Every few months we mine the DNS servers used by the top 10,000 Alexa sites. We then use various techniques including hostname and IP class C matching, and DNS lookup validations to correlate the DNS servers with specific DNS services like UltraDNS, Dyn and AWS Route 53. We call this point-in-time analysis a DNS marketshare snapshot. Finally we compare current and prior DNS marketshare snapshots to identify market trends and changes.
Steady DNS Outsourcing Trend
Outsourcing of DNS hosting to managed providers has grown consistently for Alexa 10,000 sites since we began capturing marketshare snapshots last year. Our analysis shows an increase of 6% in the past 4 months, and 15% in the past 11 months. Such growth appears to be favoring some services over others, with many even loosing marketshare. The following table provides a summary of managed DNS marketshare changes for the past 11 months. Only services with greater than 1% marketshare are displayed. The table is sorted by current Alexa 10,000 marketshare.
| DNS Service Marketshare Change: Apr 2012 - Mar 2013 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DNS Service | Service Type | Alexa 1,000 Marketshare Change | Alexa 10,000 Marketshare Change | ||
| Dyn | Enterprise | 5.1% to 7.1% | +39% | 2.72% to 3.91% | +44% |
| UltraDNS | Enterprise | 5.7% to 6.2% | +9% | 3.73% to 3.7% | -1% |
| AWS Route 53 | Self Serve | 1.8% to 3.8% | +111% | 1.68% to 3.56% | +112% |
| DNSPod | Self Serve | 2.6% to 2.2% | -15% | 3.4% to 3.1% | +9% |
| GoDaddy | Self Serve | 1.5% to 1.3% | -15% | 2.89% to 2.89% | +0% |
| CloudFlare | Self Serve | 0.3% to 0.6% | +100% | 0.92% to 2.56% | +178% |
| DNS Made Easy | Self Serve | 2% to 2.1% | +5% | 2.47% to 2.43% | -2% |
| Akamai | Enterprise | 4.2% to 4.7% | +12% | 1.84% to 2.06% | +12% |
| Rackspace Cloud DNS | Self Serve | 1.3% to 0.7% | -86% | 1.48% to 1.61% | +9% |
| Verisign | Enterprise | 0.7% to 1% | +43% | 0.7% to 0.97% | +39% |
| easyDNS | Self Serve | 0.6% to 1% | +67% | 0.82% to 0.79% | -4% |
| Cotendo (acquired by Akamai) | Enterprise | 2.1% to 1.2% | -75% | 0.76% to 0.6% | -27% |
Alexa Top 1,000 DNS Marketshare - Mar 5, 2013
The following table provides current marketshare analysis for the top 1,000 Alexa website based on a snapshot taken on March 5, 2013.
| Provider | Rank | Number of Sites | Marketshare Change Nov 2012 to Mar 2013 | Market Share % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dyn Enterprise | 1 | 71 | +10 | 7.1% |
| UltraDNS | 2 | 62 | +3 | 6.2% |
| Akamai | 3 | 47 | +6 | 4.7% |
| AWS Route 53 | 4 | 38 | +13 | 3.8% |
| DNSPod | 5 | 22 | 0 | 2.2% |
| DNS Made Easy | 6 | 21 | -4 | 2.1% |
| GoDaddy | 7 | 13 | -1 | 1.3% |
| Cotendo | 8 | 12 | -6 | 1.2% |
| EasyDNS | 9 | 10 | +2 | 1% |
| Versign | 10 | 10 | +2 | 1% |
| Rackspace Cloud | 11 | 7 | -2 | 0.7% |
| CloudFlare | 12 | 6 | +1 | 0.6% |
| eNom | 13 | 6 | -3 | 0.6% |
| Namecheap | 14 | 5 | +1 | 0.5% |
| SoftLayer | 15 | 5 | 0 | 0.5% |
| Internap | 16 | 4 | +1 | 0.4% |
| Savvis | 17 | 3 | -1 | 0.3% |
| Nettica | 18 | 2 | -2 | 0.2% |
| ClouDNS | 19 | 2 | 0 | 0.2% |
| ZoneEdit | 20 | 2 | -3 | 0.2% |
| EuroDNS | 22 | 1 | 0 | 0.1% |
Alexa Top 10,000 DNS Marketshare - Mar 5, 2013
The following table provides current marketshare analysis for the top 10,000 Alexa website based on a snapshot taken on March 5, 2013.
