I've used nearly every domain registrar out there and here are the ones I'd recommend:

http://www.uniregistrar.com (two-factor, free privacy, cayman islands)

http://www.easydns.com (two-factor, canadian)

http://www.pairnic.com (super lock, requires id to unlock if you enable it)

http://www.dyn.com

http://www.namebright.com (two-factor)

http://www.name.com (two-factor)

http://www.gandi.net (two-factor)

Security is really important for your name so make sure you go with someone who offers some sort of two-factor or extra security lock.

I really like http://iWantMyName.com because it has a nice UX and gives me straightforward controls over DNS.

Also, http://startssl.com give SSL certificates for free and they're accepted by all major browser vendors. It's hard to beat free

IWantMyName are great, +1 for their UI, and their support are excellent! I've switched from Gandi and have never looked back.

Cheap providers like NameCheap, NameBright and NameSilo do not support DNSSEC. Here is a list of DNSSEC supporting registrars: https://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/dnssec/deployment

Based on pricing ($9.99/.com) and a growing irritation with GoDaddy, I finally moved my domains to Dynadot:

https://www.dynadot.com/

They have a (custom) 2FA app and 2FA SMS. BTW this friend referral https://www.dynadot.com/?s9N6j7d9G8B07i73 gives you & me $5 after purchase.

I mostly use Namecheap, because, well it's cheap ;) (and also a good service). But for the domains I really care about I use https://www.pairnic.com/index.html . PairNIC provides free phone support staffed by technical folks (during business hours in Pittsburgh, PA). It's $19/year. And I use http://www.gandi.net/ for the esoteric TLD's.

Its pretty much:

http://www.gandi.net/

or

NameCheap

At least for me.

I've had good experiences with name.com, price and service -wise ... the frontpage isn't as slick, but once logged in the UI is nicer. Have yet to see a registrar with an actual good interface though :|

I recently tried out badger.com, and I like their UI. They have a demo of their UI you can try before buying. They also offer some nifty built-ins like automatic Heroku integration.

Namecheap's backend UI will be upgraded soon :)

I am also looking for a new registrar since Moniker has turned in to a shadow of it former self. First, the customer support took a nosedive. Now, they redesigned the site and its a mess.

The Namecheap redesign is also a bit messy. They have a mix of the old design plus some new interfaces. Also, we've been waiting for ages for them to implement 2 factor authentication and when they finally do it, it's an SMS only solution that's no good for those that are without constant coverage or need to travel outside the country.

This probably isn't quite what you were asking, but for DNS hosting, I'm enjoying PointDNS[1]. They give you unlimited records for one domain, which is all I've used to this point. But their rates seem quite reasonable, so I'd be happy to pay them when I have the need.

Biggest downside is that they don't support many advanced DNS features such as Anycast, GeoDNS, and DNSSEC.

[1] https://pointhq.com/

I haven't used it, but I have heard that Hover is pretty good. https://www.hover.com/

I have started using Hover and I love them. Right now I am splitting my domains between hover and https://iwantmyname.com/

+1 on hover. so happy since switching to them.

http://www.namesilo.com/ is my go to go for cheap .coms. I don't know about their support (never needed it) but they're fast, support 2fa and, well, are cheap :)

I use Enom (http://www.enom.com) or DNSimple (https://dnsimple.com), which uses Enom under the hood.

I'd recommend Gandi (both for domains and certificates).

There are some cheaper SSL-certificates, but they fairly low price, and with good UI/support.

Agreed. I needed to update the email address on my account and it took me 5 minutes of focused searching to figure it out.

ssls.com is another trusted alternative...and it's owned by Namecheap with a different design.

Curious - are you still encountering those issues? That may be from the initial launch in January but we haven't heard about this from others. We definitely appreciate the feedback though.

Tamar, Namecheap's Community Manager

I experienced similar issues this weekend while trying to register a new domain. Once logged in, my immediate impression was that I should click the "Domains" dropdown from the white navbar to manage my domains. The actual links I need are hidden behind the expanded menu, it would be nice highlight these options better since they're the primary use case for logged in users.

The only other issue I've noticed is a large disconnect between the new aesthetic of the landing page (which I quite enjoy) and the yet-unchanged UI of the dashboard.

We are a working on the dashboard UI now and we're really excited about the improvements. Stay tuned!

Teddy, head of product @ namecheap

Yes they are actual issues : I had to renew one of my domains today and I'm really frustrated with the UI. I also realized I didn't checked namecheap for a while because I had same issues when i used namecheap last time.

I don't know why others didn't reported UI issues but in my case : Opening a support ticket didn't seem to be a good option, it was an UI issue and wasn't related to billing or some technical problem.

I'll check ssls.com

This is hilarious ..I felt the same way ..especially with the auto renew section