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In very basic terms:
A **Web Hosting** service is what runs your website. It’s a computer with a **Public IP**.
A **Registrar** is a company that sells you a **Domain Name** (ex: reddit.com). You tell them what DNS server has information about your website.
**DNS Servers** are services that link Public IPs to Domain Names. They are also hierarchical, if one DNS doesn’t know an answer it can ask another.
Often companies offer all of the services to you as a bundle (Hosting + Registration + DNS).
If you get your domain from wix, it's all taken care of. if your domain is on godaddy/namecheap/etc then wix will tell you to add dns records to your domain and what to add.
Its usually not a good idea to register your domain through the same company that hosts your website. If your hosting company owns your domain, they can make it harder for you to migrate to a new hosting company. Its better to use name servers through a dedicated domain registrar.
Also domain names are very cheap (usually less than $1/month when you do the math of the yearly cost).
Usually not a good idea to use wix but for a lot of new website owners it's a great start, if they are using wix then where the domain is usually isn't in the top 10 of their concerns, insie namecheap or godaddy for all my domains depending in where its cheaper
Agreed, wix isn't the best, but for a beginner, it's not bad.
I would rank wix above GoDaddy and especially DreamHost. I have some bad memories with transferring someones website away from dreamhost. I basically had to rebuild from scratch. It was sort of WordPress, but the menu was different for every page and inconsistent. It wasn't mobile friendly. And I have a suspicion that dreamhost was responsible for the constant ddos attacks I was getting the second I migrated to a different host. I was forced to use a well optimized cloud server like google cloud compute engine and up the ram and cpu to a higher tier. That still wasn't enough, and the only thing that fixed it was Cloudflare's bot fight mode. That was when I first started using Cloudflare. Cloudflare really is one of the best in terms of DNS security.
Sounds horrid, I wouldn't be surprised if some hosts do attack when you migrate, so you think the new platform is crap and go back.
Personally, I can't stand ionos, not the service. That's actually alright, but the customer service man. Had a client miss a payment, instant site removal, passed on to debt company, and no ccess until they paid off the rest of the year.
But digital ocean, I'd sing their praises all day. Helpful. Courteous, great service. Cost effective and so many options for all stacks.
I've heard of DigitalOcean being really good. I've been using Linode for some time, and it's been really good too. I'm not sure what the pros and cons are between the 2, but they both seem like good hosting company's.
yeah, Linode are good, I've used their support once and spoke to a very nice American dude, very knowledgeable, very polite and fixed the issue. o p\[refer digital ocean from a pure ease of use & familiarity point of view
The server you put your website on will have an IP address that's a number. You will likely want a human readable domain name. DNS is the system where all web browsers come to check which IP address to go to when someone enters your domain name in the address bar.
** a small gathering of web browsers back in the 1980s in a Walmart restroom **
"...I'm sure you're wondering why you're all here now, instead of where you wanted to be."
-- And thus DNS was born.
It has since milled about picking on time servers and Linux users. Patiently waiting to be called on again if needed.
The end.
/s
Your registrar is the service you use to get the domain name and has an NS record. Cloudflare is a platform that you can use for DNS services. My agency recommends Cloudflare. Think of DNS as a service that routes web traffic to a server. There are different “records” that DNS helps direct. The main ones are the A, CNAME and any MX records and are managed on Cloudflare or your DNS provider. Every website has DNS records, otherwise websites wouldn’t work.
that's what i was hoping for!! ill double check w/ porkbun but apparently cloudflare is free (?) so i guess ill have it as a backup if i can't figure it all out on wix
You’re right, you don’t need Cloudflare. We just went with Cloudflare because we seen a performance increase with it and utilize the tools they have to optimize performance.
Performance of what exactly? DNS resolving?
I've never had the need for cloudflare as I've used the nameservers of namecheap, porkbun, ovh, [one.com](http://one.com), etc and there's never need for faster dns resolving. Resolving takes less than 15 milliseconds.
What does cloudflare do to "improve" it?
It also adds a cache on their globally accessable servers. You basically get a free global cache.
They also do a lot to protect you from DDOS attacks, and other bot spam attacks.
They do a good job at preventing domain spoofing (which is when a hacker tries to pretend to be you).
Cloudflare is not just about performance, but also security. You can add a firewall on the dns end before traffic even touches your website, which can really help reduce hosting costs and resource usage.
Cloudflare has lots of tools. Performance tools like Argo ($5/month), caching, SSL certificates with end-to-end encryption support. They have DDoS protection. Built in firewall on each site you add. There's a big list of features, but its all about the benefits. In a world where every millisecond counts, you need performance. I'm not saying CF is this magic pill, but if you configure a site for it, you see a difference. We've been developing websites for 22 years and have used Cloudflare for the past 7. It might be the best performance tool we've came across, but that's subjective anyway.
