Tech oligarchs are gambling our future on a fantasy (theguardian.com)

Is price the only negative about them? I know the sentiment around Gandi here is negative, but the one time I needed to handle a domain issue recently they were super quick on the support. The problem was even my fault for messing up the ID info I'd provided (requirement of the registry for that TLD), but they got me back up and running 20 minutes after I sent their legal team the corrected info.

avsm · 2h ago

I use Gandi for dozens of domains. This incident aside, they've been reliable and undramatic, and I don't mind paying a small premium for something as important as DNS.

Has anyone else been impacted by the sale of Gandi to Your.Online [1]? I hadn't even noticed this until the post above, but it at least looks like the acquirer is still a European company.

[1] https://your.online/press-release/

ademarre · 42m ago

Gandi was sold to a private equity firm in a leveraged buyout in 2019 [0,1]. Nothing good has happened with Gandi since.

[0] https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/montefiore-investment...

[1] https://news.gandi.net/en/2019/02/futureofgandi-the-adventur...

tobltobs · 2h ago

I wouldn't mind a "small premium", but 300% price increase is robbery. Can't imagine that this kind of greed doesn't affect their quality of service.

jsheard · 2h ago

To add insult to injury they also killed the free mailboxes they used to bundle with domains as standard, so customers who used that feature had to start paying a huge premium for the domain itself and pay even more on top of that to retain access to their email.

maeln · 1h ago

And their mailbox offering is also overpriced. 5.99€/month (and it use to be pricier! they recently decreased the price) for 10Go and very basic email features. Fastmail is 5€ for 60Go, masked email, and a few other things (not in the EU tho).

genewitch · 31m ago

I used to pay $5/yr for fastmail but that plan is now $15/yr, but I only get 0.5GB of storage.

So it's like $1.05/month!

sombragris · 1h ago

I am transferring all my domains away from them. This is too much of a hike.

rom16384 · 27m ago

What registar do you recommend? I used Gandi because it was a no-nonsense registar, even if a bit more expensive.

homebrewer · 24m ago

Cloudflare sells domains at cost, if you can stomach them.

a2tech · 1h ago

Their web interface is extremely unreliable. Pretty much every time I need to renew or checkout, the web site doesn't work. I have to try over multiple days before I get through the process fully. If you try to contact support, it'll take a few days and you get the worst kind of form responses.

This has reminded me to start migrating domains away, so the timing is good.

keehun · 2h ago

What does Gandi provide wrt DNS that is worth a premium? What do they offer that at-cost domain registrations & free DNS management from Cloudflare do not?

Forbo · 2h ago

One could argue the polish of their UI/UX is worth it, but not to me. I moved to Porkbun and found the difference a bit frustrating when trying to migrate from Gandi, but that was one time pain.

No comments yet

paulv · 1h ago

We use them for a few dozen domains. DNS only, though, and they are all set to auto-renew.

I basically only have to interact with them when we need to make DNS changes. The web UI seems fine, especially in the advanced view, but our biggest zones are managed through opentofu, so I can see how changing a large zone would be frustrating.

sampullman · 2h ago

There aren't many registrars that support one of the TLDs I use, but I've moved everything else.

insane_dreamer · 16m ago

Used them for years with zero issues--I'm happy with the stability (though I wasn't aware they'd been bought out or raised their prices).

shinryuu · 2h ago

Just transferred away the other day.

kettleballroll · 2h ago

What alternative can you recommend?

jsheard · 2h ago

Porkbun is a solid all-rounder. Cloudflare sells domains at cost so they're slightly cheaper than Porkbun, but the catch is that you're forced to use CFs nameservers so YMMV depending on whether you want that flexibility.

Sanzig · 1h ago

For Canadians trying to avoid US registrars - grape.ca. They've been in business since '99, I think they were one of the first CIRA accredited registrars for .ca domains.

nicoburns · 1h ago

Namecheap are reliable and well-priced

VWWHFSfQ · 1h ago

I've been using Tucows/Hover since forever. never even a single problem

SG- · 2h ago

https://porkbun.com

Faaak · 45m ago

infomaniak: swiss & cheap

gpjt · 2h ago

Another one leaving for Porkbun here.

kgwxd · 2h ago

I was just about to grab a few domains so, of course, my previous go-to has since turned to poop. Are there any good registrars left and, if so, who?

noinsight · 1h ago

Amazon/AWS Registrar. They're a reseller for Gandi, but of course everything is managed through AWS and the pricing is at-cost instead of the rip-off that Gandi is now.

internetter · 2h ago

Cloudflare (at cost), or porkbun

workfromspace · 20m ago

The last good thing Gandi did for me is to convince (more like force) me to migrate to Fastmail. I wish I've done that before.

thegeekpirate · 1h ago

https://tld-list.com is the the place to go when needing a domain (although it seems they're having some site issues at the moment).

TheRealPomax · 53m ago

I assumed this was about a march in honour of Ghandi. It was not.

ta8903 · 2h ago

The headline beginning with "Gandi March" made me think this post was about something else.

WhitneyLand · 2h ago

Well, they’re French. Was it an accident? It’s a matter of taste I guess, but if it was realized the acronym for my company was one letter off from one of the most iconic civil rights leaders of the 20th century, I’d probably prefer not to play off the edge of the name being highly recognizable.

qntty · 1h ago

In Hindi, “gandi” means dirty, which I guess is appropriate for marches

intended · 2h ago

You aren’t alone.

Edit: THought it was Dandi March, a famous civil disobedience movement by Gandhi.