Freenom is a public and anonymous free DNS (Domain Name Service) resolver, but it’s best known for providing free domain names. Domain names usually cost money, but Freenom used to offer free options for those who didn’t want to pay.
Unfortunately, Freenom’s domain name registration service is currently halted. It was sued by Meta (Facebook) due to allegedly ignoring abuse complaints about phishing attacks performed by Freenom users against Facebook, Instagram, and other sites.
According to Krebs on Security, Freenom stopped providing domain registrations for that reason.
Also, due to the cybercrime concerns, Freenom stopped registering .ml and .ga domains, with Mali terminating its contract with Freenom and the .ga domain name registration rights being given back to the Gabonese government, according to Netcraft.
Freenom only offered five free ccTLD (Country-code Top Level Domain) extensions: .ml (Mali), .ga (Gabon), .gq (Equatorial Guinea), .cf (Central African Republic), and .tk (Tokelau, New Zealand. Located in the South Pacific).
Fortunately, there are other alternatives to Freenom that provide free domain names. Today, we will be taking a look at them.
The short version: IONOS, GoogieHost, Hostinger, EU.org, and Dot.tk all provide free domain names, some with and some without requiring you to buy a hosting plan.
Read on for the full list!
15 Best Freenom Alternatives
1. IONOS
IONOS is a web hosting provider that offers lifetime free domains. Unlike Freenom domains, you are not limited to weird country code TLDs (Top Level Domains) but can rather snatch up popular TLDs like .com, .net, .org, .biz, and others.
However, you must sign up for a hosting plan to be eligible for the free domain name registration. Also, the length of the free domain name registration depends on the plan.
For example, if you get the Business Email plan, you get a free domain for the lifetime of your contract. As long as you renew the Business Email plan, you can keep your free domain.
Meanwhile, if you purchase the web hosting plan, you also get a free domain name for a year. After that, you will have to pay to renew the domain.
You will need hosting for your domain anyway, and free hosting can be a hit-and-miss. So, if you might end up paying for premium hosting anyway, why not get it from a company like IONOS that will give you a free domain name (and domain name privacy) with it?
I recommend the .com or .org domains, as they are the most authoritative. However, other free TLDs and ccTLDs from IONOS include .info, .us (USA), .ca (Canada), and .me.
2. Hostinger
Hostinger is another web hosting provider that provides free domains upon signing up for a web hosting plan. The free domain lasts for one year, after which you will need to pay to renew it.
It also comes with a free business email as well, which is a nice plus.
Also, Hostinger provides a free SSL certificate as well – unlimited – for all the websites you host with Hostinger.
Not only that, but you can host up to 100 websites on both the Premium and Business hosting plans, and you can get free SSL certificates for all of them.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is a domain hosting provider and website building service. It’s popular among small business owners who want to create a simple and easy website, as it provides everything you need in one place.
Its drag and drop website building system, which comes with various templates to choose from, makes building a website incredibly straightforward.
Not everyone knows this, but if you sign up for an annual plan with Squarespace, you get a free domain for a year. Even if you purchased this domain during your free trial, you can receive credit for it once you upgrade to an annual plan after the trial.
It is possible to switch to monthly billing during your first year without losing access to your free domain.
You can read more details about Squarespace’s offer here.
4. GoogieHost
GoogieHost is an excellent alternative to Freenom. Not only does it offer a free domain name with no expiration date – you get lifetime access – but it also has a free hosting plan!
And, unlike many other free hosting service providers, it doesn’t restrict you. It won’t display ads on your site, and it will give you access to all kinds of cool hosting features, for free.
Most other free hosting providers will make money by selling things like SSL certificates at a premium cost, for example, or giving you very limited bandwidth. Others will also display ads on your site to earn revenue.
GoogieHost’s free hosting plan, however, gives you access to 100 GB of bandwidth, 1,000 MB of SSD storage allocation, Cloudflare protection, a business email address, and a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.
It won’t display any ads, and it comes with a control panel and a WordPress Manager for managing your sites.