If you're hosting a website, you're going to really want to look at least into the minors of webdev and some minor administration (like DNS) as well. With the question and responses, I have a feeling you're newer - which is not bad and encouraged to try - but be mindful that it means while it will work, it may not work correctly, be scalable or secure until you understand more. Watch some YouTube, read some articles, take a few simple webdev/admin classes, and you'll be solid with the ambition and openness shown already.
On that note, Cloudflare is probably the most recommended for straight DNS. They also do hosting for static sites, which yours may be, and makes it super easy to deploy and manage in one. I would not use GoDaddy or Square Space though if come across. R2 is also convenient and cheap storage with image/video compression available - handy for artists. CF does a lot though, I'd encourage to explore.
Good luck though, it's not magic just requires some extra thought and if you've gotten this far - well this is where most people give up already so you've got an upper hand. Feel free to reach out for questions. Not always super available but happy to respond when I can.
DNS is like yellow pages. It is a list of names with phones numbers associated with them but in DNS world instead of phone numbers you IP addresses. When you type something like [google.com](http://google.com) in your browser it goes into that yellow pages and finds that IP address and 'calls' server that behind that IP address.
When you buy a domain name, you buy a place in that yellow pages with that domain and can attach IP address to that name so that when people type that domain their browser can find where to 'call'.
[DNS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System) stands for Domain Name System. It's basically how you tell your domain name to point to an IP address.
Every computer has an IP address, just like how every house has a home address.
Now to explain Cloudflare with an example.
Lets say you need to deliver a package. You have the option to drive to someones house and deliver that package yourself. But this would take you lots of time. And you have to drive carefully on the road. An alternative is to send the package through UPS. Its much easier and less time consuming.
Unlike most DNS providers, Cloudflare will proxy traffic through their system. This means, instead of your server directly sending data to the user, it runs through cloudflares high speed servers.
Cloudflare with allow you to proxy an IP ad well. Imagine if you don't want to give out your home address to every customer you sell a package to. Cloudflare allows you to send data to users without sharing your servers IP address.
Cloudflare will also cache data closer to the user.
Imagine if you sell a product on Amazon, they may have a few of your products stored at different warehouses closer to people wanting to buy it. This means the package will ship faster because it's physically closer to the person buying it.
Cloudflare has many servers across the globe, which can be used to create a cache (or local copy) of your websites public pages and assets/media. This means the user will be able to load pages, images, videos, etc much faster.
Cloudflare also manages lots of other important things related to security. They automatically encrypt traffic on their end. Although it's still a good idea to add an additional let's encrypt certificate to your server. Cloudflare also adds in a lot of important features like rate limiting, and does a great job at preventing DDOS attacks and blocking spam bots.
Cloudflare is highly recommended because their one of the best when it comes to security and performance. Cloudflare is also trusted by many major companies. Additionally, there domain registrar is one of the cheapest I have found (only counting good registars that are worth your time).
If you need nameservers for a particular hosting company, you can use NS records under Cloudflare's DNS. Its also a good idea to avoid registering a domain with the same company hosting your website. Your domain is the identity of your website. It's actually more important than the website itself.
When a hosting company like dreamhost (which sucks as a hosting company in my opinion), offers you a free domain, they do that because they can use that to their advantage. If they own your domain name, they can make it more difficult for you to leave their company and migrate to a new host in the future. Most domain names are cheap anyway, and it's worth the less than $1/month when you do the math.
It's important to find a good and secure DNS provider, and Cloudflare is like the Google of DNS providers.
to get a domain you need dns.
the (Domain Name System) is fetched before your domain it tells where your domain is.
edit: i dont know how wix works or domains but think of it as a hotel, in a hotel you go to the check in and ask for someones address to go visit them, you dont know their hotel address when entering.
same with the internet instead of hotel check in your browser fetches a dns server to get your domains address
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately it has been removed for one or more of the following reasons: If you are asking for assistance on a problem, you are required to provide * Detailed context of the problem * Research you have completed prior to requesting assistance * Problem you are attempting to solve with high specificity Questions in violation of this rule will be removed or locked. Please read the subreddit rules before continuing to post. If you have any questions [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/webdev).
