Overview

Amazon Route 53

Stacks14.7K

Followers9.4K

Votes678

Namecheap

Stacks2.6K

Followers596

Votes50

Amazon Route 53 vs Namecheap: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Amazon Route 53 and Namecheap

Amazon Route 53 and Namecheap are both domain name registration and management services, but they have some key differences that set them apart. Here are the main differences between the two:

Pricing: Amazon Route 53 offers tiered pricing based on the number of queries and hosted zones, with separate charges for DNS queries, hosted zones, and health checks. On the other hand, Namecheap simplifies pricing by providing more affordable plans with a fixed monthly fee that includes unlimited DNS queries and hosting for multiple domains.
Infrastructure and Scalability: Amazon Route 53 is built on the global infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides a highly scalable and reliable DNS service that can handle massive query volumes. Namecheap, on the other hand, utilizes its own infrastructure, which may not offer the same level of scalability and performance as AWS.
Integration with Other AWS Services: Amazon Route 53 seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, allowing users to easily route traffic to EC2 instances, load balancers, S3 buckets, and other resources within the AWS ecosystem. Namecheap lacks this level of integration with AWS, which can be a disadvantage for users who heavily rely on AWS services.
Additional DNS Features: Amazon Route 53 offers advanced DNS features such as Traffic Flow, which allows users to control and direct traffic based on latency, geolocation, and weighted routing policies. Namecheap, on the other hand, focuses primarily on domain registration and basic DNS management, lacking the advanced traffic management capabilities of Route 53.
DNS Performance: Due to its global infrastructure, Amazon Route 53 generally offers faster DNS resolution and lower latency compared to Namecheap. This can be especially important for applications and websites that require quick and reliable DNS responses.
Support and Documentation: Amazon Route 53 provides extensive documentation and technical support for its services, ensuring that users have access to resources and assistance when needed. Namecheap also offers support but may not have the same level of documentation and technical resources as Route 53.

In summary, while both Amazon Route 53 and Namecheap offer domain registration and management services, Route 53 differentiates itself through its global infrastructure, advanced DNS features, seamless integration with other AWS services, and tiered pricing options. Namecheap, on the other hand, focuses on simplicity and affordability with fixed monthly pricing and a user-friendly interface.

Advice on Amazon Route 53, Namecheap

Eric

Service Engineer at Zix Corporation

Aug 5, 2020

Needs adviceon

Amazon Route 53

We are looking for advice / best-practices / caveats about migrating off BIND on to Unbound https://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/unbound/about/ for internal & external (customer-facing) DNS. Is unbound suitable for this, or is it only recommended for caching? How easy or difficult is it to move 10000's of existing BIND DNS zone entries? We already use Amazon Route 53 for our AWS instances and Cloud DNS for our GCP ones, but would like to maintain internal DNS for cost, control, and latency reasons.

58.6k views58.6k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Amazon Route 53	Namecheap
Amazon Route 53 is designed to give developers and businesses an extremely reliable and cost effective way to route end users to Internet applications by translating human readable names like www.example.com into the numeric IP addresses like 192.0.2.1 that computers use to connect to each other. Route 53 effectively connects user requests to infrastructure running in Amazon Web Services (AWS) – such as an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance, an Amazon Elastic Load Balancer, or an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket – and can also be used to route users to infrastructure outside of AWS.	We provide a set of DNS servers spread across the US and Europe to deliver highly reliable DNS services to everyone. By choosing Namecheap.com as your domain registrar, you are choosing a highly reputable and reliable partner. Namecheap.com is rated 4.6 out of 5 - Based on 1,395 reviews via Google Checkout
Highly Available and Reliable – Route 53 is built using AWS’s highly available and reliable infrastructure. The distributed nature of our DNS servers helps ensure a consistent ability to route your end users to your application. Route 53 is designed to provide the level of dependability required by important applications. Amazon Route 53 is backed by the Amazon Route 53 Service Level Agreement.;Scalable – Route 53 is designed to automatically scale to handle very large query volumes without any intervention from you.;Designed for use with other Amazon Web Services – Route 53 is designed to work well with other AWS features and offerings. You can use Route 53 to map domain names to your Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon S3 buckets, Amazon CloudFront distributions, and other AWS resources. By using the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service with Route 53, you get fine grained control over who can update your DNS data. You can use Route 53 to map your zone apex (example.com versus www.example.com) to your Elastic Load Balancing instance or Amazon S3 website bucket using a feature called Alias record.;Simple – With self-service sign-up, Route 53 can start to answer your DNS queries within minutes. You can configure your DNS settings with the AWS Management Console or our easy-to-use API. You can also programmatically integrate the Route 53 API into your overall web application. For instance, you can use Route 53’s API to create a new DNS record whenever you create a new EC2 instance.;Fast – Using a global anycast network of DNS servers around the world, Route 53 is designed to automatically route your users to the optimal location depending on network conditions. As a result, the service offers low query latency for your end users, as well as low update latency for your DNS record management needs.;Cost-Effective – Route 53 passes on the benefits of AWS’s scale to you. You pay only for managing domains through the service and the number of queries that the service answers for each of your domains, at a low cost and without minimum usage commitments or any up-front fees.;Secure – By integrating Route 53 with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), you can grant unique credentials and manage permissions for every user within your AWS account and specify who has access to which parts of the Route 53 service.;Flexible – Route 53 offers Weighted Round-Robin (WRR), also known as DNS load balancing. This lets you assign weights to your DNS records that specify what portion of your traffic is routed to various endpoints.	URL Forwarding (no-ads)- Redirect your domain visitors to any URL or website of your choice. You can cloak the URL to hide the destination.;Email Forwarding (no-ads)- Create and redirect @yourdomain.tld email addresses to other email accounts of your choice.;Reliable DNS servers- Modify record types like A address, MX, MXE, CNAME and TXT in real time and at no extra cost.;Dynamic DNS- Takes care of a dynamically changing IP address and keeps your site running without downtime.;Grant Modification Rights- Retain full control of the domain while granting access just to certain domain editing features to your customers or co-workers.;Registrar Lock- Stops unauthorized domain transfers to some other registrar. You can enable/disable this option anytime you want.;WhoisGuard Privacy Protect- Through our partnership with WhoisGuard, keep your contact details safe by subscribing to privacy protection services.;Security Notifications- Configure your account to send email notices when any change is made to your domain settings.
Statistics
Stacks 14.7K	Stacks 2.6K
Followers 9.4K	Followers 596
Votes 678	Votes 50
Pros & Cons
Pros 185 High-availability 148 Simple 103 Backed by amazon 76 Fast 54 Auhtoritive dns servers are spread over different tlds Cons 2 Geo-based routing only works with AWS zones 2 SLOW 1 Restrictive rate limit	Pros 20 Cheap 9 Free privacy protection 6 Awesome customer support 5 Free email forwarding 4 Free custom DNS

What are some alternatives to Amazon Route 53, Namecheap?

DomainRacer

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DNS Made Easy

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