European Alternatives to Amazon Route 53
Looking for a European alternative to Amazon Route 53? Amazon Route 53 is the DNS, domain registration and health-checking service of Amazon Web Services. Its pricing page lists $0.50 per hosted zone per month for the first 25 zones and $0.40 per million standard queries, with latency-based queries at $0.60 and geolocation queries at $0.70 per million.
The European Managed DNS tools below publish plans in euros or kronor, several include DNS free with an account or a domain, and Gcore, bunny.net and ClouDNS add GeoDNS, failover or load balancing on fixed plans or free tiers.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
-
1
European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA, the UK, Switzerland or Israel, and processes customer data in Europe or Israel. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
-
2
Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
-
3
Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
-
4
Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Vendors can pay for more visibility, higher up on the review pages; it never affects which tools are listed. Editorial policy
12 European Alternatives to Amazon Route 53
Gcore
Luxembourg anycast DNS with a free tier and GeoDNS
bunny.net
Ljubljana DNS with scriptable records and no query fees
ClouDNS
Sofia DNS host with free plan, Anycast tiers and GeoDNS
Hetzner
German host with free DNS zones and records via console
EuroDNS
Luxembourg registrar with Anycast DNS free on every domain
Glesys
Swedish cloud host with unlimited DNS zones in every account
WEDOS Zone
Luxembourg operator of managed Anycast DNS on 120+ PoPs
Gandi
French registrar with Anycast DNS and fast LiveDNS updates
hosting.de
Aachen provider selling zone-sized DNS plans with Anycast
Loopia
Swedish registrar DNS at 9.99 SEK a month, history restore
Domeneshop
Oslo registrar with free DNS for customer domains
TransIP
Leiden registrar with automatic DNSSEC on domains
Key takeaways
- Amazon Route 53 charges $0.50 per hosted zone per month for the first 25 zones and $0.10 for each additional zone, so 40 zones cost $14.00 a month before queries.
- Gcore from Luxembourg lists GeoDNS and health checks on its free tier, which covers part of what Amazon Route 53 routing policies do.
- bunny.net from Ljubljana lists free DNS for up to 500 zones and no per-query fees, with a $1 minimum account fee.
- EuroDNS, Gandi, Glesys and Domeneshop include DNS with a domain or an account, where Amazon Route 53 bills each zone separately.
- Amazon Route 53 remains the stronger fit for alias records that point at AWS load balancers, CloudFront and S3 website buckets, and no European tool on this page matches that.
Why people leave Amazon Route 53
Amazon Route 53 is the DNS, domain registration and health-checking service of Amazon Web Services, a United States company. Route 53 answers the lookups for a domain from AWS infrastructure and plugs into the rest of an AWS account. An alias record can point straight at a load balancer, a CloudFront distribution or an S3 website bucket, and AWS does not charge queries for alias records mapped to those services.
Outside that setup the price model feels different. Route 53 charges $0.50 a month for each of the first 25 hosted zones and $0.10 for each further zone, and it charges $0.40 per million standard queries for the first billion. A site with forty small domains pays the zone fee forty times, and a busy site pays for every lookup. Health checks, traffic policies and query logging add separate line items.
People who search for a European alternative usually raise two things. The first is the contracting party: the nameservers for a European company's domains are operated by an American provider. The second is bookkeeping, since a flat plan or a free zone at a registrar is easier to forecast than a bill assembled from zones, queries and health checks. Neither reason questions how Route 53 resolves names.
- Forty small domains cost $14.00 a month before a single query Route 53 bills $0.50 per hosted zone for the first 25 zones and $0.10 for each additional zone, and the fee is charged when the zone is created and on the first day of every month, without proration. A portfolio of 40 domains therefore costs $14.00 a month in zone fees alone. Hetzner, Glesys, EuroDNS, Gandi and Domeneshop list DNS as free with an account or a domain.
- Health checks are priced one by one Route 53 allows 50 free health checks for AWS endpoints in the same account. Outside that allowance a basic health check costs $0.50 a month for an AWS endpoint and $0.75 for a non-AWS endpoint, and options such as HTTPS or string matching cost $1.00 each. A failover setup for a non-AWS origin grows line by line, while ClouDNS and Gcore list failover on fixed plans.
- Traffic Flow adds $50.00 per policy record Route 53 Traffic Flow, the visual policy builder, costs $50.00 per policy record per month once a policy is attached to a domain name. Latency-based queries are priced at $0.60 per million and geolocation queries at $0.70. For a team that only wants regional answers, the GeoDNS plans from ClouDNS at $9.95 a month and the Gcore PRO plan at €2.49 a month are priced differently.