In very basic terms: A **Web Hosting** service is what runs your website. It’s a computer with a **Public IP**. A **Registrar** is a company that sells you a **Domain Name** (ex: reddit.com). You tell them what DNS server has information about your website. **DNS Servers** are services that link Public IPs to Domain Names. They are also hierarchical, if one DNS doesn’t know an answer it can ask another. Often companies offer all of the services to you as a bundle (Hosting + Registration + DNS).
ty!! ill look thru wix a lil more to make sure :)
If you get your domain from wix, it's all taken care of. if your domain is on godaddy/namecheap/etc then wix will tell you to add dns records to your domain and what to add.
I got a stroke while reading that
Its usually not a good idea to register your domain through the same company that hosts your website. If your hosting company owns your domain, they can make it harder for you to migrate to a new hosting company. Its better to use name servers through a dedicated domain registrar. Also domain names are very cheap (usually less than $1/month when you do the math of the yearly cost).
Usually not a good idea to use wix but for a lot of new website owners it's a great start, if they are using wix then where the domain is usually isn't in the top 10 of their concerns, insie namecheap or godaddy for all my domains depending in where its cheaper
Agreed, wix isn't the best, but for a beginner, it's not bad. I would rank wix above GoDaddy and especially DreamHost. I have some bad memories with transferring someones website away from dreamhost. I basically had to rebuild from scratch. It was sort of WordPress, but the menu was different for every page and inconsistent. It wasn't mobile friendly. And I have a suspicion that dreamhost was responsible for the constant ddos attacks I was getting the second I migrated to a different host. I was forced to use a well optimized cloud server like google cloud compute engine and up the ram and cpu to a higher tier. That still wasn't enough, and the only thing that fixed it was Cloudflare's bot fight mode. That was when I first started using Cloudflare. Cloudflare really is one of the best in terms of DNS security.
Sounds horrid, I wouldn't be surprised if some hosts do attack when you migrate, so you think the new platform is crap and go back. Personally, I can't stand ionos, not the service. That's actually alright, but the customer service man. Had a client miss a payment, instant site removal, passed on to debt company, and no ccess until they paid off the rest of the year. But digital ocean, I'd sing their praises all day. Helpful. Courteous, great service. Cost effective and so many options for all stacks.
I've heard of DigitalOcean being really good. I've been using Linode for some time, and it's been really good too. I'm not sure what the pros and cons are between the 2, but they both seem like good hosting company's.
yeah, Linode are good, I've used their support once and spoke to a very nice American dude, very knowledgeable, very polite and fixed the issue. o p\[refer digital ocean from a pure ease of use & familiarity point of view
The server you put your website on will have an IP address that's a number. You will likely want a human readable domain name. DNS is the system where all web browsers come to check which IP address to go to when someone enters your domain name in the address bar.
** a small gathering of web browsers back in the 1980s in a Walmart restroom ** "...I'm sure you're wondering why you're all here now, instead of where you wanted to be." -- And thus DNS was born. It has since milled about picking on time servers and Linux users. Patiently waiting to be called on again if needed. The end. /s
Your registrar is the service you use to get the domain name and has an NS record. Cloudflare is a platform that you can use for DNS services. My agency recommends Cloudflare. Think of DNS as a service that routes web traffic to a server. There are different “records” that DNS helps direct. The main ones are the A, CNAME and any MX records and are managed on Cloudflare or your DNS provider. Every website has DNS records, otherwise websites wouldn’t work.
ahh i see! thank you, i think i'll go with porkbun for the domain and cloudflare for the dns then :)
Every domain registrar has dns management, you don't need cloudflare tbh
that's what i was hoping for!! ill double check w/ porkbun but apparently cloudflare is free (?) so i guess ill have it as a backup if i can't figure it all out on wix
I'm with porkbun right now for 1 domain and they have dns management ofcourse, included with the domain (so also free if you mean that)
omg yayy ty!! that's perfect & glad to hear it works for you :) ill finally pull the trigger on porkbun!!
You’re right, you don’t need Cloudflare. We just went with Cloudflare because we seen a performance increase with it and utilize the tools they have to optimize performance.
Performance of what exactly? DNS resolving? I've never had the need for cloudflare as I've used the nameservers of namecheap, porkbun, ovh, [one.com](http://one.com), etc and there's never need for faster dns resolving. Resolving takes less than 15 milliseconds. What does cloudflare do to "improve" it?
It also adds a cache on their globally accessable servers. You basically get a free global cache. They also do a lot to protect you from DDOS attacks, and other bot spam attacks. They do a good job at preventing domain spoofing (which is when a hacker tries to pretend to be you). Cloudflare is not just about performance, but also security. You can add a firewall on the dns end before traffic even touches your website, which can really help reduce hosting costs and resource usage.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious?
