Custom Domains

Notes on purchasing custom domains.

Buying a new domain

Cloudflare Registrar supports registering domains on many top level domains. For TLDs not supported by Cloudflare, I recommend using https://porkbun.com/ to purchase a new domain.

Many registrars have low initial prices but high renewal prices.

In general, I recommend buying a .com, .net, .info, or .org domain. The renewal costs for these are only $8-11 per year.
Furthermore, you'll be able to transfer these to Cloudflare Registrar after 60 days where you'll enjoy even cheaper renewals.

If you just need a custom domain for an API, you can look into 6-9 digit .xyz domains. These domains renew for only $0.99 per year and are targeted towards IOT devices.

Setup

I recommend using Cloudflare to manage your DNS. They have a very useful free tier and offer DDOS protection if you proxy through them.

Records

A

A records point to an IP.

CNAME

CNAME records point to an IP of another domain.

MX

MX records are for handing email.

TXT

TXT records are typically used for domain verification.