Domain.com Reviews of 2021
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Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for Domain Registration and Hosting
Originally founded in 1998 as a domain name registrar, Domain.com has since expanded to offer a variety of web hosting services.
Our community has written 40+ reviews for Domain.com, giving them an overall rating of 3.5 stars and good marks for support, features, and overall quality.
We created this guide to help you decide if Domain.com is right for you. Read on for our expert overview of all facets of Domain.com, including hosting plans, features, customer support, pricing, and more.
You can browse dozens of customer reviews to see what real users have to say, and you’ll likely find the answer to any question you might have about Domain.com in our FAQ section.
Also, you can click through any of the Domain.com links on this page to take advantage of our exclusive discount.
What Is Domain.com?
Domain.com is based in Vancouver, WA and has recently become part of the Endurance International Group, a large hosting company that owns more than 30 well-known hosting brands.
They offer a range of hosting plans, including some niche services, but its primary focus is affordable shared hosting. And while Domain.com once offered Windows hosting, they now only support Linux.
Pros and Cons of Domain.com
That’s already a lot of information so far. Let me try to simplify things by reviewing the biggest pros and cons of Domain.com in the table below.
| Pros | Cons |
| >Affordable rates for both shared and VPS hosting plans >Domain.com is a top domain registrar, and these services tie directly into your hosting account >They’ve worked to reduce their environmental impact over the years | >Not suitable for sites with a high volume of traffic >Lacks premium features that are offered by many other providers, such as a free CDN >Limited CMS support — you can install WordPress and Joomla, but not PrestaShop or several other popular systems |
Domain.com Hosting Plans
Domain.com offers basic shared and WordPress plans along with VPS plans for more demanding websites.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is offered across three plans. They all have standard features, such as unlimited disk space and bandwidth.
FTP logins, databases, and email accounts are all limited unless you opt for the most expensive hosting package in the shared hosting range.
Some hosts provide scripts and one-click installers for free, but Domain.com doesn’t really offer more than the basics. You’ll need to pay extra for full access to the library.
CMS Support
Each plan allows you to install some of the most popular open source content management systems, including:
WordPress
Drupal
Joomla
PHPBB
CubeCart
A potential issue is that their list of supported applications is missing a few common ones that most other hosts provide, like PrestaShop.
In addition to their standard shared hosting plans, Domain.com offers two WordPress hosting plans. You can also use their own WebsiteBuilder tool or the Weebly site builder to create your site.
VPS Hosting
All of Domain.com’s VPS hosting plans run on CentOS.
The Standard VPS plan includes 512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk space, and 1 TB bandwidth. The Premium plan offers 2,048 MB RAM, 60 GB disk space, and 2 TB bandwidth.
The site says cPanel and WHM are “available”, but that only comes with the top tier VPS plans.
Pricing and Partnerships
VPS plans can be purchased monthly, but shared and WordPress plans are only available with 1, 2, or 3-year contracts.
The introductory rates that are advertised on the site are about as cheap as you’ll find for hosting.
For shared hosting plans, the renewal price is the same as the introductory price. But for WordPress and VPS hosting, your renewal rate will be higher than the introductory rate.
This naturally encourages you to sign up for a longer initial term, but this can be risky if you cancel at some point, as you can’t be certain that you’ll get a complete refund.
Money-Back Guarantee / Cancellation Policy
Domain.com offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
If you want to cancel after that time, bear in mind that your request will take up to 30 days to take effect.
And you should note that money-back guarantees only apply to certain products. They do not, for example, apply to domain name registrations.
Payment Methods
Domain.com accepts all major credit cards, as well as PayPal.
Affiliate Program
Domain.com has a nice affiliate program that you may want to join if you end up enjoying your hosting experience.
After you sign up, you’ll receive a unique link to share with others. Then, you get up to $100 for each person who buys a Domain.com plan through your link.
Customer Support Features
Domain.com offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is the standard for the industry. But remember that while this may sound impressive, it still allows for up to 43 minutes of downtime per month.
The host doesn’t specify the location of its datacenter, but it says that its services are provided from a Tier 1 facility offering redundant cooling, 24/7 monitoring, and backups.
