provided through Withheld for Privacy) is added to each registration, renewal, transfer and reactivation of eligible TLDs, enabled by default. Some extensions do not allow privacy services because of registry rules; for those, Namecheap uses its “Redacted for Privacy” option where available.

Namecheap often runs promotional first-year prices. As with any registrar, look at the renewal price shown at checkout and in the domain list before you buy.

Decision rule

• Choose Cloudflare Registrar if you already use or want Cloudflare DNS and CDN, and you want the lowest long-term price with no renewal surprises.
• Choose Porkbun if you want a low, flat price but also the freedom to point nameservers anywhere (for example, at your hosting provider).
• Choose Namecheap if you want broad TLD choice and add-ons like email and SSL in one dashboard, and you compare the renewal price before buying.
• Avoid registrars that charge for WHOIS privacy or make transfers out difficult.

Whatever you choose, keep all project domains at one or two registrars so renewals and DNS are easy to audit.

Worked example: five domains over five years

Imagine a developer with five .com side-project domains held for five years. That is 25 domain-years.

• Every $1 difference in renewal price costs $25 over the period.
• A registrar that discounts the first year by $5 but renews $4 higher costs $5 × 5 − $5 × 4 × 5 = $25 − $100 = −$75, i.e. $75 more across the five domains.

The first-year price is the least important number on the page.

Setup checklist for a new domain

• Turn on two-factor authentication for the registrar account
• Confirm WHOIS privacy or redaction is active
• Enable the registrar lock (transfer lock)
• Turn on auto-renew and check the card on file will not expire
• Add DNS records for your host (see your host’s custom domain docs)
• Add email authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) if you send email from the domain
• Put the renewal date in a calendar, even with auto-renew on

Moving a domain to a new registrar

Transfers are routine, but they follow ICANN rules and take some preparation. The usual sequence:

1. Check the 60-day windows. A registrar may refuse a transfer within 60 days of initial registration or of a previous transfer, and a change of registrant triggers a 60-day lock unless you opted out before the change.
2. Lower your DNS risk first. If the new registrar will also run your DNS (Cloudflare Registrar requires this), recreate every DNS record there, including MX and TXT records, before you switch nameservers.
3. Unlock the domain at the current registrar and request the authorization (EPP) code.
4. Start the transfer at the new registrar and pay for it. For most gTLDs, a transfer adds one year to the registration.
5. Approve the transfer from the confirmation email, if your current registrar sends one.
6. Check everything after completion: WHOIS privacy on, registrar lock back on, auto-renew enabled, website and email still working.

Never let a domain expire to “move” it. Expired domains go through grace and redemption periods, and recovering one can cost far more than a normal renewal.

FAQ

Is a cheaper registrar worse for SEO? No. Search engines do not rank sites by registrar. What matters is that DNS resolves reliably and the site is fast and secure.

Should I buy hosting and the domain from the same company? It is convenient, but keeping them separate makes it easier to change hosts later without touching the domain. If one account is compromised, the other is not automatically exposed.

Do I need WHOIS privacy if I have a company? It is still useful: it reduces spam and social-engineering attempts aimed at the registrant contact. It is free at all three registrars compared here for eligible domains.

What about country-code domains like .no or .de? They are sold by many registrars, but each registry sets its own rules, sometimes including local-presence requirements. Check the registry’s rules before buying.

Sources

1. Cloudflare Registrar
2. Cloudflare Registrar FAQ
3. Porkbun .com pricing
4. Namecheap: Do you provide free Domain Privacy subscriptions with every newly registered domain?
5. Namecheap: Domain privacy service
6. ICANN Transfer Policy
7. ICANN: Registrar-level fees for fiscal year 2026

Last verified: October 9, 2026. Prices, limits and policies come from the official pages listed under Sources, not from hands-on testing. Providers change them often, so confirm on the provider's own page before you buy. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.