I transferred this site’s domain (tobymackenzie.com) from Dreamhost to Porkbun. This was the first time I’ve done a domain transfer. It went smoothly, taking a couple hours. I was of course antsy during that time and kept checking its progress, worried that it would fail or take days.
I started on the Dreamhost side, going to ‘Domains > Registrations’ and clicking ‘Yes’ in the ‘Locked?’ column to switch it to ‘No’. I then went to ‘Domains > Reg. Transfers’ and clicked ‘Or transfer away from Dreamhost’. There was a button to show my auth code: I clicked it and copied the code. I then went to Porksbun’s transfer page and entered my domain and auth code. I got an email from Dreamhost, which directed me back to the transfer panel, where I clicked a button to authorize the transfer. While I was waiting for them to do the transfer, I manually copied my DNS records to Porkbun and switched my nameservers to them. They had a little gear on the transfer page for entering the DNS. That was it from me: the rest was automatic.
Dreamhost was my first registrar and host. I like them and still have my hosting and one domain with them. They have in the past suggested support of free speech and privacy and even went above and beyond to support one political client. However, some things I dislike about them as a registrar:
- no partial whois privacy, only full privacy or none
- no MX DNS records for subdomains (unless you have managed hosting for those subdomains or go through support tickets)
- no CAA DNS records
- weirdness with NS records when trying to use both their DNS and a third party
- expensive .me domains, others getting more expensive
- limited number of years that can be registered at a time
- slowness to add new technical features
Porkbun seems to fix or be better on most or all of these points, and be more registrar focused in general.