web dev//domain//registrar

The registrar is the provider where a domain is bought and managed. The name is rented, paid by the year, and the registrar is the one place that controls the delegation: its panel is where the nameservers of the domain are written.

The registrar is the provider where a domain is bought and managed. The name is rented, paid by the year, and the registrar is the one place that controls the delegation: its panel is where the nameservers of the domain are written.

That makes it the top of the chain of structural power over a site. Whoever controls the registrar decides which DNS answers; whoever controls the zone decides where each name points; whoever controls the hosting project only decides what is served once a name arrives. Registrar, then zone, then project, in that order.

A registrar usually ships a default DNS with a few records already in it, so many domains never leave it. Nothing forces that: the domain can stay rented at one company while another one answers its DNS.