Custom Domains
Every web service and static site on Render automatically gets a free onrender.com
address which does not change.
But you can also bring your own domains to Render easily. We handle SSL certificate creation and renewal, as well as automatic HTTP to HTTPS redirects for all your custom domains, including wildcard domains. Let’s learn how to set up your domains on Render!
Adding a Custom Domain
First, if you haven’t already, create a web service on Render. See Getting Started for sample applications.
Then go to the Settings tab for your service. You’ll see the Custom Domains section further down the page.
Click Add Custom Domain and enter your custom domain.
- If you add a domain containing
www
, we automatically add the version of your domain without thewww
and redirect it to thewww
version. - If you enter a root domain (also called an apex domain) without the
www
, we automatically add thewww
version and redirect it to the root domain.
You should now see the following message with instructions to update DNS settings with your DNS provider. See the next section for how to do this.
Adding a Wildcard Custom Domain
When you add a wildcard custom domain to Render, you have to add two CNAME
records to your DNS settings. The first CNAME
record for *
allows Render to respond to your wildcard domain, and a second _acme-challenge
CNAME
record allows Render to manage Let’s Encrypt wildcard certificate issuance and renewal on your behalf. This is what it looks like for *.example.com
:
Configuring DNS to Point to Render
At this point, you’ll need to work with your DNS provider to add CNAME
, ANAME
, ALIAS
or A
records pointing to Render. We have instructions for common providers below:
Once you’ve updated your DNS records, it can take a few minutes for your domains to be verified on Render. See Speed up Domain Verification below.
You’ll see the domain verification status in green once everything is good to go.
🎉 You’re all set! Your custom domains will start pointing to your Render service and we’ll continue to issue and renew SSL certificates for them as long as you’re using Render.
Speed up Domain Verification
We recommend removing cached entries in public DNS servers after updating your DNS records. This is especially important if you’re updating nameservers for your domains. Clearing the cache will speed up DNS verification and SSL certificate issuance for your domains.
Use the links below to clear cached records in popular public DNS servers:
As always, if you run into any trouble, find us on Render Community or email us at support@render.com and we’ll be glad to help out.