- Signed zones depend on an AWS key service Route 53 does not charge to switch on DNSSEC signing for a public hosted zone. The signing key lives in AWS Key Management Service, though, and AWS bills KMS for storing the key and for each use of it. EuroDNS auto-signs zones on every domain, hosting.de keeps DNSSEC keys on a signing server it runs, and TransIP applies DNSSEC to registered domains automatically.
What you have to replace, not just match
The first thing to replace is the alias record. A Route 53 alias record points a domain name, including the bare apex, at an AWS resource, and queries for aliases to services such as Elastic Load Balancers, CloudFront and S3 website endpoints cost nothing.
No European tool on this page publishes an equivalent for AWS resources. WEDOS Zone is the only one that names ANAME records, and everywhere else the alias becomes a plain A, AAAA or CNAME record that you maintain.
The second thing is the routing logic. Route 53 distinguishes weighted, latency-based, geolocation, geoproximity and IP-based routing, and it joins them to health checks for failover. Among the European tools, Gcore lists GeoDNS, health checks and failover logic, bunny.net lists load balancing with weights and geographic or latency-based routing, and ClouDNS lists GeoDNS and failover checks. Registrar-based services in the list usually stop at records and DNSSEC.
The third thing is everything that lives inside AWS. Route 53 also registers domains, runs a Resolver for lookups from inside a VPC and offers DNS Firewall to block known malicious names. Private hosted zones are not charged per query. None of the European tools reviewed here lists a private zone or a VPC resolver, so a workload that resolves internal names through Route 53 keeps that part of the service, and only the public zones move.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Gcore | Luxembourg | Free tier / paid from about €25/month | EU (Luxembourg) |
| #2 | bunny.net | Ljubljana, Slovenia | Pay-as-you-go from about €0.01/GB | EU (Slovenia) |
| #3 | ClouDNS | Sofia, Bulgaria | Free DNS: 1 zone, 50 records, 500K queries a month; Premium DNS from $2.95/month; DDoS Protected S $5.95/month, M $11.95/month, L $39.95/month; GeoDNS from $9.95/month | EU (Bulgaria) |
| #4 | Hetzner | Gunzenhausen, Germany | From about €4.51/month (Cloud VPS) | EU (Germany) |
| #5 | EuroDNS | Luxembourg, Luxembourg | Anycast DNS free with every domain; Premium Anycast DNS from EUR 2.69/month on yearly billing (EUR 32.29 a year) or EUR 2.99/month on monthly billing | EU (Luxembourg) |
| #6 | Glesys | not stated on the pages we read, Sweden | Domains and DNS is included free with an account; Glesys states all listed prices exclude VAT | EU (Sweden) |
| #7 | WEDOS Zone | Luxembourg, Luxembourg | not shown on the pages we read | EU (Luxembourg) |
| #8 | Gandi | Paris, France | From about €15.50 per year for .com | EU (France) |
| #9 | hosting.de | Aachen, Germany | Plan prices (DNS 10, DNS 100, DNS 1000) are not rendered on the page we read; hosting.de states its prices include German VAT of 19% | EU (Germany) |
| #10 | Loopia | Västerås, Sweden | LoopiaDNS 9.99 SEK/month excluding VAT (12.49 SEK including VAT); the free LoopiaDomain account parks domains at 0 SEK | EU (Sweden) |
| #11 | Domeneshop | Oslo, Norway | Sidebygger bundled with hosting from 39 NOK/month (Web Light); Sidebygger AI from 99 NOK/month (Web Pro) | EEA, not EU (Norway) |
| #12 | TransIP | Leiden, Netherlands | DNS price not shown on the pages we read; .nl domain EUR 0.49 for the first year then EUR 16.50 a year, prices excluding BTW | EU (Netherlands) |
How each alternative compares to Amazon Route 53
Best for: Teams that route traffic by region or health and want a free starting tier
Gcore S.A. in Luxembourg is the entry that covers the most Route 53 ground. Gcore lists GeoDNS, health checks and failover logic, and it names more than 210 Anycast DNS servers. Where Route 53 meters every health check and every routed query, Gcore lists a free tier with unlimited zones and a PRO plan at €2.49 a month.
The Gcore PRO plan includes 10 million requests, which a Route 53 customer would otherwise pay for per million. Gcore describes the switch as importing the records, checking them and then changing the nameservers at the registrar. Amazon Route 53 is still the better fit when the targets are AWS load balancers, because Gcore lists no alias records for AWS resources.