| Provider | Rank | Number of Sites | Marketshare Change Nov 2012 to Mar 2013 | Market Share % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dyn Enterprise | 1 | 391 | +52 | 3.91% |
| UltraDNS | 2 | 370 | -17 | 3.7% |
| AWS Route 53 | 3 | 356 | +57 | 3.56% |
| DNSPod | 4 | 310 | -2 | 3.1% |
| GoDaddy | 5 | 289 | +11 | 2.89% |
| CloudFlare | 6 | 256 | +77 | 2.56% |
| DNS Made Easy | 7 | 243 | -4 | 2.43% |
| Akamai | 8 | 206 | +25 | 2.06% |
| Rackspace Cloud | 9 | 161 | +3 | 1.61% |
| Versign | 10 | 97 | +19 | 0.97% |
| SoftLayer | 11 | 82 | +3 | 0.82% |
| Easy | 12 | 79 | -1 | 0.79% |
| Namecheap | 13 | 73 | +14 | 0.73% |
| eNom | 14 | 70 | -10 | 0.7% |
| Cotendo | 15 | 60 | -7 | 0.6% |
| Savvis | 16 | 43 | 0 | 0.43% |
| ZoneEdit | 17 | 34 | -6 | 0.34% |
| DynDNS | 18 | 30 | -2 | 0.3% |
| Internap | 19 | 29 | -1 | 0.29% |
| Nettica | 20 | 28 | -3 | 0.28% |
| ClouDNS | 21 | 19 | +3 | 0.19% |
| Zerigo DNS | 23 | 12 | 0 | 0.12% |
| No-IP | 24 | 9 | -6 | 0.09% |
| EuroDNS | 25 | 8 | +1 | 0.08% |
Top 20 Alexa Site Changes - Nov 1 2012 to Mar 5 2013
As part of the marketshare analysis, we track which Alexa 10,000 sites have switched managed DNS providers since the last snapshot.
| Website | Alexa Rank | New Provider - 2013-03-05 | Previous Provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| adf.ly | 79 | CloudFlare | ZoneEdit |
| adcash.com | 111 | Dyn Enterprise | GoDaddy |
| dropbox.com | 123 | AWS Route 53 | Nettica |
| addthis.com | 170 | Dyn Enterprise | Akamai |
| sergey-mavrodi.com | 384 | AWS Route 53 | ZoneEdit |
| agoda.com | 393 | Versign | UltraDNS |
| zillow.com | 497 | Dyn Enterprise | Cotendo |
| bleacherreport.com | 510 | AWS Route 53 | Dyn Enterprise |
| swagbucks.com | 520 | AWS Route 53 | Cotendo |
| odesk.com | 540 | Akamai | DNS Made Easy |
| retailmenot.com | 560 | UltraDNS | AWS Route 53 |
| adscale.de | 564 | Akamai | Cotendo |
| timeanddate.com | 589 | Akamai | Cotendo |
| kickstarter.com | 774 | AWS Route 53 | DNS Made Easy |
| twitch.tv | 846 | Versign | Akamai |
| twitch.tv | 846 | Dyn Enterprise | Akamai |
| dpreview.com | 856 | AWS Route 53 | UltraDNS |
| piriform.com | 935 | AWS Route 53 | GoDaddy |
| docstoc.com | 994 | Dyn Enterprise | DynDNS |
| bidorbuy.co.za | 1003 | Dyn Enterprise | UltraDNS |
Confirmed Provider Changes - Nov 1 2012 to Mar 5 2013
Because the makeup of the Alexa top 10,000 sites changes frequently, the stats above may not reflect actual marketshare changes. This table lists Alexa 10,000 marketshare gains or losses our analysis has confirmed for the past 4 months.
| Provider | Gain/Loss | % of Market Share |
|---|---|---|
| Dyn Enterprise | +27 | +6.91% |
| AWS Route 53 | +18 | +5.06% |
| Versign | +18 | +18.56% |
| CloudFlare | +12 | +4.69% |
| Akamai | +3 | +1.46% |
| eNom | 0 | 0% |
| Easy DNS | 0 | 0% |
| DNS Made Easy | -1 | -0.41% |
| EuroDNS | -1 | -12.5% |
| SoftLayer | -1 | -1.22% |
| Savvis | -1 | -2.33% |
| No-IP | -2 | -22.22% |
| Nettica | -2 | -7.14% |
| Namecheap | -2 | -2.74% |
| ZoneEdit | -5 | -14.71% |
| GoDaddy | -10 | -3.46% |
| Cotendo | -13 | -21.67% |
| UltraDNS | -36 | -9.73% |