Non-Specific Backups
The host doesn’t specify when backups are taken or whether the backups are accessible to clients.
Customers on VPS hosting plans can ask for a backup to be restored if their VPS is corrupted due to a botched update to the operating system. However, this service is not guaranteed.
There’s no information about backups for shared hosting customers.
Contact Methods
Domain.com offers support via telephone (US toll-free) or live chat.
The support department is open 24/7. There’s no information available about the location of the support team.
Knowledge Base
The host also offers public access to its knowledge base, which covers all the basics of hosting accounts, access, and passwords.
Users with more advanced needs will probably find themselves contacting support to get the answers they’re looking for.
There’s also a basic user guide and a range of tutorials; this content is typical for sites owned by Endurance International Group.
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Infrastructure and Control Panel
As mentioned, there are no specifics regarding datacenter locations on Domain.com’s website.
Domain.com offsets its energy use with 150% wind power in addition to planting trees for new accounts.
However, all domain registrars must publish some basic contact and address information. There, Domain.com reveals that they are based in Vancouver, Washington.
It seems reasonable to guess that their datacenters are located there as well.
If their datacenters are all in that one location, visitors from other parts of the globe may experience slower loading times.
Environmental Impact
One positive aspect of Domain.com as a company is that they’ve done quite a bit to help protect the environment.
Domain.com offsets its energy use with 150% wind power in addition to planting trees for new accounts. They even provide green certificates for sites hosted by them.
Control Panel
At Domain.com, different types of hosting accounts have different control panels.
Shared hosting customers get access to DomainCentral, an in-house custom control panel.
There are some articles in the knowledge base that cover DomainCentral if you’d like to take a look. Customers of other Endurance International Group brands may have come across similar control panels.
Domain.com Extras
In addition to their domain registration and hosting plans, Domain.com also offers the following services:
Easy-Install Scripts
Beyond the CMSs discussed above, there are many more applications that can be installed, such as forums and shopping carts.
To expand the number of applications you can use, you’ll need to subscribe to the SimpleScripts service. This costs extra.
SSL Certificates
A hobby site can get away with not using an SSL certificate, but all businesses should have them.
Viewers will see a green lock sign in their browser’s address bar if your site has an SSL certificate, and they’ll see a caution or warning sign if you don’t.
SSL certificates on Domain.com can be obtained for an additional fee (a few dollars per month).
Drag-and-Drop Website Builder
If you’re completely new to web hosting and are just trying to make a simple site with only a few pages, you might find a relatively complex CMS like WordPress intimidating.
In that case, you should check out Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder. This intuitive drag-and-drop page builder tool comes included with all their plans for free. You can also get hosting that includes the Weebly website builder.
Drag-and-drop builders are good for small sites and require very little technical skills.
As the name implies, you simply click on an element in the editor and drag it to where you’d like it to show up. Similarly, you can click on any text to edit it right there as it stands.
Other Hosts to Consider
There are many providers that compete to be the top low-cost hosting option.
| Domain.com | GoDaddy | Namecheap | SiteGround | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | Unmetered | 100 GB | 20 GB | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | Scalable | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Websites | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Lowest Price | $2.82 * | $1.00 * | $1.29 * | $3.95 * |
| * Prices based on special WIHT deals for lowest-level plans. | ||||
Here are my top three alternatives:
GoDaddy
If you are looking for inexpensive hosting, GoDaddy is hard to beat. They are a one-stop shop with many high-quality services.
The major downside of GoDaddy is that I’ve found their server speeds to be underwhelming ― not terrible, but definitely not good. Still, they are stable and worth considering.
Namecheap
If you like Domain.com primarily because it’s convenient to register your domain name and hosting together, Namecheap is a good alternative.
They offer a wide variety of hosting plans for a low cost, and you get to choose your server locations. To learn more, read this detailed review of Namecheap.
SiteGround
SiteGround is a great low-cost, high-value host. They have plans from cheap shared hosting to high-powered dedicated servers and everything inbetween.
They also have an extremely helpful 24/7 support team. Here’s a detailed SiteGround review if you’d like to learn more.
