Azure DNS alternative
An Azure DNS Alternative When the Subscription Owner Has Moved On
Azure DNS costs $0.50 a month per zone for the first 25 and $0.40 per million queries (October 2026). It supports DNSSEC, alias records, role-based access, activity logs, and resource locks, and Microsoft documents every one of them carefully. What it expects in return is someone comfortable in the Azure portal who makes the edits and keeps an eye on them. Managed DNS is that someone.
With Cascadia you get
- Changes within two business days
- A zone copy before every change
- Records checked every morning
- 90 days of daily history
- No per-change fee
- Your zone, your account
Cascadia vs Azure DNS at a Glance
Three Questions That Decide It
Do Your Applications Run in Azure?
Who Can Sign in to the Subscription?
What Would You Rather Have?
Side by Side
| Azure DNS | Cascadia | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.50 a zone plus $0.40 per million queries (October 2026) | –$15 a month per domain |
| Who makes changes | –You, in the portal, CLI, or PowerShell | We do, within two business days |
| Copy before a change | ×Yours to export | Whole zone copied first, back in seconds |
| Daily drift check | ×Yours to build | Live records compared every morning |
| Change records | –Activity logs of actions taken | 90 days of record history, day by day |
| Access control | Azure RBAC and resource locks | –Changes go through us, on request |
| Buying the domain | ×Not available in Azure Public DNS | –Separate, under Domain Management |
Price
Who Makes Changes
Copy Before a Change
Daily Drift Check
Change Records
Access Control
Buying the Domain
What Ships in the Standard Plan Here
With Azure DNS you get a solid hosting service, access control, activity logs, and resource locks against accidental deletes. Who edits the records, and who checks the next morning that they still say the right thing, is left to you.
- Record changes made for you within two business days of asking
- A copy of the whole zone taken before anything is touched
- That copy put back in seconds if a change goes wrong
- Live records compared every morning with what we last set
- A ticket naming the record when something moves outside the portal
- Ninety days of history for every record, day by day
- Email and verification records set up by people who know your zone
- Nameservers, proxy, and TTL settings checked and kept sensible
- Every record visible in your portal whenever you want to look
- No per-change fee and no ticket allowance to count against
Where Cascadia Goes Further
Resource locks protect a zone from accidental deletes and edits, and they are worth turning on. They do not check whether the records inside still match what you meant. That is what our daily comparison is for.
Changes Made in Plain Words
No portal, role assignment, or PowerShell. You say which record you need, and it is in place within two business days, checked against what it was meant to do.
The Zone Is Copied First
Before any change we take a copy of the whole zone. If a change misbehaves, the copy goes back in seconds rather than being rebuilt from an activity log and memory.
Logs Show Actions, We Check Results
An activity log tells you who modified a resource. Our morning comparison looks at the live records, so a missing MX record gets noticed even when nobody can say how it went.
Ninety Days of Readable History
What each record said on each day for the last 90 days, visible in your portal. Useful when someone asks what the SPF record looked like before last month's change.
Who This Comparison Is For
It Belongs Next to Azure Workloads
Alias records can point at an Azure public IP or a CDN endpoint and follow it when the address changes. If your application runs in Azure, keeping DNS there is the sensible call.
Access Control Is Thorough
Role-based access, activity logs, and resource locks come from Azure Resource Manager. Larger teams with strict permissions get a lot out of that.
You Still Buy the Domain Somewhere Else
Azure Public DNS does not sell domain names. Microsoft points you to App Service domains or a third-party registrar, so registration and DNS usually live in two places. With us, Domain Management covers registration, and Domain Pro bundles the two.
Choose Azure DNS if
- Your applications already run in Azure
- You need fine-grained role-based access
- An administrator on staff looks after the subscription
Choose Cascadia if
- The person who set up the subscription has left
- You want edits made for you within two business days
- You want a daily check on what the records say
Moving Your Zone Off Azure DNS in Four Steps
- 1
We Read the Zone as It Stands
Every record set, what it points at, and which are still in use. Alias records tied to Azure resources get flagged, because each one needs a plain equivalent before the move.
