Rent it, like everyone.
This is the stack almost every site on the internet is built on. It is mature, it is inexpensive, and it is very good at its job. It is also five separate companies, each of whom can independently decide your project is over.
Who holds what
Registrar GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare
Leases you the name, yearly. Can suspend or transfer it on a
court order, a UDRP ruling, or its own policy — and must, by contract with the
registry.
Host AWS, Hetzner, DigitalOcean
Runs the machine. Can terminate under acceptable-use terms,
usually with notice, sometimes without.
CDN / proxy Cloudflare, Fastly
Sits in front of your traffic. Can stop carrying it — and has,
publicly, for customers who broke no law.
Certificate authority Let's Encrypt, DigiCert
Vouches that you are you. Can revoke, at which point browsers
refuse the connection regardless of who is right.
App store / payments Apple, Google, Stripe
If money or an app is involved, two more parties with terms and a
right to decline.
What it costs
| Item | Typical | Note |
|---|---|---|
| .com, first year | $1–12 | usually a promotional rate |
| .com, renewal | $12–20/yr | the real price; wholesale is ~$9.59 |
| Small VPS | $4–8/mo | plus your time |
| TLS certificate | $0 | Let's Encrypt, genuinely free |
| Renewal, forever | every year | stop paying and the name returns to the market |
To be fair to it. This stack is fast, well documented, supported at 3am, and
integrates with everything. The vetoes above also remove phishing sites, malware hosts
and worse — they exist for reasons, and most of the time they are used reasonably. If
you are shipping a normal business, this is the sensible default and it is not close.
The alternative gives up the support desk along with the gatekeeper.
The other option is not a replacement for all of that. It replaces exactly one layer — the one that decides whether the name is still yours — and leaves the rest of your choices open. Same day, few cents, no account.
See what a name costs there →
← Back to the choice · silentmode.st
Company names are examples of each layer, not endorsements or accusations.