What Gcore does better than Amazon Route 53
- Health checks and GeoDNS sit on a free tier instead of metered line items
- A fixed €2.49 monthly plan against per-zone and per-query billing
- Contracting entity in Luxembourg instead of a US cloud vendor
Where Gcore is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No alias records for AWS load balancers, CloudFront or S3 listed
- No private hosted zones or VPC resolver listed
- The wider Gcore platform is larger than a DNS-only buyer needs
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Gcore is the one European tool here that lists GeoDNS and health checks on its free tier.
Best for: Developers with many domains who want free zones and programmable records
bunny.net, run by Bunny CDN d.o.o. in Ljubljana, takes the opposite approach to Route 53 on billing. The bunny.net DNS service lists free zones for up to 500 domains and no per-query fees, with a $1 minimum charge on the account. A portfolio that costs $14.00 a month in Route 53 zone fees at forty domains falls to the minimum.
bunny.net also lists scriptable DNS records, 36 or more Anycast points of presence, and load balancing with health checks, weights and geographic or latency-based routing. The routing set is smaller than Route 53 Traffic Flow, and bunny.net lists no AWS alias records. Teams with serious AWS dependencies keep Route 53 for those names only.
What bunny.net does better than Amazon Route 53
- Free DNS for up to 500 zones, where Route 53 charges every zone
- No per-query fees, so a traffic spike does not change the bill
- Records can be scripted at the edge instead of defined only in policies
- Slovenian contracting entity instead of a US cloud vendor
Where bunny.net is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- Fewer Anycast locations than the 210-plus Gcore lists
- No alias records to AWS services listed
Standout against Amazon Route 53. bunny.net is the only tool here that combines free zones for up to 500 domains with scriptable records.
Best for: Agencies that want predictable monthly plans with an upgrade path to GeoDNS
ClouDNS, operated by Cloud DNS Ltd in Sofia, sells DNS as fixed plans where Route 53 sells it as meters. ClouDNS Premium DNS starts at $2.95 a month, DDoS Protected DNS at $5.95, and GeoDNS at $9.95. Each plan states its zones, records and monthly queries up front, so the cost of a ClouDNS month is known before the month begins.
The ClouDNS free plan is small, with one zone and 50 records, so a real portfolio moves to a paid tier quickly. ClouDNS lists DNS failover checks, but the free plan includes none and paid tiers include between one and three. All ClouDNS prices are in dollars, which matters for a euro budget, and the pages we read do not say where data is stored.
What ClouDNS does better than Amazon Route 53
- Plan limits are fixed, so no per-query meter or per-zone line item
- GeoDNS and failover sold on a monthly plan from $9.95 and $2.95 upward
- Free migration of zones with no cap on the number of zones
- Bulgarian contracting entity inside the EU
Where ClouDNS is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- Prices are in dollars, not euros
- Only one to three failover checks on paid tiers
- Data location is not stated on the pages we read
Standout against Amazon Route 53. ClouDNS is the tool here whose free plan can be upgraded to GeoDNS and failover without leaving the vendor.
Best for: Hetzner customers who want zones and records at no extra cost
Hetzner Online GmbH in Gunzenhausen offers DNS as a free console inside its hosting account. Hetzner lists free zones and records, a console and a REST API, and a zone import that works by domain name. Hetzner runs its own data centres in Germany and Finland, and the company is a German GmbH.
The Hetzner DNS console is a plain record editor, not a routing platform. The pages we read list no health checks, GeoDNS or latency policies, and no alias record for AWS services is listed. Against Route 53 it is a cheaper place for ordinary zones, and a weaker one for dynamic traffic management or for estates that run on AWS.
What Hetzner does better than Amazon Route 53
- Zones and records are free, where Route 53 charges every hosted zone
- REST API and console come with a hosting account
- German company with servers in Germany and Finland
Where Hetzner is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No health checks or GeoDNS listed on the DNS console page
- No alias records or private zones listed for AWS
- No query volumes or service levels stated on the DNS console page
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Hetzner is the entry where DNS costs nothing extra for people who already rent its servers.
Best for: Domain owners at EuroDNS who want DNSSEC and Anycast without a separate contract
EuroDNS S.A., a Luxembourg registrar, attaches Anycast DNS to every domain it registers. EuroDNS lists 30 points of presence, four name servers, IPv4 and IPv6, DNSSEC auto-sign, zone transfer and zone versioning in the base service. For a domain that already lives at EuroDNS, the Route 53 hosted zone fee has no counterpart.
