Harper: So bunny.net, the CDN company, just made their DNS service free.
Tyler: Completely free? That sounds like a race to the bottom. They're just trying to undercut Cloudflare and the rest of the market by making a core utility a loss-leader.
Harper: I thought so too at first, but it's not quite that simple. This isn't just some basic DNS they threw together. According to the post they put out, this was originally their secret weapon.
Tyler: Their secret weapon?
Harper: Yeah, it was the internal routing engine for their main product, the CDN. It's what made their content delivery network fast in the first place — a smart system that could route traffic based on latency and health checks. They turned it into a public product four years ago.
Tyler: Okay, so it's a good product. But they're still giving it away. Why? You can't pay for servers with goodwill.
Harper: Because they don't see it as a standalone product anymore. They call it the 'core product that glues our entire platform together.' It's the starting line. The idea is, you move your domain to their free, high-performance DNS. Then, when you're ready, it's literally one click to turn on their paid CDN.
Tyler: Ah, there it is. The upsell.
Harper: Right, and then another click to turn on their security product. So DNS isn't the thing they sell; it's the control panel for everything else they sell. They're not competing on free DNS, they're competing on integration.
Tyler: But the article says there's a one-dollar-a-month minimum spend. So it's not 'free' free. It's 'free if you're already paying us for something'.
Harper: True, but the point they make is about eliminating unpredictable bills. Developers hate not knowing if a traffic spike from a DDoS attack or just getting popular is going to suddenly cost them hundreds of dollars in DNS queries. This makes the cost a flat, known quantity.
Tyler: Okay, that's a fair point. Predictability is huge. I've been burned by that before. So you're saying it's not a race to the bottom, it's a different game entirely.
Harper: Exactly. They're not trying to be the cheapest; they're trying to be the easiest to build on. And they're still improving the DNS product itself. They added this feature to DNSSEC... it's called 'NSEC Black Lies'.
Tyler: NSEC Black Lies, okay. That's a deep cut. That stops people from 'zone walking'—basically, asking your server for every single subdomain you have and mapping out your entire infrastructure. That's a pretty thoughtful feature for a 'free' product.
Harper: Right? It's not something you'd do if you were just trying to churn out a cheap commodity. They're treating it like a premium product that just happens to be the front door to their paid stuff.
Tyler: Huh. So they're basically saying, 'our integration is so good, we'll give you the control panel for free because we're confident you'll buy the engine'.
Harper: That seems to be the bet. It’s actually… pretty smart. And I appreciate them just saying it. They’re not hiding the ball. The whole piece is about how this helps you build faster and makes their platform stickier.
Tyler: It’s a much more interesting strategy than just making something free and hoping for the best. They've weaponized the integration point.
Harper: Yeah. I'm not sure if it works out for them financially in the long run, honestly, I don't see the numbers. But the strategy is clear. I'm Harper.
Tyler: I'm Tyler.
