Managed DNS vs. Self-hosted DNS

DNS is the one service that cannot fail. If your web servers go down, users see an error page. If your DNS goes down, users see nothing—your domain stops existing. This makes the choice between managed and self-hosted DNS one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions an organization makes.

The question isn't really about DNS. It's about what kind of organization you are.

Two Philosophies of Infrastructure

Managed DNS means paying someone else to solve a hard problem. Providers like Cloudflare, Route 53, and NS1 operate hundreds of points of presence worldwide. They employ teams who do nothing but think about DNS availability, DDoS mitigation, and query performance. When attackers target your domain, the provider absorbs traffic that would vaporize your own servers.

You configure records through a web interface or API. You never think about zone transfers, software patches, or capacity planning. You pay per query—maybe $20 monthly for a small site, thousands for an enterprise handling billions of requests.

Self-hosted DNS means running your own authoritative nameservers, typically using BIND, PowerDNS, or NSD. You control everything: where servers are located, how they're configured, what gets logged, how caching behaves. You also own everything: the security hardening, the software updates, the 3 AM pages when something breaks.

The cost structure inverts. Instead of paying per query, you invest in infrastructure and expertise. At massive scale—billions of queries monthly—this can be cheaper. At smaller scales, it's more expensive when you account for engineering time.

What Managed DNS Buys You

Reliability you couldn't build yourself.

Major DNS providers achieve 100% uptime through redundancy that borders on paranoid. They operate anycast networks spanning dozens of countries. They handle DDoS attacks measured in terabits per second—volumes that would overwhelm any self-hosted infrastructure.

This reliability extends to operations you never see. When a critical vulnerability appears in DNS software, the provider patches their fleet while you sleep. When traffic spikes, capacity scales automatically. When attackers probe for weaknesses, security teams respond.

The tradeoff is dependency. Outages happen—Cloudflare's July 2019 incident affected millions of domains. You accept that risk because the alternative is accepting responsibility for achieving similar reliability yourself.

What Self-Hosting Buys You

Control. Complete, uncompromised control.

You decide exactly where DNS servers are located—critical for data residency requirements. You control what queries get logged and where that data lives—critical for privacy regulations. You can implement DNS behaviors that managed services don't support.

For organizations in healthcare, financial services, or government, this control isn't optional. Regulatory requirements may prohibit sending DNS query data to third parties. Security policies may mandate that all infrastructure operate within specific jurisdictions. Compliance audits may require visibility into DNS operations that managed services can't provide.

Cost savings materialize only at enormous scale. Organizations processing under a billion queries monthly rarely save money self-hosting once engineering time is honestly accounted for. Above that threshold, the economics shift—but only for organizations that already employ DNS expertise.

The Self-Hosting Reality Check

Before choosing self-hosted DNS, answer honestly:

Do you already employ DNS engineers? If you'd be hiring specifically for this, the cost advantage disappears.

Can you achieve geographic distribution? High-availability DNS requires authoritative servers in multiple locations, properly announced via anycast. This isn't a single server in your data center.

Can you survive a DDoS attack? Attackers target DNS precisely because it's critical. A successful DNS DDoS attack doesn't degrade your service—it erases your existence from the Internet.

Will you maintain it forever? This isn't a project you complete. It's an operational commitment that never ends.

If you answered "no" to any of these, managed DNS is your answer.

Hybrid Approaches

Many organizations combine both.

Managed primary, self-hosted secondary: Use managed DNS for reliability while maintaining internal servers for sensitive zones. External domains get global performance; internal infrastructure stays under your control.

Managed external, self-hosted internal: Separate public-facing domains from internal DNS entirely. External users query managed services; internal systems use isolated self-hosted DNS.

Managed as failover: Configure both as authoritative. If your infrastructure fails, the managed service continues serving queries.

Making the Decision

Choose managed DNS if: You lack DNS engineering expertise. You handle fewer than a billion queries monthly. You value operational simplicity. You can accept third-party dependency.

Choose self-hosted DNS if: Compliance requirements prohibit external providers. You already employ DNS engineers. You process queries at scale where self-hosting economics make sense. You can engineer and operate highly available distributed systems.

Choose hybrid if: You need managed reliability externally but internal control for compliance. You want failover capability without complete dependence.

Most organizations should use managed DNS. The reliability is better than what you'd build, the cost is reasonable, and the operational burden is zero. Self-hosting makes sense for organizations with genuine compliance constraints, massive scale, or existing DNS expertise—not for organizations trying to save money or maintain theoretical independence.

The question to ask isn't "which is better?" It's "which matches who we actually are?"