Premium Anycast DNS raises the network to 50 points of presence, two DNS providers and a 99.999% service level at €2.69 a month on yearly billing. EuroDNS lists no health checks, GeoDNS or routing policies. The EuroDNS privacy policy also names processors outside the EEA, including a newsletter provider in the United States, so check it against your own rules.
What EuroDNS does better than Amazon Route 53
- Anycast DNS is free with each domain, with DNSSEC auto-sign
- Premium plan priced in euros at €2.69 a month on yearly billing
- Zone transfer and zone versioning are listed
Where EuroDNS is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No health checks, GeoDNS or traffic routing listed
- Zone and record limits are not published on the pages we read
- Privacy policy lists some processors in the United States
Standout against Amazon Route 53. EuroDNS is the one registrar here whose paid tier adds a second DNS provider for redundancy.
Best for: Swedish and Nordic cloud customers who want API-driven DNS for many zones
Glesys AB is a Swedish infrastructure provider that includes a Domains and DNS service in every account. Glesys lists unlimited zones, a DNS editor, an API for automated workflows and a globally distributed nameserver network. Where Route 53 meters each hosted zone, Glesys publishes no DNS-specific price, and its listed prices exclude VAT.
Glesys says a customer can keep the registrar and switch only the nameservers. The DNS pages we read list no DNSSEC, health checks, GeoDNS or latency routing, so Glesys replaces plain Route 53 zones and nothing more advanced. Glesys names data centres in Falkenberg, Stockholm, Oulu, Pori and Tampere, plus partner sites in several European cities.
What Glesys does better than Amazon Route 53
- Unlimited zones with no per-zone fee, included in the account
- API and DNS editor for scripted record changes
- Swedish contract under Swedish law with arbitration in Stockholm
- Registrar can stay where it is
Where Glesys is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No DNSSEC or health checks listed
- Requires a Glesys account to use the DNS at all
- Headquarters city not shown on the pages we read
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Glesys is the tool here that states plainly you can keep your registrar and switch only the nameservers.
Best for: Hosting companies and enterprises that resell DNS or need ANAME records
WEDOS Zone is the DNS product of WEDOS Group SA, which gives a Luxembourg address and traces its origin to a Czech hosting business started in 2010. WEDOS Zone lists Anycast DNS on more than 120 points of presence, primary and secondary DNS, DNSSEC, GeoDNS, ANAME records and a full API. That list is the nearest to Route 53 on features among the registrar-like entries.
WEDOS says it owns its hardware and its anycast network and uses no third-party clouds, which we could not check against a company register. WEDOS shows no DNS prices on the pages we read, and the homepage addresses enterprises, telecoms and governments, so a quote comes first. Health checks and failover are not listed, which Route 53 handles.
What WEDOS Zone does better than Amazon Route 53
- ANAME records, the nearest thing to an alias record among these tools
- White-label nameservers and a reseller model for hosting companies
- Owns its own network and hardware, according to WEDOS
- Luxembourg contracting entity
Where WEDOS Zone is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No public DNS prices, so cost is unknown until you ask
- Health checks and failover are not listed
- Ownership claim cannot be verified from a register in our sources
Standout against Amazon Route 53. WEDOS Zone is the only tool here that names ANAME records and offers white-label nameservers together.
Best for: Domain owners who register at Gandi and want quick record changes and zone transfers
Gandi, a French registrar based in Paris, includes LiveDNS with the domains it registers. Gandi lists Anycast DNS, record changes that propagate in under 250 milliseconds and free DNS with a domain. Its tool page adds support for A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV and CAA records, plus AXFR zone transfers for people who run their own secondary servers.
Gandi is a registrar first, so its DNS stays plain. The pages we read list no health checks, GeoDNS or traffic policies, and domains start from about €15 a year, with no stand-alone DNS price. Against Route 53 it wins on zero zone fees and quick edits, and it loses wherever routing policies or AWS alias records are involved.
What Gandi does better than Amazon Route 53
- DNS comes free with the domain, with no hosted-zone fee
- Record changes advertised as propagating in under 250 ms
- AXFR zone transfer for secondary servers
- French company with free WHOIS privacy on each domain
Where Gandi is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No health checks, GeoDNS or latency routing listed
- No stand-alone DNS product without a Gandi domain
- Fewer features than the dedicated routing platforms on this page
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Gandi is the tool here that advertises DNS record changes in under 250 milliseconds.
