What we manage and what your registrar manages

There are two separate relationships in play, and confusing them is the single most common source of frustration when a site does not come up.

Your registrar

Your registrar is whoever you bought the domain from. They handle:

• Ownership of the domain. Your name is on it, with them.
• Renewal. If you do not pay them, you lose the domain, no matter how well your hosting is paid up. Turn on auto-renew.
• The nameserver setting. Even if we manage your DNS, the instruction that says "ask 8Deploy for this domain's records" is set at your registrar.
• Transfers. Moving the domain to another registrar.
• Domain privacy and contact details.

We do not sell domains and we do not control your registrar account.

What 8Deploy manages

• Your website and apps, and the servers they run on
• Your TLS certificates, issued and renewed automatically at no charge
• Your DNS records, but only if you have delegated your nameservers to us
• Your email on your domain, if you create mailboxes with us, including DKIM, SPF and DMARC
• Your databases, backups, caching and the CDN

The practical consequences

• Your site is down and your domain has expired. That is a registrar problem. We cannot fix it. Renew the domain.
• You changed nameservers to us and your email stopped. Your MX records did not come across. Add them in our panel and email resumes.
• You want to move to another host one day. You change the DNS. Your domain is yours, it always was, and nothing about it is locked to us.

Which should I use, your DNS or theirs?

Either works. Delegating DNS to us means we keep your web records correct automatically and email authentication is set up for you. Keeping DNS at your registrar means less to change, and it is the safer route if your email is with a third party you do not want to disturb. Both are fully supported.