So far I've had Gandi and DNSimple recommended, with Gandi getting the most votes. I've also been asked what my problem with 123-reg is, but it wouldn't fit into 140 characters, so I thought I'd branch it to here.

Their control panel is appalling, and not just because of the fridge-magnet typography. Here's a message that I get at the top of my 123-reg control panel...

<img src="dl.dropbox.com />

Apparently all my domain name(s) will soon expire! I better click on that! Unfortunately it takes me to a blank page. This attention to quality doesn't give me much confidence in their attention to security.

I like Gandi for a few reasons:

- Non-shit UI
- They offer a very wide range of TLDs (which is one reason I didn't want to use DNSSimple)
- They offer WHOIS obfuscation for free as part of their service

Oh, that was another thing I hate about 123-reg. They charge you extra for whois privacy. And in fact, try to sell you about 40 other things during the purchase process, some of which are available free elsewhere.

I should mention that it's work's domains I'm thinking of trying to consolidate, I actually use Dreamhost for all my personal domains and they're pretty good for that.

123-reg may have an awful looking control panel but I've been using them for 10 years+ and have never had a problem. They are cheap and you have full control of your domains. Any new provider would have to be absolutely head and shoulders better than them for me to go through the process of moving.

The whole recommendation thing for these type of things is pretty stupid really. People are tied in to their providers and just end up recommending who they are with unless they are absolutely shite, and have had a bad experience. A bit like banks in that respect.

123-reg has to the best of my knowledge done little more than maintenance updates to their control panel over the last 10 years (I only used to use them because I knew people working there early on). I'd not be surprised if there turn out to be a number of major security holes in their admin tool (they used to use HTTP auth, but for some reason I was always logged in, even across browser sessions).

Like Brad I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Gandi for all the same reasons. They're also very price-competitive, frequently doing special offers that sell domains at effectively cost price.

That HTTP auth thing used to drive me mad. It was impossible to log out of it, meaning I had to use different browsers to access different 123-reg accounts. Like I say, I'm very concerned about their attention to security.

@loadedwino - I don't relish the pain of moving everything, moving registrars is probably more of a pain in the arse than changing banks.

Better the devil you know... and all that.

I've heard this debate several times lately and the recommendations always come down to:

- dyndns for feature richness and security, but they cost a bucket
- Gandi (see above)
- DNSSimple because they're the hot new UI-focused startup. They don't yet offer the same value and features as Gandi though (or didn't last time I looked)

Unlike moving banks though, you're potentially saving yourself pain in the longterm. I moved a couple of domains as an experiment initially, and eventually once I realised how good Gandi were I moved every domain whenever it needed renewing, so as to spread the effort out.

Oh, good thinking Ben.

I fail to see what the pain is when the current service is working perfectly well. It's speculation that they may have security issues probably just based on the fact they have shit design. Or am I missing something?

If it's a service you have to use the shit design is a pain point.

Also, they're missing features like whois obfuscation as part of the bundle (pay for extra). So they don't represent good value.

I'm sure the nuisance factor in using a less-than-perfect service will affect/annoy different people more or less. If it's not an issue then there's no reason to change, but the question here is which domain registrar to consolidate under. Based on that question my answer would be Gandi, not 123-reg.

The other pain point here is that work seems to have accounts with about 10 different registrars, and sometimes we have multiple accounts on each of those registrars. Tracking down a domain to update the DNS can be painful, especially when some of those accounts were registered by people who have since left the company. I want one place to go when I need to edit a domain.

Well, having had no problems with 123-reg and no experience with any others. The graphic design is shit but it's perfectly usable. If I'm really honest I find it very hard to imagine how one registrar can be much better than another. Domains are something you don't edit much.

Andy, if I were you I'd consolidate to the registrar that you currently have the most domains with in the same account (saying that, internal domain transfers are apparently pretty straight forward with 123-reg.). I transferred a domain recently and it's something I'd rather not do for a very long time.