Nameserver Lookup
Type a domain to see its NS records, the authoritative nameservers that answer for it, and who runs them: two names ending in ns.cloudflare.com mean Cloudflare hosts the DNS, awsdns in the name means Amazon Route 53, domaincontrol.com means GoDaddy. Below them the SOA record gives the zone's primary nameserver and its serial number, which most DNS hosts raise on every edit. To move a domain's DNS you change these nameservers at the registrar, not at the old DNS host.
Free, no sign-in, 20 lookups a minute. Answers are cached for 5 minutes. Also: DNS lookup, MX lookup, TXT record lookup.
Who hosts well-known domains' DNS
Looked up on November 4, 2026 through Cloudflare's resolver, the same one this tool asks. Click a domain to run it live.
| Domain | DNS host | NS | SOA primary |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com | NS1 (IBM) + Amazon Route 53 | 8 | ns-1707.awsdns-21.co.uk |
| netflix.com | Amazon Route 53 | 4 | ns-81.awsdns-10.com |
| discord.com | Cloudflare | 2 | gabe.ns.cloudflare.com |
| shopify.com | Cloudflare (Foundation DNS) | 3 | gold.foundationdns.com |
| wikipedia.org | Wikimedia (its own) | 3 | ns0.wikimedia.org |
github.com splits its DNS across two providers; netflix.com spreads four Route 53 nameservers over four TLDs; shopify.com is on Cloudflare's Foundation DNS (gold.foundationdns.com). Wikimedia runs its own.
Nameserver Lookup questions
How long does a nameserver change take?
Up to two days. The .com registry hands out a domain's nameservers with a TTL of 172,800 seconds (48 hours, checked on 4 November 2026), so a resolver that asked just before the change can keep using the old nameservers that long. Most traffic moves within a few hours. Keep the same records at the old and new DNS host until the old one stops getting queries.
Why do some domains have 2 nameservers and others 8?
Two is the usual minimum, so that one can fail. More is insurance: github.com runs 8, four at NS1 and four at Amazon Route 53, so an outage at one provider leaves the other answering, and netflix.com's four Route 53 nameservers sit under .com, .net, .org and .co.uk so a problem in one TLD cannot take them all down. discord.com uses the two Cloudflare assigns every account.
Is my DNS host the same as my registrar?
Only if you kept the registrar's default nameservers. The registrar is where you pay for the name; the DNS host is whoever the nameservers belong to. A domain bought at Namecheap starts on dns1.registrar-servers.com and one at GoDaddy on nsNN.domaincontrol.com, but either can point to Cloudflare or anyone else. The WHOIS lookup shows the registrar, this lookup shows the DNS host.
Why does a subdomain show no nameservers?
NS records live at the top of a zone, and a subdomain like www.example.com is part of its parent's zone unless someone delegated it, so it has none of its own. Look up the bare domain instead. A subdomain that does return NS records has been handed to other nameservers, a common setup for a separate team or product.
More free domain tools
The DNS lookup shows every record a domain publishes. The MX lookup shows which servers take a domain's email and who runs them. The TXT record lookup reads a domain's SPF and DMARC records. For who registered a name and when, use the WHOIS lookup, Domain age checker or Domain expiration checker. See which extensions a name is still free in with the domain availability checker, or price one in the domain value calculator.