Domain Watchdog Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Domain Watchdog hosting and keep an eye on a whole domain portfolio from one self-hosted instance. xCloud runs Domain Watchdog v1.4.5 with its background worker, PostgreSQL and Valkey wired up on a private network, generates the application secrets, keeps your watchlists on a persistent volume and publishes the web interface over HTTPS.

Deploy your Domain Watchdog

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Domain Watchdog?

Domain Watchdog is an application that uses RDAP to collect publicly available information about domains, track their history, and, through a provider's API, purchase them. Its upstream README says it lets you know the history of a domain name from its inception to its release into the public domain, and follow the entities that manage it in detail.

The RDAP and WHOIS protocols alone cannot give a detailed history of events such as ownership changes and renewals, which is the gap Domain Watchdog fills. It is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later.

From Sign-Up to a Live Domain Monitor In Just 3 Easy Steps

A Domain Watchdog install normally means a web container, a worker, a database, a queue, generated secrets, a domain and a certificate before the first watchlist exists. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Domain Watchdog from the OneClick catalog. Choose your domain and server. There are no extra fields; xCloud generates the application secrets and the database credentials.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the web container and a php-worker from the same pinned image, add PostgreSQL 16 and Valkey 8 with no host ports, keep application state on the database_data volume and publish the web interface over HTTPS.
Step 03
Register And Start Watching
Allow one to two minutes for the first start to run migrations and download the RDAP server list. Open the HTTPS URL, register your own account, then set REGISTRATION_ENABLED=false and redeploy to close sign-ups before you create your first watchlist.

Everything Domain Watchdog Does, On Your Own Server

Domain Watchdog runs in full here: RDAP-based domain tracking with a background worker, on a domain and a server you control.

Domain History Over RDAP
Domain Watchdog uses RDAP to collect public information about a domain and track its history, from creation through renewals, status and ownership changes.
Watchlists
Group the domains you care about into watchlists and let scheduled background checks keep them up to date.
Expiry And Change Alerts
Get notified about expirations and changes by email, webhook, calendar feed or RSS. Email needs MAILER_DSN to be set first.
Registrar Connectors
Store registrar API credentials per account for the connectors that need them, such as the auto-purchase feature upstream describes.
A Background Worker
A dedicated php-worker container runs the scheduled checks and notifications next to the web app, with Valkey as the job queue.
Per-Account Sign-In
Every user registers their own account, and the verify run confirmed that wrong credentials are rejected and protected API calls without a token return 401.

Everything You Need To Run Your Domain Watching 24/7

Managed hosting for Domain Watchdog, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Domain Watchdog v1.4.5 deployed instantly
Worker, PostgreSQL and Valkey included
Application secrets generated for you
Persistent database volume
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Domain Watchdog

Watch a domain portfolio for expirations
Put every domain you own into watchlists and get an alert before one lapses.
Follow registration and ownership changes
Keep the history of status and ownership changes for domains you depend on or care about.
Send alerts to the tools you already use
Route notifications by email, webhook, calendar feed or RSS instead of checking a dashboard.
Wait for a taken domain to become free
Track a domain that is currently registered and see its history until it is released.

Domain Watchdog Screenshots

Domain Watchdog watchlist page after signing in

Domain Watchdog vs Alternatives

Registrar expiry emails: Each registrar warns only about the domains registered with it; Domain Watchdog watches domains across registrars from one instance.
Manual WHOIS or RDAP lookups: A lookup shows today's record only; upstream notes the protocols cannot give a detailed history of events, which Domain Watchdog accumulates.
Uptime Kuma: Watches whether a service responds. Domain Watchdog tracks the registration data of domain names instead.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Domain Watchdog hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom if Domain Watchdog sits alongside other monitoring apps.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Domain Watchdog itself is licensed by its maintainers under AGPL-3.0.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Domain Watchdog on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

1 server
10 sites

Start free

Starter

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

6–10 servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

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Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

11+ servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Domain Monitor?

Domain Watchdog on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Does Domain Watchdog come with an admin account?

No. The first user registers on the site. Set REGISTRATION_ENABLED=false once your own account exists, because until then anyone who can reach the site can create an account.

What runs alongside the web app?

A background worker from the same image, plus PostgreSQL 16 and Valkey 8. None of them has a host port, and only the web interface is reachable over HTTPS.

Why are my alert emails not arriving?

Outgoing mail is discarded until MAILER_DSN and the sender address are set in the environment file. Email verification needs the same setting.

Can visitors run lookups without signing in?

Not by default. PUBLIC_RDAP_LOOKUP_ENABLED is false unless you change it.

What should I back up?

The database_data volume, which holds accounts, watchlists, domain history and stored connector settings, together with the stable .env values (DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, APP_SECRET, JWT_PASSPHRASE). Valkey is a transient job queue and is not persisted.

Backups in xCloud

Why was I signed out after a redeploy?

The signing keys are generated inside the web container, so redeploying or recreating it signs everyone out. Sign in again; no data is lost.

Is open sign-up a risk?

Yes, until you close it. Signed-in users can add webhooks that make outgoing requests from your server, and calendar and RSS feed links are readable by anyone who has the link. Basic Auth at the access layer is not enabled by this template.

What survives a restart?

Your watchlists, domain history and accounts. The verify run restarted the web and worker containers and the watchlist was still there.

Does xCloud automatically back up or update Domain Watchdog?

No. The template pins Domain Watchdog v1.4.5 by immutable digest; new installations use the pinned release and existing sites are not automatically upgraded. To upgrade, read the upstream release notes, then bump the readable tag and digest together on your own schedule. Server-level backups and snapshots are available on every Cloud VPS.

What are the server requirements, and why does this page sell 6 GB?

The template's baseline asks for 1 CPU core, 2048 MB of RAM and 10 GB of disk; measured idle use in QA was about 245 MiB across the four containers. This page sells the 6 GB tier as the entry rung, with real headroom above that baseline.

Is xCloud officially partnered with Domain Watchdog?

No. No official partnership or endorsement between xCloud and the Domain Watchdog project has been verified. This is a deployment and server-management option for the open-source Domain Watchdog project.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.