# FreeDNS by afraid.org

19 Hacker News commenters recommended FreeDNS by afraid.org and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 20 years (5 owners).

**Verdict:** People recommend it for free DNS hosting that has run for about 25 years, with reliable backup nameservers and dynamic DNS. The web interface is dated and some features are harder to use than similar services.

## Why people recommend it

- Long-running, reliable, free DNS (6 comments): "The operators of this gratis, ~quarter-century-old service are doing just fine without bothering to please users like yourself." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50226240)) "their history is a better indicator of the future than just a bunch of feel-good words" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223017)) "I was using this in like middle school in 2006 or so to run my sites." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228034))
- Dynamic DNS and backup nameservers (3 comments): "I have a couple domains (notably BBS.io) with them for people to use as ddns sub domains." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223028)) "Their backup DNS service is great, so you can run your own DNS with just one server." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223030)) "I've been using them as a secondary and for dynamic dns since" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223020))
- Simple, robust, reliable service (2 comments): "The services are incredibly simple but finding a service that your server actually supports is a gamble." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229728)) "Branded nameservers are great, the web ui is janky and dated but seriously robust." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223953))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [DynIP dynamic DNS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dynip.md): 14 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://freedns.afraid.org/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "FreeDNS by afraid.org", https://hackerapproved.com/p/freedns/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).