Domain names seem expensive in comparison. The cheaper VPS that I use for playing around is just $10.29/year.
I thought I’d get a domain name from RackNerd as well, but they’re $24.95/year + I think $4.99 for privacy.

I’ve checked Namecheap, and that seemed great, until I found that renewal prices are often through the roof.

I don’t really care about it being nice. For now, mostly I just want to use the VPS as image host for Lemmy, since Imgur and Catbox are both a bit problematic.
And without a domain name, the images only show as link posts in the default LemmyUI (though it seems to work elsewhere). Plus it makes migration impossible.

    • paris@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      +1 for Porkbun. They even offer $2/yr <6–9 digit>.xyz domains if you just want a domain for basically free and don’t care about having a nice and pretty one. 01384629.xyz or whatever for $2/yr to give their service a try is well worth it imo. I have one of these as well as a “real” domain I like that’s like $20 or $25/yr. I have no complaints with Porkbun.