Gandi

Gandi — European registrar with huge TLD breadth and post-2023 premium pricing. Gandi sells more TLDs than almost anyone and offers genuine registry lock on the extensions that support it, plus a mature API and a long-standing no-nonsense brand. That brand took real damage in 2023 when new ownership repriced the catalogue upward and removed the free mailbox bundled for two decades. It is now a specialist choice for coverage and control rather than a value one. Built by Total Webhosting Solutions. Founded 1999.

We track it in 2 comparisons — Domain registrars and Domain APIs — so every claim below is a cell in a table you can open and check rather than an impression. Across those rosters it sits against 21 other tools, and what follows is where it visibly separates from them.

Where it wins.

• Domain registrars — DNS hosting — anycast-global, tied for best across 2 of 15 tools.
• Domain registrars — TLDs offered — 750 TLDs, 2nd of 14.
• Domain registrars — Registry lock — Partial, which only 3 of 15 tools here manage.
• Domain APIs — API auth — bearer-token, tied for best across 2 of 15 tools.
• Domain APIs — Privacy via API — free-and-default, tied for best across 5 of 15 tools.

Each of those is ranked against the whole roster on its category page, not against a hand-picked subset, so a first place here means first of everything we list.

Where it gives ground.

• Domain registrars — .com renewal — $24 /yr, 14th of 15. Synergy Wholesale records $10.5 /yr.
• Domain registrars — Support quality — 2, 12th of 15. Porkbun records 5.
• Domain registrars — .com first year — $24 /yr, the weakest of the 15 here. Crazy Domains records $3.5 /yr.
• Domain registrars — Ownership — pe-owned, 12th of 14. Namecheap records independent.

None of these disqualify it on their own. They are the fields to check against your own requirements before you commit, because they are the ones where a competitor genuinely does better.

Provenance. 48 of 51 tracked fields carry a value for Gandi, and 9 of those cite a document you can open. Last verified 2026-07-23. Every figure keeps its own provenance — measured by us, claimed by the vendor, inferred, or community-reported — and we would rather print a dash than a guess.

Its nearest neighbour in our data is Dynadot. Gandi is ahead on Sandbox / OTE (Yes against No) and Registry lock (Partial against No). Dynadot takes .com renewal ($13.99 /yr against $24 /yr) and Ownership (independent against pe-owned). That pattern repeats across the rest of the roster — see Gandi alternatives for the other rivals, each compared the same way.

Company

Total Webhosting Solutions

Founded

1999

Fields we track

48 of 51

Last verified

2026-07-23

Still the right answer for obscure TLDs and for genuine registry lock, but the 2023 repricing and mailbox withdrawal ended its run as the ethical-value pick. Roughly double Porkbun for the same .com.

.com renewal

$24 /yr14th of 15

Inferred

Support quality

212th of 15

Community-reported

DNS hosting

anycast-global1st of 15

Vendor-claimedverified 2026-06-30source

.com first year

$24 /yr15th of 15

Inferred

Ownership

pe-owned12th of 14

Inferred

Domains managed

2.4 M3rd of 3

Inferred

TLDs offered

750 TLDs2nd of 14

Inferred

Upsell aggression

27th of 15

Inferred

The nicest REST surface of the European registrars — scoped tokens, a real sandbox, LiveDNS, separable renewal pricing. The 2023 price rises under new ownership put .com renewals near the top of this table, which undoes a lot of that goodwill at volume.

API auth

bearer-token1st of 15

Vendor-claimedverified 2026-07-23source

Privacy via API

free-and-default1st of 15

Inferred

Spend to first call

$0 up front1st of 14

Vendor-claimedverified 2026-07-23source

Register endpoint

●Yes1st of 14

Inferred

.com renewal

$24 /yr15th of 15

Inferred

Sandbox / OTE

●Yes1st of 14

Vendor-claimedverified 2026-07-23source

Renewal price in API

●Yes1st of 14

Vendor-claimedverified 2026-07-23source

Reseller contract

○No6th of 15

Inferred

Gandi is the right call in these situations, each one drawn from a field we actually record:

• Domain registrars — TLDs nobody else sells.
• Domain registrars — You need registry lock without moving to a corporate registrar.
• Domain registrars — European billing, invoicing and data-residency preferences.
• Domain APIs — European teams wanting an EU-based registrar with a modern API.
• Domain APIs — Zone-heavy workloads that benefit from LiveDNS.
• Domain APIs — Small portfolios where per-name price is not the deciding factor.
• DNS hosting is your binding constraint. Gandi records anycast-global, the best figure in the Domain registrars roster. We define that field as quality of the free DNS bundled with the registration.
• TLDs offered is your binding constraint. Gandi records 750 TLDs, 2nd of 14 in the Domain registrars roster. We define that field as approximate number of top-level domains the registrar sells directly, from its public TLD price list.
• Registry lock is your binding constraint. Gandi records Partial, which only 3 of the 15 tools in the Domain registrars roster do.
• API auth is your binding constraint. Gandi records bearer-token, the best figure in the Domain APIs roster.

Reach for something else when any of the following is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have:

• .com renewal. Gandi records $24 /yr, 14th of 15 in the Domain registrars roster. Synergy Wholesale records $10.5 /yr on the same field. If that is a hard requirement rather than a preference, start elsewhere.
• Support quality. Gandi records 2, 12th of 15 in the Domain registrars roster. Porkbun records 5 on the same field. If that is a hard requirement rather than a preference, start elsewhere.
• .com first year. Gandi records $24 /yr, the weakest of the 15 tools in the Domain registrars roster. Crazy Domains records $3.5 /yr on the same field. If that is a hard requirement rather than a preference, start elsewhere.
• Ownership. Gandi records pe-owned, 12th of 14 in the Domain registrars roster. Namecheap records independent on the same field. If that is a hard requirement rather than a preference, start elsewhere.
• Domains managed. Gandi records 2.4 M, the weakest of the 3 tools in the Domain registrars roster. GoDaddy records 84 M on the same field. If that is a hard requirement rather than a preference, start elsewhere.

We publish this block because a comparison that only lists what a tool is good at is marketing. Every figure above sits on the same page as its source, and the field definitions are on the category tables if you want to check how we measured them.

What we don't know. 3 of the 51 fields we track for Gandi are still blank: .com.au renewal, .au accredited and Rate limit. Those render as dashes rather than as zeroes or assumptions, because an empty cell and a bad cell are not the same thing and only one of them is honest. If you know any of these figures and can point at a document, tell us.