Best for: German-speaking agencies that manage a fixed number of zones for clients
hosting.de GmbH in Aachen sells DNS as three plans sized by zone count: DNS 10, DNS 100 and DNS 1000. hosting.de marks Anycast and API access in every plan, and it says its DNS servers run in several European data centres with automatic takeover when one site is unreachable. Route 53 has no plan sizes, only per-zone billing.
The hosting.de DNS page is in German, and the price boxes showed a euro sign without a figure when we read it, so no monthly cost is quoted here. hosting.de keeps DNSSEC keys on a signing server it manages. It lists no health checks, GeoDNS or latency routing, and the ownership of the company is not stated.
What hosting.de does better than Amazon Route 53
- Plans sized for 10, 100 or 1000 zones instead of a fee for every zone
- DNSSEC keys kept on a managed signing server, not in an AWS key service
- Developed and run in Germany, according to hosting.de
Where hosting.de is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- Plan prices could not be read on the page
- No health checks, GeoDNS or routing policies listed
- DNS page is only in German
Standout against Amazon Route 53. hosting.de is the tool here that sells DNS in zone-count bundles of 10, 100 and 1000.
Best for: Owners of many small domains who want an inexpensive editor with rollback
Loopia AB in Västerås, Sweden, sells LoopiaDNS at 9.99 SEK a month excluding VAT, which is 12.49 SEK including VAT. Loopia lists no limit on domain names or subdomains, so the Route 53 fee for each zone is replaced by one small monthly charge. A free LoopiaDomain account parks domains at 0 SEK for people who only hold names.
LoopiaDNS stores the history of DNS settings and restores them from any earlier point inside the customer zone, a safety net that the Route 53 pricing pages we read do not describe. LoopiaAPI and DynDNS are included. Anycast, DNSSEC, health checks and routing are not listed, prices are in kronor, and Loopia is part of the team.blue group.
What Loopia does better than Amazon Route 53
- A single 9.99 SEK monthly charge with unlimited domains and subdomains
- Change history with restore to any earlier setting
- DynDNS and LoopiaAPI included
Where Loopia is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No Anycast or DNSSEC listed
- No health checks or routing policies
- Prices in Swedish kronor and a Swedish-oriented page
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Loopia is the only tool here that lists restoring earlier DNS settings from any point in time.
Best for: Norwegian domain owners who want free DNS and unlimited records per domain
Domeneshop AS in Oslo includes DNS for the domains its customers register. Domeneshop lists unlimited DNS records and the A, AAAA, MX, SRV and TXT types, and it offers an order option for domains that sit at another provider. Route 53 charges each zone, while the Domeneshop DNS has no separate zone fee.
Norway belongs to the EEA but not to the EU, which matters for some procurement rules even though GDPR applies. Domeneshop has been part of the Stockholm-based Miss Group since 2024, according to its tool page. The Domeneshop pages list no Anycast, DNSSEC, health checks or routing, so it fits ordinary Norwegian sites and not dynamic traffic setups.
What Domeneshop does better than Amazon Route 53
- DNS included for customer domains with unlimited records
- No per-zone fee or per-query meter
- Servers run by Domeneshop itself in Oslo
Where Domeneshop is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- Norway is EEA, not EU
- No Anycast, DNSSEC, health checks or routing listed
- Documentation leans toward Norwegian
Standout against Amazon Route 53. Domeneshop is the tool here run by Norway's largest .no domain registrar.
Best for: Dutch businesses that already hold domains at TransIP and want DNSSEC without steps
TransIP B.V. in Leiden is a Dutch registrar and hosting company, and it publishes a KvK number and a BTW number in its privacy policy. TransIP states that every registered domain automatically gets DNSSEC, and it lists more than 450 domain extensions. Route 53 asks you to enable signing yourself and pays KMS for the key.
The TransIP pages we read describe domains, not a stand-alone DNS product, so zone limits, record types and Anycast are unknown to us. No DNS price is shown, and a .nl domain costs €0.49 for the first year and €16.50 after that, excluding BTW. TransIP is a registrar with DNSSEC, not a replacement for Route 53 traffic policies.
What TransIP does better than Amazon Route 53
- DNSSEC applied to each domain automatically
- Euro prices published excluding BTW
- Hosting and VPS under the same Dutch account
Where TransIP is a step down from Amazon Route 53
- No stand-alone DNS product described
- No Anycast, GeoDNS or health checks listed
- DNS price not shown on the pages we read
Standout against Amazon Route 53. TransIP is the tool here that states DNSSEC is applied automatically to every domain.
