Configuring DNS Providers

Point a custom domain to your Render service.

This guide assumes you've added a custom domain to your service in the Render Dashboard. If you haven't yet, first complete this step.

This article explains how to configure your DNS provider to point your custom domain to Render. Some of these steps might not apply to your provider. We have specific guides for popular DNS providers:

We're also happy to help you set things up—just contact us via the Help link in the dashboard.

Remove any AAAA records from your domain while configuring DNS.

AAAA records map to an IPv6 address, and Render uses IPv4. These records can cause unexpected behavior for your custom domain.

Configuring root domains

Using an ANAME or ALIAS record

When you're pointing a root domain like example.com to your Render subdomain, you can use ANAME or ALIAS records if your DNS provider supports them. These records are not part of the standard DNS protocol but are implemented by some providers to make it easy to point root domains to other domains.

DNSimple, DNS Made Easy, Name.com and NS1 all support one or both of these record types.

  • ANAME records let you refer to other domains just like CNAME records, but behave like A records in that they ultimately resolve to an IP address. This is also often called CNAME flattening. Read more here.

  • ALIAS records map a root domain to another domain while coexisting with other record types for the root domain. Read more here.

To configure your custom root domain for Render, add an ANAME or ALIAS record for your root domain to point to your app's Render subdomain. For example, if your app subdomain is example.onrender.com and your custom domain is example.com, you should add an ANAME or ALIAS record for example.com and point it to example.onrender.com.

Using an A record

If your DNS provider does not support ANAME or ALIAS records or CNAME flattening, you will need to add an A record to point to your Render app. A records point to IP addresses, and you can use 216.24.57.1 to point your root domain to Render's load balancer IP.

Once you have made changes to your DNS records, these need to propagate across the internet - this can delay the verification process. Use the dig command or an online service like dnschecker to verify the correct response. If you see additional values in the DNS response other than those provided by Render, your DNS provider may have some defaults or features (e.g., domain forwarding) that need to be removed/disabled.

If you are using Cloudflare as a DNS provider, you must use a CNAME record instead of an A record. For details, see Configuring Cloudflare DNS.

Configuring www and other subdomains

For non-root domains, you should always add a CNAME record pointing to your app's Render subdomain. For example, if your Render subdomain is example.onrender.com and your custom domain is www.example.com, you should add a CNAME record for www and point it to example.onrender.com.