Experience Review: ClouDNS Paid DNS Service
In the article Foreign Free Domain DNS Resolution Services, several foreign free domain resolution services were introduced. Those interested can take a look. Recently, while xiaoz was constantly trying various DNS services, ClouDNS was accidentally discovered.
ClouDNS was established in 2010 and is based in Bulgaria. They offer free DNS hosting services, but the free tier only supports three domains and has basic functionality, so there is not much to introduce. This article mainly focuses on their paid DNS services. The lowest plan costs only $2/month and offers powerful features, making it very suitable for individual users.
Plan Comparison
Getting Started
Registration Address: https://asia.cloudns.net (Includes Affiliate)
ClouDNS supports a Chinese interface; simply switch to "Chinese Simplified" in the top right corner. It is likely machine translation, as many pages remain in English. Even the paid plans support a 30-day free trial. After registration, you can access https://asia.cloudns.net/premium/#trial-52 to experience it.
Anycast DNS
ClouDNS paid plans support Anycast technology. Anycast DNS is a network addressing and routing method where datagrams from a single sender are routed to the topologically nearest node among a group of potential receivers. Simply put, if your hostname contains multiple resolution IPs, Anycast DNS will assign the nearest IP based on the visitor's network conditions.
DDNS Dynamic Resolution
ClouDNS provides a very user-friendly DDNS dynamic resolution service. You can enable it with a single click in the backend, and it generates various scripts for you. Simply access the provided API address or add the address to a cron job to achieve dynamic resolution. It is incredibly simple.
URL Forwarding
Using ClouDNS's URL forwarding service, you can set up 301 or 302 redirects to automatically jump to the target address. While many domestic DNS providers require a Beian (ICP filing) to use this service, ClouDNS allows you to set it up directly in the backend.
HTTP API
If you are a developer, you will surely want to tinker with things. ClouDNS provides an HTTP API service with very detailed documentation, allowing you to implement more ideas based on your needs, such as backup IPs and failover switching.
Others
ClouDNS supports multiple record types, including SOA settings, and some records I have seen and some I haven't. Please refer to the screenshot below for details.
Summary
Although ClouDNS is feature-rich, there are some minor shortcomings, such as the inability to pause resolution, no support for backup IPs, and no failover switching unless developed via API. A few months ago, ClouDNS DNS servers seemed to suffer a large-scale DDoS attack, so stability needs further observation. Since the paid plan offers a one-month trial, why not try it first?
ClouDNS Registration Address: https://asia.cloudns.net (Includes Affiliate)