Most Popular Domain.com Alternatives
Starts at:
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(Billed as $3.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
Starts at:
$2.75
per month
(Billed as $3.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
Starts at:
$3.92
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(Billed as $3.75 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
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Domain.com Review Conclusion
Endurance International Group has swallowed up many hosting companies. On the upside, that kind of support gives providers the resources they need to offer solid hosting. On the downside, it can make them homogeneous and interchangeable.
Domain.com is fighting that trend by trying to be a one-stop hosting/domain registration shop like GoDaddy and Namecheap. They aren’t quite there yet, but they still offer everything most users would need.
The bottom line is that Domain.com provides inexpensive and reliable basic web hosting. If that is what you are looking for, visit Domain.com now.
Additional material: Claire Broadley. Contributing editor: Frank Moraes.
Domain.com Frequently Asked Questions
- Does Domain.com offer an uptime guarantee?
Domain.com offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee. But it’s not clear what they’ll give you should they fail to meet this guarantee. They do, however, tout their high-tech facilities and the fact that they provide 24/7 critical monitoring, secure access to datacenters, and video monitoring.
- Can I host multiple sites or domains on my account?
You can only host a single website on Domain.com’s basic shared hosting plan. On their higher tier plans, you can host as many websites as you like. However, you will be limited by your total resource usage.
- Does Domain.com offer a website builder?
All shared hosting plans come with Domain.com’s drag-and-drop WebsiteBuilder. You can also get hosting that includes Weebly. If you want to use a CMS, hosting plans with SimpleScripts offers easy installation of WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and other popular applications.
- Can you use Domain.com only as a domain name registrar?
Yes. Although Domain.com has expanded into web hosting, it is still possible to use the company solely as a domain name registrar and host your website elsewhere. The process for purchasing a domain through Domain.com is simple and straightforward.
For individuals or businesses registering a domain name, Domain.com offers features such as email forwarding, DNS management, SSL encryption, and transfer lock. Pricing for domain name registration starts at $9.99 for .com addresses and $12.99 for .net addresses.
- Can I run an e-commerce website?
Yes. Domain.com’s hosting plans are all PCI-compliant and include a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate. They support a number of features that will help you run your e-commerce website, including ShopSite, osCommerce, and PayPal payments.
- What control panel does Domain.com offer?
Shared hosting plans come with their proprietary DomainCentral interface. It is a good, easy-to-use control panel that will allow you to manage your site effectively. However, it makes migrating to and from Domain.com harder. Domain.com’s VPS plans come with the industry standard cPanel.
- Is there an affiliate program available?
Yes. Affiliates earn a flat-rate commission for each sale of hosting packages. The commission amount is currently $100 for each hosting customer you refer. For domain registrations, the commission is 30% of the cost of the domains purchased.
About Dale Cudmore
Freelance blogger by day, developer by night, Dale is a freelance writer who specializes in technology and digital marketing. He studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo before becoming a freelance writer.Connect with Dale
Domain.com Reviews by Our Community
Overall Rating from 40 Reviews by Domain.com Customers
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| Features | |
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Most Helpful Reviews
Anurag Bhardwaj gyankibagiya.com
Apr 03, 2019
Mark Malin eshoptechnologies.com
Dec 30, 2017
Worst support possible. Site is down constantly and takes 4 to 5 days to repair. Horrible communication with support people that don’t speak English.
I would love to change to another company but I just don’t have the time to start over. I could not possibly recommend using this company if you need any kind of reliability.
gideon ashby take5apps.com
Feb 19, 2018
I recently purchased a hosting plan, also the web builder, to my surprise the builder is not responsive at all in the real world
Support do not even get back to you regarding tickets and chat is too vague, very poor customer service
I would not recommend them all, very disappointed with domain.com
Hello, I’m Anurag Now Firstly I would like to thanks the whole community of Domain.com this is the great hosting and domain provider. I had purchased a Domain and hosting (its hosting price is $3.75 / mo!!!! ) which is awesome you know that in online industry hosting is commonly found expensive, price but domain.com’s hosting plan covers a great value with full of reliability and 24×7 support. so if you are going to purchase a domain or hosting I’ll highly recommend you to buy from the domain.com. My Final Words For Domain.com- "The World’s Best Domain Services Provider with Cheapest Price and Highest Service"