PTRDNS offers a free authoritative DNS hosting plan for personal use, labs, and small projects that need a correct, standards-compliant DNS service without artificial feature restrictions.
This plan runs on the same authoritative DNS infrastructure as paid plans. Limits are explicit and enforced; features are not deliberately degraded.
What’s Included
The Free DNS plan provides:
- 1 DNS zone
- Can be configured as:
- Primary (AXFR outbound supported)
- Secondary (AXFR inbound supported)
- Native (hosted on PTRDNS authoritative nameservers only)
- Can be configured as:
- Unlimited records within the zone
- 200,000 DNS queries per month
- Minimum TTL: 120 seconds
- DNSSEC
- Dynamic DNS
- PowerDNS API support
PTRDNS uses PowerDNS internally and exposes standard DNS mechanisms and APIs. There are no proprietary control planes or artificial limitations intended to force lock-in.
Why a Free Plan exists
The free plan exists for operational and practical reasons:
- To allow users to evaluate PTRDNS using real DNS workloads
- To support homelabs, personal domains, and small services
- To gather feedback from real users, not synthetic tests
- To lower the barrier to adoption and recommendations
- To make upgrading trivial for production setups
PTRDNS is built by operators who run DNS infrastructure themselves. The free plan reflects that mindset.
How to get the Free Plan
- Register an account at https://app.ptrdns.net/signup
- Confirm your email address
- Select the Free DNS plan on the plan selection page
Limitations
Credit Card Requirement
The billing platform (Chargebee) requires a credit card even for the free plan. The card is not charged unless you explicitly move to a paid plan.
Exceeding the Limits
The Free DNS plan is subject to PTRDNS standard Terms of Service. If your zone exceeds the monthly query limit, you will receive an email requesting corrective action:
- Send less traffic to PTRDNS (e.g. increase the TTLs), or
- Upgrade to a paid plan
Repeated or ignored violations may result in temporary suspension of the affected zone. PTRDNS does not silently throttle traffic.
Free Plan Not Available?
The free plan may be temporarily unavailable to preserve resources and service quality for paying customers.
If the free plan isn’t listed during signup, availability is temporarily capped to preserve resources for paying customers. Check back later.
Plan Comparison
| Feature / Limit | Free DNS | Paid DNS Plans |
|---|---|---|
| DNS zones | 1 | Multiple |
| DNS records per zone | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Monthly DNS queries | 200,000 | Higher limits |
| Minimum TTL | 120s | As low as 30s* |
| DNSSEC | Yes | Yes |
| Dynamic DNS | Yes | Yes |
| PowerDNS API | Yes | Yes |
| AXFR (primary / secondary) | Yes | Yes |
| Priority support | No | Yes |
| Intended usage | Personal / lab | Production |
* Exact TTL limits depend on the selected paid plan.
Try PTRDNS for free and run your DNS the way it’s meant to be.