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The Four Major Pieces of Website HostingUpdated a year ago

You can view all of the categories below for your website using our DNS Detangler tool


Domain Registrar - the place you buy (rent, actually) your domain. 

  • Cost: Typically on the order of $10 - $20 per year


DNS Host - the place where your DNS records live. 

  • Typically free if you know what you are doing
  • Usually the same as your Domain Registrar unless you choose to decouple them
  • Your DNS Host is determined by the Nameserver entries that are controlled at your Domain Registrar
  • Hard to beat Cloudflare here since they offer a free DNS tier that includes 


Website Host - where your website lives. 

  • Typically $5/mo for VPS Wordpress hosting up to $20/mo for something like Squarespace
  • Your Website Host(s) are controlled via ARecord and/or CNAME records at your DNS Host


Mail Host - where your email gets delivered. 

  • Typically ~$5+ per mailbox per month somewhere like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 but you can it for $0 if you host your own mail server on your website VPS.
  • Your Email Host is controlled via MX records at your DNS Host



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