- 2
We Rebuild and Verify It
The zone goes up on the platform we run, in an account in your name, and every record is compared with the Azure original before a nameserver changes.
- 3
The Nameservers Switch
Once the copy matches, the nameservers change at your registrar. Azure keeps answering for anyone with the old ones cached, so the move happens without downtime.
- 4
The Azure Zone Can Be Retired
When you are happy, the zone can be removed from the subscription. From then on you ask, we change, and the records are compared every morning with what we set.
What Clients Say About Working with Cascadia
“I’ve always dreaded website management, but Cascadia has done an incredible job with my WordPress site, making it one less thing for me to worry about.”
“I’ve worked with Cascadia for several years now. They are always ready to help in any way I ask and can implement my ideas with ease. A company that values their clients!”
“Cascadia has been great to work with! We recently needed some updates, and Cascadia was quick to get them completed! We highly recommend Cascadia Web Services.”
“Cascadia is very responsive and we’re happy with them as our primary IT vendor.”
“They do great work, been using for years. Prompt responses to requests.”
Ready to Move from Azure DNS?
Talk to us about your setupAsk us
Azure DNS Alternative Questions
Straight answers about switching, pricing, and what moves with you.
See Managed DNSStill have a question?
What is an Azure DNS alternative?
Somewhere else to host the zone, or someone else to look after it. The list runs from Amazon Route 53 and Google Cloud DNS, through DNS specialists such as DNSimple and NS1 Connect, to the DNS your registrar includes and managed services like this one. Azure DNS is inexpensive and well documented. We are a different kind of purchase: the work, not the hosting.
How is Cascadia different from Azure DNS?
Azure DNS is a resource in your subscription that you operate. We make the record changes you ask for within two business days, copy the whole zone before each one, compare the live records every morning, and keep 90 days of history.
Is Azure DNS cheaper?
Yes. A zone is $0.50 a month for the first 25 and $0.10 after that, and queries are $0.40 per million for the first billion (October 2026). Managed DNS is $15 a month per domain. The gap pays for people doing the edits and watching the records.
We already use resource locks. Isn't that enough?
Locks are a good guard against an accidental delete or edit, and we would leave them on in your position. They do not take a copy before a deliberate change, and they do not tell you whether today's records match last week's. Those are the two things we add.
Our applications run in Azure. Should we move?
Probably not. Alias records that track Azure resources, private DNS for your virtual networks, and Traffic Manager all work best with DNS in Azure. We suit a business whose public zone is in Azure for historical reasons and gets changed a few times a year.
Can you move us off Azure DNS without downtime?
Yes, when it is planned, and we always plan it. Records are copied across and checked against the Azure originals before the nameservers change, and Azure keeps answering until the switch has settled.
Can we buy our domain through you instead?
Not under Managed DNS. Registration and renewal are Domain Management, and Domain Pro bundles Managed DNS, Edge Protection, and Domain Management together. Azure DNS does not sell domains either, so either way the name is registered somewhere.
Do we lose control of our DNS?
No. Leaving Azure DNS does not mean handing the zone to us. It sits in an account in your name, every record is visible in your portal at any time, and you are asking us to do the work rather than giving up ownership.
What counts as a change we can ask for?
Anything in the zone. A records, CNAMEs, MX, TXT, and SRV, the verification record a new service asks for, a subdomain for a staging site. There is no per-change fee and no ticket allowance, so nobody has to ration requests.
Will you tell us when a record changes unexpectedly?
Yes. The comparison runs every morning against what we last set. A record that changed or vanished becomes a ticket from us, naming what moved and what it said before.
What is not included?
Private DNS zones, Traffic Manager style load balancing, and health checks. Domain registration, which is Domain Management. Mailboxes. We do set up the records your mail provider and other services need.
Can we stop at any time?
Yes. It is monthly, and the zone is yours. If you leave, the records stay exactly where they are and our access simply ends. The first change after that is yours to make, so it is worth knowing who that will be.
Ready to hand the records to someone?
Fifteen dollars a month per domain. Changes within two business days, a copy of the zone before each one, and a check every morning that nothing drifted.