Free subdomain or your own domain?

Web addresses are read from the right. In yourname.runs-at.dev, the part that was registered with a registrar is runs-at.dev: that is the parent domain. Everything to the left of it is a subdomain, a name the owner of the parent can create and hand out without registering anything new.

Compare that with yourname.com. There, yourname.com is itself the registered domain, and whoever registered it decides everything underneath it.

runs-at.dev is a subdomain service. A name you claim here is a subdomain of runs-at.dev, not a domain registered to you.

The phrase covers several different things, and it is worth checking which one you are looking at before you sign up:

• A domain included for the first year with a hosting or website-builder plan, which then renews at the normal price.
• A registration on an extension that some provider gives away, with its own rules about renewal and use.
• A subdomain on someone else's domain, which is what runs-at.dev offers. Nothing is registered in your name, and there is no renewal to pay.

None of these is better in general. They answer different needs, and the rest of this page goes through where they differ.

When you register yourname.com, the registration is in your name for as long as you renew it. You can move it between registrars, choose any DNS provider, and create as many subdomains as you like.

With a runs-at.dev name the arrangement is different:

• The operator registered runs-at.dev and renews it. You never register or pay for it, and you cannot take it with you.
• Your claim is recorded against your GitHub account in a public file, domains/yourname.json, and only you can change or release it.
• The name is granted under the site's policy, which allows names to be reclaimed, for example for abuse. It is a free, best-effort service rather than a purchase.
• Every eligible GitHub account gets one name included, and the administrator can grant extra slots for more.

On your claimed subdomain you choose what it does, using the record types this service supports: show a profile card built from your GitHub account, redirect visitors elsewhere, point it at your hosting with a CNAME, or publish A, AAAA, TXT and MX records. The DNS record reference lists them and the rules for combining them.

What you cannot do is change anything outside your own name. Settings that apply to the whole of runs-at.dev belong to the operator. With a domain of your own, the entire DNS zone is yours to manage with whichever provider you pick.

For the common hosts there are step-by-step guides: free subdomain for GitHub Pages, free subdomain for Vercel, free subdomain for Netlify and free subdomain for Cloudflare Pages.

Search engines generally treat a hostname as its own site. A site served at yourname.runs-at.dev is indexed as that hostname, separately from other names under the same parent, and from anything at runs-at.dev itself.

Being a subdomain does not by itself stop a page from being found or ranked. What decides that is mostly the page: whether it is useful, well built and linked to. The same is true on a registered domain. No choice of address guarantees a position in search results.

Two practical differences are worth knowing. A name set up as a redirect serves no content, so there is nothing at that address to rank. And if you plan to move to your own domain later, the address people link to now is the one that collects those links. The SEO guide for runs-at.dev names covers canonical addresses, robots.txt and search console verification.

A subdomain comes with an address, not with a mailbox. runs-at.dev does not host email. What you can do is publish MX records on your own name so that mail for it goes to an email service you already use or sign up for; the email forwarding guide shows one way to set that up.

Mail settings that belong to the parent domain are not yours to change, because you do not own runs-at.dev. If email under your own name is central to what you do, that is a strong reason to register a domain.

• A portfolio, résumé or personal page that needs a tidy address now.
• Documentation, a demo or a side project hosted on GitHub Pages, Vercel, Netlify or Cloudflare Pages.
• Trying out an idea before you know whether it deserves a domain.
• Keeping a stable short link you can repoint as a project moves between hosts.

In all of these, the appeal is a clean address with no purchase and no renewal to remember.

These are reasons people commonly choose to register a domain; weigh them for your situation:

• Brand ownership. A business or long-running project usually wants a name it controls outright.
• Portability. A registered domain moves with you between registrars and hosts, independent of any one service.
• Control of the whole domain. You set every DNS record, create any subdomains you want, and decide the domain's rules.
• Email. Addresses at your own domain, with its mail settings under your control.

None of these makes a subdomain the wrong choice for everything else. Many people use both: a registered domain for the main site and free subdomains for experiments.

Nothing locks a project to runs-at.dev. You can register a domain whenever you are ready and add it to your hosting provider, the same way you added your runs-at.dev name. From then on you decide what the old name does, from the dashboard:

• Keep it pointing at the same site, so both addresses work while people update their links.
• Set it to a URL redirect to the new domain. runs-at.dev sends that redirect as a temporary one, so it is a convenience for visitors rather than a way to move search signals; the SEO guide explains the reasoning.
• Release the name when you no longer need it, so someone else can claim it.

None of this happens automatically. The move, and any redirects on your new domain, are yours to set up.

• Claim a free subdomain · check a name and claim it with GitHub→
• Quickstart · from sign-in to a working name→
• DNS record reference · what each record type does→
• SEO on a runs-at.dev name→
• Free subdomain for GitHub Pages→
• Free subdomain for Vercel→
• Free subdomain for Netlify→
• Free subdomain for Cloudflare Pages→
• FAQ · cost, ownership, limits and reclaiming→