DoDomain vs Domainee

The meters tell the story. Domainee charges for hostnames it serves and bytes it moves, because it is in the request path. DoDomain charges for onboarding events that succeeded, because it is not.

An earlier version of this page said Domainee does not write DNS records for the customer. That was right when we wrote it and is wrong now, so it is corrected here rather than quietly dropped. Domainee's own pages describe three mechanisms.

• A Domain Connect product. Its page says Domainee's Domain Connect API sets up your customers' DNS for them, with a one-click flow it lists as live on Cloudflare and on Glauca Digital, and onboarding requested at several other providers.
• A token-based write. The applyDns endpoint writes the records using a scoped API token your customer supplies. Domainee lists Cloudflare and DigitalOcean as the supported providers, says the token is never stored or logged, and says it removes only conflicting A, AAAA, CNAME and ALIAS records at that exact name.
• Provider-specific instructions through a GET /v1/domains/{id}/instructions call, for everywhere else.

Two caveats apply, both from Domainee's own wording. The one-click path still needs the customer to approve on the provider's screen, and Domainee's docs warn that on Cloudflare the record has to stay DNS-only, because leaving it proxied makes Cloudflare terminate TLS and the certificate is never issued. Domainee also says its provider detection works by fingerprinting the zone's public NS records.

So the honest framing is that both products now have some DNS-writing path, and both are limited to providers that cooperate. What did not change is which side of the request path each sits on. Domainee is the proxy; if the DNS step works but you also need somebody to serve HTTPS, that is Domainee's product. See State of Domain Connect for measured provider coverage.

With the DNS-writing gap closed on the product pages, five differences remain. Each is stated only where DoDomain's own docs support it.

One session, three paths. A DoDomain connect session decides how the record gets written. A Cloudflare-hosted zone gets a Cloudflare OAuth one-click. A provider that has onboarded DoDomain's Domain Connect templates gets a signed apply. Every other provider gets step-by-step records for its own dashboard, with a live status per record. Your code does not branch on the provider. Domainee's equivalent is a set of per-provider mechanisms: Domain Connect on some, a customer-supplied API token on Cloudflare and DigitalOcean, instructions on the rest. Neither list is complete, and both change as providers onboard.

Authoritative proof. DoDomain declares a record live only after reading it at the domain's authoritative nameservers, and only then sends the signed connection.verified webhook. Domainee re-checks every five minutes, which is faster, but its pages do not say where the check reads. If your activation logic depends on the record being visible at the source of truth rather than at a cached resolver, ask Domainee which one it uses.

The monitoring tail. DoDomain keeps checking a connection for as long as it exists: every 10 minutes for the first day, hourly for a week, then every 6 hours. A suspected drift needs three consecutive failed checks before it is reported, which keeps one flaky resolver from paging you, and the signed connection.failed event names the failing records. Monitoring is free on every plan with no cap on monitored domains. Domainee's 5-minute interval is tighter at every age, so if minutes matter more than flap suppression, that is a point for Domainee.

SDKs. DoDomain ships @dodomain/node (which includes verifyWebhook), @dodomain/connect, @dodomain/react and a Python package. Domainee is a REST API plus a script-tag widget, and its docs reference lists no SDK pages, so if you want typed clients, check whether that has changed.

Pricing per verified connection. DoDomain counts a domain once, in the month it first verifies. Re-checks and monitoring are free, so a domain that stays connected for years is never counted again. Domainee bills each domain it serves every month, plus bandwidth. Neither is better in the abstract. They are different shapes, and the next section prices both.

The two products meter different things, so a headline price compares nothing. DoDomain counts connections made: a domain costs something in the month it first verifies and nothing after, because re-verification and drift monitoring are free and uncapped. Domainee counts domains live: every hostname it serves is billed every month, with the first 20 free and a graduated discount from 1,000 domains. Each scenario below therefore states both a number of new domains a month and a number live at once.

Domainee's own worked example is a good check on the arithmetic: 1,500 domains is 20 free, then the first 980 billable domains at $0.20 and the next 500 at the first discounted rate, which comes to $291 a month. The table applies the same graduated bands.

List prices, monthly billing. DoDomain counts a domain once, in the month it first verifies; re-checks and drift monitoring are free on every plan, so live domains add nothing. One-click setup starts on Pro: a cheaper plan above is the guided-records flow. Domainee's column is the domain line only: it excludes bandwidth beyond 100 GB a month ($0.05 per GB per its pricing page), taxes and any enterprise terms, and assumes the card on file that Domainee requires. It also buys you the proxy, which DoDomain does not include, so the two columns are not the same service. DoDomain's volume beyond 2,500 new connections a month is the Enterprise plan, by contact.

Read the table as a shape, not a verdict. At small volume Domainee's free tier is hard to beat, and DoDomain's guided plan is free too. As live domains grow into the thousands, a per-hostname meter climbs with the number of customers you keep, while a per-connection meter climbs with the number you add. A product with high churn or fast growth sees both the other way round, so run your own numbers.