GoogieHost also has a drag and drop website building tool, making it easy for beginners to build websites.
Now, on to the free domain: The free domain is for life. You won’t need to pay for it down the road.
Best of all, you don’t need to enter your credit card information to get the free domain or the free web hosting.
Of course, GoogieHost has premium hosting plans as well – how else would it make money? You can upgrade if you need to, but it is not required if you have more limited storage and bandwidth requirements.
5. OVHcloud
OVHCloud is a hosting service that provides free domains for up to one year when you sign up for a web hosting plan. There are 27 TLDs to choose from for this free domain offer, a lot more than what Freenom used to provide.
Those TLDs include popular ones like .com, .org, .shop, .me, .eu, and .xyz (which is becoming a lot more popular these days, it seems).
It also comes with a business email account with 5 GB of storage.
After one year, you will need to renew your domain name, which is when the specific TLD you got will come into play. Popular TLDs like .com and .org will be more expensive, while less popular ones like .tech or .xyz will be cheaper (generally).
6. Web.com
Web.com offers a free domain name for one year. In fact, you can get two free domain names for one year per account, unlike many other providers of free domain names, which limit you to one free domain per account.
The domain is only free for one year, and you must renew it afterward. Also, only certain TLDs are available – .com, .info, .biz, .org, and .net, but these are certainly better than Freenom’s .ml and other domains like .ga, which are often seen as untrustworthy.
Other than the free domain, Web.com offers various web hosting and website building services.
It’s popular for its website building tool, which offers drag and drop to make things easy for beginners. It even comes with an integrated AI writer to help you generate content for your new website.
If that is still too much work for you, the team at Web.com will create a website tailored to your needs at a very affordable price.
7. Dot.tk
Dot.tk is a website and domain name registrar that offers free domains to anyone who wants one.
Remember how I said that Freenom used to offer .tk domains in partnership with the government of Tokelau? I also mentioned how the governments of Mali and Gabon moved away from Freenom; so did the government of Tokelau.
Dot.tk is a joint partnership of the government of Tokelau, Teletok (Tokelau’s communications company), and BV Dot TK (a private company).
So, you can still get .tk domains, just not from Freenom. Instead, you can get them from Dot.tk.
The government of Tokelau allows anyone to register a domain, but, of course, there are content restrictions banning illegal content.
There is also a service called Tikinet, which connects different Dot.tk websites through automatic linking. For example, if you have a site that talks about travel, a link with a short description of your site will be placed on other Dot.tk sites that discuss that topic.
You can always remove these “Tikilinks,” as they are called, and opt out of Tikinet.
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8. AwardSpace
AwardSpace is a web hosting provider that offers free domains and free hosting.
You have two options. If you opt for the free hosting, you are eligible for a free subdomain. A free subdomain looks like this: freesubdomain.maindomain.com.
For example, you may have seen WordPress blogs with a URL going something like this: thisblog.WordPress.com. In that instance, WordPress is the domain, and “thisblog” is the subdomain.
A free subdomain does look less authoritative than a paid domain, but it’s free. You will get not only the free subdomain but hosting as well, which you would not have gotten from if you were to use Freenom.
Also, when you get a free subdomain and free hosting with AwardSpace, there will be no ads on your site.
If you get premium hosting, though, instead of the free hosting plan, you are eligible for a free TLD. Unlike many other hosting providers, which require you to renew your domain after one year at a cost, AwardSpace gives you a free domain for life.
Depending on the plan you sign up for, you can even get two free domains for life. They include TLDs like .com.
AwardSpace has a website builder called Zacky which makes it easy to build websites, even with no experience. Also, the Zacky App Installer lets you quickly install apps and software like WordPress or Joomla, if you wish to use one of those content management systems.
Domain privacy protection is another service that AwardSpace offers to people who register a domain with the company. This protects your registration details, so people can’t just look up your name, address, and other personal details using your domain name.
9. Biz.nf
Biz.nf is a site that offers free domains and free web hosting, making it a great alternative to Freenom. It’s actually a subdomain on a c1.biz extension.