What actually breaks when you switch
The first break usually comes from records that only exist because of AWS. Alias records for load balancers, CloudFront and S3 website buckets become CNAME or A records, and the new record must be updated by hand when the AWS address changes. Health checks do not travel at all: each one is rebuilt in the new provider's own check system. Private hosted zones and the Resolver keep running on Route 53, so a mixed setup remains for a while.
The second break is procedural. Lower the TTLs a day ahead, import the zone into the new provider, compare it record by record and only then change the nameservers at the registrar. If the zone is signed, replace the DS record in the right order. Delete the old Route 53 hosted zone afterwards, because Route 53 charges it on the first day of every month and the fee is not prorated.
Is a flat European DNS plan cheaper than Amazon Route 53?
For small zones with few queries, usually yes. Route 53 costs $0.50 a month for a single zone plus $0.40 per million standard queries, so a zone that answers 100 million lookups a month costs about $40.50. Gcore lists a PRO plan at €2.49 a month with 10 million requests included, and bunny.net lists free DNS with no query fees. ClouDNS Premium DNS starts at $2.95 a month.
The comparison depends on limits. ClouDNS allows one zone and 50 records on its free plan, Gcore sets request allowances per plan, and bunny.net charges a $1 minimum for the account. Read the zone, record and query limits of each plan against your real numbers before you assume the flat plan wins, and check that it includes the routing features you use today.
Can I keep my domain registered at AWS and move only the nameservers?
Registration and DNS hosting are separate jobs, so a domain can stay with its current registrar while the nameserver set points to another provider. Gcore describes the move as importing the records, checking them and then changing the nameservers at the registrar. Glesys says in its FAQ that a customer keeps the registrar and switches only the nameservers.
The step that needs care is the registrar screen. Check that your registrar accepts custom nameservers for your top-level domain, and note the DS record if the zone is signed. Route 53 continues to bill the old hosted zone until you delete it, because the zone fee is charged on the first day of each month, so delete the old zone after the new one has answered correctly for a few days.
Which one to pick
For routing, pick one of the dedicated platforms. Gcore suits a team that wants GeoDNS and health checks on a free tier, bunny.net suits a developer with many domains and scripts, and ClouDNS suits an agency that prefers a fixed monthly plan, in dollars, with failover. WEDOS Zone is worth a quote request for ANAME records and reseller use.
For plain zones, a registrar or host is enough. EuroDNS, Gandi, Domeneshop, TransIP and Loopia bundle records with the domain or a small fee, Hetzner and Glesys add DNS to a hosting account, and hosting.de sells zone-sized plans. Keep Route 53 for names that point at AWS resources and for private zones, and move the public zones that do not need it.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on which Route 53 feature you use. For GeoDNS and health checks, Gcore lists both on a free tier. For many free zones, bunny.net lists up to 500 with no query fees. For a fixed monthly plan with failover, ClouDNS starts at $2.95 a month. For plain records bundled with a domain, EuroDNS, Gandi and Domeneshop are the registrar options.
Yes, with limits. Gcore lists a free tier, bunny.net lists free DNS for up to 500 zones, and Hetzner lists free zones and records in its DNS console. ClouDNS gives one zone and 50 records for free. EuroDNS includes Anycast DNS with every domain, and Glesys includes DNS in an account. Route 53 has no free zone, apart from the 50 free health checks for AWS endpoints.
Several list it. EuroDNS auto-signs zones, hosting.de keeps its DNSSEC keys on a signing server, WEDOS Zone lists DNSSEC, ClouDNS offers it on paid plans, and TransIP applies it to registered domains automatically. Glesys and Loopia do not list DNSSEC on the pages we read. Route 53 has no DNSSEC fee of its own but uses AWS Key Management Service, which AWS bills.
Hetzner lists a REST API next to its console, Glesys lists an API for automated workflows, WEDOS Zone lists a full API, hosting.de lists API access on every plan, and Loopia offers LoopiaAPI plus DynDNS. Gandi lists API access on its tool page. The pages we read do not describe an API for TransIP DNS, so check that before you script a migration.
It can, in one place. Alias records that point at load balancers, CloudFront or S3 website buckets have no direct counterpart at the European tools, so the record becomes a CNAME or an A record that you update yourself when the AWS address changes. Private hosted zones and Resolver stay on Route 53. Public records for ordinary websites, mail and verification entries move without trouble.
Related comparisons
About the author
Explore More European Alternatives
Discover privacy-focused European alternatives to other popular US tech services.