The pairing is the same one DoDomain makes with any edge vendor. Domainee's quickstart gives edge.domainee.dev as the CNAME target for a subdomain, so the record in the session below points the customer's app host at it. For an apex domain, Domainee recommends two A records instead; pass those record(s) in the same records array with a host of @.

DoDomain gets the record into the customer's DNS and proves it is live at the authoritative nameservers. Domainee serves the traffic once the record resolves. Register the hostname with Domainee first so its edge knows the domain, then create the session.

// 1. Your server: mint a connect session for the customer's domain.
import { DoDomain, verifyWebhook } from "@dodomain/node";
import { env } from "./env"; // your validated server env

const dodomain = new DoDomain({ secretKey: env.DODOMAIN_SECRET_KEY });
const session = await dodomain.sessions.create({
  domain: "customer.com",
  records: [
    { type: "CNAME", host: "app", value: "edge.domainee.dev" },
  ],
  returnUrl: "https://yourapp.com/settings/domains",
});

// 2. Your page: open the connect sheet with session.token.
import { showDoDomain } from "@dodomain/connect";

showDoDomain({ token, onVerified: ({ domain }) => markDomainLive(domain) });

// 3. Your webhook route: DoDomain calls it once the record is live at the
//    domain's authoritative nameservers, and again if it ever breaks.
if (!verifyWebhook(env.DODOMAIN_WEBHOOK_SECRET, rawBody, signatureHeader)) {
  return new Response("bad signature", { status: 400 });
}

From Pro up, the session picks the path on its own: a Cloudflare-hosted domain gets the OAuth one-click, a provider that has enabled DoDomain's Domain Connect templates gets a signed apply, and every other provider gets step-by-step records for that provider's dashboard. On the free plan every provider gets the step-by-step records. The full walkthrough is in the quickstart.

Pick Domainee alone if you want one vendor to serve HTTPS on customer hostnames, your free tier fits inside 20 domains, and the customers who matter are on Cloudflare, DigitalOcean or a Domain Connect provider Domainee has live. You get the proxy, the certificate, the connect widget and a record-writing path in one API call, with no sessions and no verification-then-webhook choreography to wire up.

Pick DoDomain alone if you already serve traffic yourself, through your own load balancer, a host such as Vercel or Render, or Cloudflare for SaaS, and what stalls onboarding is the customer's DNS step. You want one session that covers every provider, proof at the authoritative nameservers, typed SDKs, and a bill that does not grow with the number of domains you keep.

Use both if you chose Domainee for the edge but want a single connect flow across providers Domainee has no write path for. DoDomain gets the record in and proves it; Domainee serves the traffic. Nothing about Domainee's setup changes, and the cost is that you run two DNS checks on the same record.

To switch or add DoDomain when you already use Domainee, nothing has to move. New domains can go through a DoDomain session that carries the record Domainee gave you. Existing live domains keep working as they are. DoDomain's docs describe no bulk import: a connection is made by a session, so bringing an existing domain under monitoring means running that domain through one, which counts as one connection. Pricing, SDK setup and the quickstart are at /pricing and /docs.

Domainee wins on several points that matter, and the first is the biggest. Read these before you decide.

• It serves traffic. It is the proxy: TLS termination, edge routing in two regions, Let's Encrypt certificates issued on the first HTTPS request, bring-your-own certificates on paid plans, plus domain masking and forwarding on the same edge. DoDomain does none of this and never will.
• Buy-a-Domain. A full registrar-reseller API with 500+ TLDs and your customer as the registrant. DoDomain connects domains people already own.
• The free tier. 20 domains and 100 GB of bandwidth, no expiry, with a published discount curve that runs to half price at 10,001 domains and above.
• Tighter monitoring. A 5-minute re-check interval, plus on-demand checks through its API, against DoDomain's 10 minutes, hourly and 6-hour steps.
• A larger MCP surface. Eleven tools per its docs against DoDomain's eight. DoDomain's differ in using OAuth 2.1 with scoped consent, where Domainee's hosted server takes the same Bearer key as its REST API.
• Direct token apply. Writing records with a scoped token the customer supplies, on Cloudflare and DigitalOcean, is a different mechanism from DoDomain's Cloudflare OAuth grant, and it covers a provider DoDomain does not claim a one-click path for.
• White-label depth and simplicity. A published audit of what stays hidden from your customers, and an API where one call returns the record to show.

Caveats cut the other way too. Domainee's docs describe billing state reaching customer traffic, its terms provide the platform as is with no uptime warranty, and its marketing and docs disagree on the webhook retry schedule and the MCP tool count, so check the page you depend on. If those trade-offs are acceptable, Domainee is the more complete product for the traffic half.

No card, no sales call: create an app, mint a session, and watch the first domain verify.

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