In other words, your domain will look something like this: yourdomain.c1.biz.
However, you will get three of these subdomains if you sign up for free web hosting. If you sign up for a premium plan, you get more – up to 50.
If you go for an unlimited hosting plan, though, you also get a free TLD, such as a .com, .org, .info, .eu, .co.uk, or another top level domain. This offer is valid for one year; you will need to renew it afterward at a price, but you can still keep your c1.biz subdomains for free.
With your free subdomain, you also qualify for free web hosting. This includes 1,000 MB of free web storage, 5,000 MB of data transfer, a webmail address, a control panel, and a free website builder that you can use to create your site.
Best of all, the free sites are ad-free! You won’t be forced to display ads on your free site.
For unlimited web storage and data transfer, you will need to upgrade to one of the premium plans, but they are pretty affordable.
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10. Namecheap for Education
If you are a student, you are eligible for a free domain from Namecheap. Namecheap offers students starter bundles to create an online presence at no cost.
Available TLDs for this offer include .com, .me, .website, .tech, and .io.
In addition to the free domain, you can grab one of the free offers that come with it. That could be Logo Maker to create a professional logo, a tool that helps you create student business cards, or a GitHub online presence.
This offer is only valid for university students. Unlike other popular web hosting providers, Namecheap doesn’t offer a free domain name with web hosting, probably because its web hosting plans are so cheap in the first place.
11. EU.org
EU.org provides free domains to nonprofits and individuals who can’t afford to pay for domain names.
You must submit a request to get approved for a free domain, though.
Priority is given to nonprofit organizations and not-for-profit individuals. However, small commercial businesses may also submit a request, although they are strongly recommended to do so only as a last resort.
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12. Freesubdomains.org
Freesubdomains.org is a site that provides free subdomains, mainly targeted towards developers.
You can get subdomains on domains like is-a-backend.dev or is-a-frontend.dev, with .dev being the TLD in this case.
Your website’s URL will then look something like this: yourdomain.is-a-backend.dev.
It is best used for open-source projects.
A similar site is open-domains.net, where you can also find free subdomains suitable for developers. Again, these subdomains come on a website with a .dev extension, such as is-cool.dev.
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13. thedev.id
Another excellent source of free subdomains for developers is thedev.id. You can get a free subdomain on this domain; the TLD in this case is .id.
For example, your domain might look like this: yourprojectname.thedev.id.
It’s not entirely clear at first how to get the domain on the website. You will need to head to the GitHub repository, which is linked there, and follow the steps to get your subdomain.
14. GoDaddy
GoDaddy offers a free domain name with a WordPress or web hosting plan.
WordPress plans are best if you want to create a WordPress website with minimal hassle and without worrying about software updates or installing a CMS (Content Management System), while web hosting plans are best if you have more technical knowledge and want more control over your website.
You must sign up for an annual plan, not a monthly plan, to be eligible. The offer is also only valid for the first purchase term; you will have to pay for the domain renewal later.
Another way to get a free domain is to use the done-for-you plan. If you pay GoDaddy to design and create a WordPress website custom-made for you, you will also get a free domain.
Either way, you get a free domain name with a TLD like .com, .co, .org, .net, or .today. Many others are available as well.
15. JS.org
Last on our list is JS.org, which is a website that offers free webspaces to JavaScript developers who have a GitHub page but want a more clean and professional looking URL.
If you already have a GitHub page, it’s perfect for you. You will get a subdomain on the JS.org domain, so your website will look like this: yourproject.js.org.
JS stands for JavaScript. To be eligible for this free subdomain, you must have a GitHub page with content that is related to JavaScript.
Conclusion
While Freenom is no longer available as of this publication, there are many awesome alternatives.
Most free domain offers require you to purchase a hosting plan as well, but there are those that don’t, such as GoogieHost, EU.org, and Dot.tk.
If you are okay with getting a subdomain instead of a domain, there are plenty of additional options for you, such as JS.org.
I also covered a few free web hosting options, because what’s the point of having a domain name if you can’t host it.
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