Evaluate moving OSMF domains away from Gandi registrar

[Firefishy]

Gandi's domain renewal costs have moved way out of line of market norm.

It is worth evaluating the effort, practicality and costs of moving the domains to another registrar.

List of domains:

freeosm.org
freethepostcode.org
ideditor.com
open-maps.com
open-maps.org
opengeodata.org
openmaps.org
openstreetmap.ai
openstreetmap.am
openstreetmap.co.uk
openstreetmap.com
openstreetmap.cymru
openstreetmap.fi
openstreetmap.gay
openstreetmap.gr
openstreetmap.io
openstreetmap.li
openstreetmap.lu
openstreetmap.me
openstreetmap.mg
openstreetmap.mx
openstreetmap.net
openstreetmap.nz
openstreetmap.org
openstreetmap.org.nz
openstreetmap.pe
openstreetmap.ph
openstreetmap.pro
openstreetmap.se
openstreetmap.sg
openstreetmap.town
openstreetmap.tv
openstreetmap.uk
openstreetmap.wales
openstreetmapdata.org
openstreetmaps.org
openworldmap.org
osm.io
osm.li
osm.lu
osm.org
osm.wiki
osm2pgsql.com
osm2pgsql.org
osmbugs.org
osmfoundation.org
sotm.org
stateofthemap.com
stateofthemap.org
switch2osm.com
switch2osm.org

[Firefishy]

I just renewed a .com for myself using Gandi for £38.38! Madness.

[tomhughes]

That is totally insane... It's over 3 times what the registrar I use charges, and over 4.5 times what porkbun seems to be charging.

I don't know if they support all our domains but Cloudflare claim to register at cost with no markup.

[Firefishy]

I am thinking of OVHcloud, but need to confirm their support TLDs. https://tld-list.com/registrars/ovh/tlds

[matkoniecz]

I don't know if they support all our domains but Cloudflare claim to register at cost with no markup.

That would that make Cloudflare even larger single-point-of failure, right?

It's over 3 times what the registrar I use charges

basically the same for mine, though "over" is a single cent here (namesilo)

[markwoodbury]

Looking at the domains listed and the vendors already mentioned plus one I use (which is relevant to the later point(s)), here is what I can see from public pricing and information (note: converted from vendor currency to GBP based on current public rates where required):

Supported domains by vendor

Quantity	Domain	Gandi	OVH	Cloudflare	Porkbun	Namesilo	INWX
1	ai	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	am	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
6	com	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	cymru	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
1	fi	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
1	gay	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	gr	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
2	io	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2	li	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
2	lu	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
1	me	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	mg	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
1	mx	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	net	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2	nz	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
16	org	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	pe	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
1	ph	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	pro	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	se	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
1	sg	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
1	town	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	tv	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2	uk	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1	wales	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
1	wiki	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Total cost per vendor for all supported domains

--	Gandi	OVH	Cloudflare	Porkbun	Namesilo	INWX
Total	£1,952.60	£1,048.20	£444.22	£576.84	£644.33	£1,231.22
Supported	51	46	36	41	37	51

As shown above, of the previously mentioned registrars, only Gandi includes support for the full list, hence I've also included INWX who I've used before (German/Swiss? based) to add in a number for comparison.

If you look at spreading domains across those vendors to find the cheapest price for each TLD, you end up with:

Quantity	Domain	Cheapest	Vendor
1	ai	£59.15	Cloudflare
1	am	£32.21	Porkbun
6	com	£46.41	Cloudflare
1	cymru	£7.83	Porkbun
1	fi	£11.99	OVH
1	gay	£23.23	Porkbun
1	gr	£11.11	INWX
2	io	£73.94	Cloudflare
2	li	£11.04	OVH
2	lu	£35.58	OVH
1	me	£12.24	Cloudflare
1	mg	£111.77	INWX
1	mx	£22.70	Cloudflare
1	net	£8.76	Namesilo
2	nz	£22.15	Porkbun
16	org	£119.85	Cloudflare
1	pe	£28.84	INWX
1	ph	£33.27	Porkbun
1	pro	£15.97	Cloudflare
1	se	£14.59	OVH
1	sg	£48.37	INWX
1	town	£20.85	Cloudflare
1	tv	£18.49	Cloudflare
2	uk	£7.84	Cloudflare
1	wales	£7.83	Porkbun
1	wiki	£14.94	Cloudflare
51	Total	£820.94	Cloudflare

Which becomes:

	Domain count	Total
Gandi	0	£0.00
OVH	6	£73.20
Cloudflare	33	£412.38
Porkbun	7	£126.52
Namesilo	1	£8.76
INWX	4	£200.08
Total	51	£820.94

Namesilo is one penny cheaper than Cloudflare on NET domains, so that could shift to Cloudflare to remove a vendor. Two of the four INWX domains are only supported by them or Gandi and the other two are only supported by Gandi, INWX and OVH.

Varying combination options are available depending on how many/which vendors you're willing to support.

As an aside - Cloudflare domain registration requires Cloudflare nameservers/DNS to be used. I believe this is the case now, but perhaps to consider.

Spreadsheet is available to share, but I believe Cloudflare pricing is only available with logins due to "something something agreements around cost visibility with the registries or similar" (my made up quote with handwaving as I can't remember/find the documented reason right now) so I'm not going to upload it here in case.

Also some of the tax/VAT information for the above isn't overly obvious. Gandi, OVH and INWX do publish pricing without VAT/tax - it's assumed the others do include it and that the foundation can claim VAT exemptions/claim back later, but for ease, going with what I can see now.

Apologies if I've made mistakes...

[pnorman]

Do we still have a domain that's on a TLD we can't register with Gandi?