Can I Use Cloudflare As A Domain Registrar And Still Use 3rd Party Nameservers?
Yes, you can!
Registering domains with Cloudflare offers an inexpensive way to manage your domains. Additionally, it comes with added features that we all know and love. However, using 3rd party nameservers in Cloudflare is a hidden feature.
I was a die-hard Google Domains user. I loved using Google Domains. Their interface was simple and easy to use. Managing all my domains was a breeze and domain registrations were inexpensive. It was a great solution! However, when Google decided to move everything to Squarespace, I was unhappy. After the first year, the price almost doubles, and with well over 100 domains, that gets expensive.
The Problem:
I manage domains and websites for a few local organizations. One of which is a sports team that uses a platform where the domain needs to point to that platform’s DNS servers.
When I discovered that Cloudflare offers a similar cost model to Google Domains, I started moving everything over. I spent a night moving this sports team’s domains to Cloudflare to minimize impact. Once the transfer was finished, I searched the internet on “How to setup custom nameservers in Cloudflare”.
“Oh Sh!t”
As you may have guessed, the results I got back were setting up custom nameservers, aka “Vanity Servers”, i.e., ns1.<yourdomain>.com, which required a business account and $2400.
That is not what I needed. I needed to point the domain to the third party.
How the h3!! was I to do that!
The Challenge:
The challenge became how to point this sports team’s domains to the third party. I’d already transferred the domains to Cloudflare. I can’t transfer them back. In my neck of the woods, I was up sh!t crick without a paddle.
There has to be a way!
So, I started poking around.
In Cloudflare, I opened the management page for the domain.
I then clicked on the “manage” link to the right of the domain.
On the domain management page, click on “Update DNS configuration.”
There are likely multiple ways to get to the DNS Records page, but this was the path I took.
Once on the DNS records page, I started poking around and noticed something. One of the records is an NS record. Let’s add it!
Click “Add Record.”
Save it :)
Voila!
After saving everything, I verified the servers again.
Need to check it.
Bring up DNSChecker:
Checked DNSDumpster:
Watch propagation.
I disabled the proxy status because I wanted to make sure things would function first before testing that aspect.
Since I turned off the proxy, it was hitting the A record like it should; however, the site still did not come up.
However, after about an hour, the site was back up and functional!
Huzzah!
Crisis Averted!
Can you use Cloudflare as a registrar and point to a third-party nameserver? Yes, yes, you can :D
