Hurricane Electric DNS

Domains 7.1/10

Free authoritative DNS hosting on Hurricane Electric's global anycast nameservers, with dynamic DNS, secondary/slave zones, and full IPv4/IPv6 support.

Hurricane Electric DNS scores 7.1/10 for free value in Domains. The main constraint: Free for up to 50 zones (domains) per account, each holding up to 10,000 records, with no paid tier or credit card required.

Category Domains Kind Authoritative DNS hosting Caveats No DNSSEC support, no domain registration (bring your own domain), DDNS updates capped at roughly one per 5 minutes (an "abuse" response is returned for faster updates) with DDNS TTL fixed at 300s, and management is via an old-fashioned web UI with no full public management API (only a DDNS/Let's Encrypt update endpoint). Nameservers stop answering for a zone if its NS records don't point to HE, complicating migrations. Card required No Eligibility anyone

Free value score

7.1 / 10

Show the math

Overall 7.1/10

value = 7.1/100

weighted_components_v1

Name/DNS value 7.2/10

value = 13 $/yr

fixed_log_v1

API/DDNS fit 6/10

value = 6/100

policy_score_v1

Trust and friction 8.3/10

value = 8.3/100

policy_score_v1

Key metrics

50 Free domains

10K DNS records

5 min DDNS refresh

Yes Ad-free

What you get

Up to 50 zones with 10,000 records each, free with no paid upsell and no credit card

Broad record support: A, AAAA, ALIAS, CNAME, CAA, MX, NS, TXT, SRV, SSHFP, SPF, RP, NAPTR, HINFO, LOC, PTR

Dynamic DNS over the dyndns protocol, including dynamic TXT records for Let's Encrypt DNS-01 challenges

Secondary/slave zones, IPv4 and IPv6 reverse zones, and geographically diverse anycast nameservers

Limitations

50 zones per account

The free service is limited to 50 zones (domains) per account.
10,000 records per zone

Each zone is capped at 10,000 records; zones exceeding this may be purged.
DDNS update interval

Hurricane Electric recommends DDNS updates no more often than every 5 minutes; updating too frequently returns an 'abuse' response code.
No DNSSEC

DNSSEC is not supported (listed as 'exploring' since 2020 and still unavailable).
No domain registration

Hurricane Electric does not register domains; you must bring your own domain registered with a third-party registrar.
DDNS-only / limited API

There is no full public management API; only a DDNS/Let's Encrypt update endpoint (dyn.dns.he.net) is offered, and DDNS records must be created in the web UI first. DDNS TTL is fixed at 300s.
Slave zones require IPv4 AXFR

Secondary/slave service requires the origin nameserver to allow zone transfers (AXFR) over IPv4.

Sources

"The only hint at size restrictions listed on dns.he.net is that "zones over 10000 records will be purged.""
https://forums.he.net/index.php?topic=1214.15
"Currently, the free service is limited to 50 zones, but this is fine for my use."
https://lowendspirit.com/discussion/1975/hurricane-electric-free-dns
"this response code is triggered whenever an update request is sent for a dynamic record more than 5 times in 5 minutes"
https://github.com/go-acme/lego/issues/1415
"he.net's DNS service has support to function as a secondary DNSSEC DNS server. It cannot act as a primary DNSSEC DNS server"
https://forums.he.net/index.php?topic=1214.15

dns authoritative-dns ddns dynamic-dns anycast ipv6 lets-encrypt free

Open service Source ← All Domains