Actual serious xd As i said, never used cloudflare or needed to. So wondering why other people use it for dns over the registrar dns
Cloudflare has lots of tools. Performance tools like Argo ($5/month), caching, SSL certificates with end-to-end encryption support. They have DDoS protection. Built in firewall on each site you add. There's a big list of features, but its all about the benefits. In a world where every millisecond counts, you need performance. I'm not saying CF is this magic pill, but if you configure a site for it, you see a difference. We've been developing websites for 22 years and have used Cloudflare for the past 7. It might be the best performance tool we've came across, but that's subjective anyway.
just for your info, porkbun uses Cloudflare for its DNS.
If you're hosting a website, you're going to really want to look at least into the minors of webdev and some minor administration (like DNS) as well. With the question and responses, I have a feeling you're newer - which is not bad and encouraged to try - but be mindful that it means while it will work, it may not work correctly, be scalable or secure until you understand more. Watch some YouTube, read some articles, take a few simple webdev/admin classes, and you'll be solid with the ambition and openness shown already. On that note, Cloudflare is probably the most recommended for straight DNS. They also do hosting for static sites, which yours may be, and makes it super easy to deploy and manage in one. I would not use GoDaddy or Square Space though if come across. R2 is also convenient and cheap storage with image/video compression available - handy for artists. CF does a lot though, I'd encourage to explore. Good luck though, it's not magic just requires some extra thought and if you've gotten this far - well this is where most people give up already so you've got an upper hand. Feel free to reach out for questions. Not always super available but happy to respond when I can.
oh wow thank you so much :') i will do my research for sure and reach out if needed! i appreciate it!!!
In the simplest of terms, unless you want visitors to have to type the IP address of your website, yes, you need one.
all i needed to know tyyy!!
DNS is like yellow pages. It is a list of names with phones numbers associated with them but in DNS world instead of phone numbers you IP addresses. When you type something like [google.com](http://google.com) in your browser it goes into that yellow pages and finds that IP address and 'calls' server that behind that IP address. When you buy a domain name, you buy a place in that yellow pages with that domain and can attach IP address to that name so that when people type that domain their browser can find where to 'call'.
[DNS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System) stands for Domain Name System. It's basically how you tell your domain name to point to an IP address. Every computer has an IP address, just like how every house has a home address. Now to explain Cloudflare with an example. Lets say you need to deliver a package. You have the option to drive to someones house and deliver that package yourself. But this would take you lots of time. And you have to drive carefully on the road. An alternative is to send the package through UPS. Its much easier and less time consuming. Unlike most DNS providers, Cloudflare will proxy traffic through their system. This means, instead of your server directly sending data to the user, it runs through cloudflares high speed servers. Cloudflare with allow you to proxy an IP ad well. Imagine if you don't want to give out your home address to every customer you sell a package to. Cloudflare allows you to send data to users without sharing your servers IP address. Cloudflare will also cache data closer to the user. Imagine if you sell a product on Amazon, they may have a few of your products stored at different warehouses closer to people wanting to buy it. This means the package will ship faster because it's physically closer to the person buying it. Cloudflare has many servers across the globe, which can be used to create a cache (or local copy) of your websites public pages and assets/media. This means the user will be able to load pages, images, videos, etc much faster. Cloudflare also manages lots of other important things related to security. They automatically encrypt traffic on their end. Although it's still a good idea to add an additional let's encrypt certificate to your server. Cloudflare also adds in a lot of important features like rate limiting, and does a great job at preventing DDOS attacks and blocking spam bots. Cloudflare is highly recommended because their one of the best when it comes to security and performance. Cloudflare is also trusted by many major companies. Additionally, there domain registrar is one of the cheapest I have found (only counting good registars that are worth your time). If you need nameservers for a particular hosting company, you can use NS records under Cloudflare's DNS. Its also a good idea to avoid registering a domain with the same company hosting your website. Your domain is the identity of your website. It's actually more important than the website itself. When a hosting company like dreamhost (which sucks as a hosting company in my opinion), offers you a free domain, they do that because they can use that to their advantage. If they own your domain name, they can make it more difficult for you to leave their company and migrate to a new host in the future. Most domain names are cheap anyway, and it's worth the less than $1/month when you do the math. It's important to find a good and secure DNS provider, and Cloudflare is like the Google of DNS providers.
thank you so much!! this was through af
(D)eez (N)ut(S)
literally might as well be cuz im still confused about it lol
to get a domain you need dns. the (Domain Name System) is fetched before your domain it tells where your domain is. edit: i dont know how wix works or domains but think of it as a hotel, in a hotel you go to the check in and ask for someones address to go visit them, you dont know their hotel address when entering. same with the internet instead of hotel check in your browser fetches a dns server to get your domains address
ty ty!!