IBM NS1 Connect Managed DNS + Traffic Steering
IBM SoftwareExternal reviews
80 reviews
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Consistent Service But Account Management is Cumbersome Since IBM Acquisition
What do you like best about the product?
I've found NS1 DNS services to be consistent over the last 10 years at two companies.
What do you dislike about the product?
Account management and renewal is VERY cumbersome because of the acquisition with IBM. I was hassled about billing by someone on LINKEDIN about our bill which is extremely insecure. If my LI account had been compromised, a bad actor could have misled the IBM employee and caused an outage affecting over ONE MILLION medical patients.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Website redirects are working very well and the NS1 API is really easy to use.
Seamless DNS Management with Robust API
What do you like best about the product?
I find the API feature of IBM NS1 Connect to be the most useful, as it uses Standard REST API for managing DNS resources and making changes like adding, removing, and modifying DNS records. We successfully migrated to NS1 seamlessly using the API import features, which was a big plus.
What do you dislike about the product?
Analytics of DNS queries, answers, source IP address hits to DNS zone/record-related info is not present. If that data could have been provided it would help a lot.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
IBM NS1 Connect acts as an authoritative DNS, handles traffic steering, and uses a REST API to manage DNS resources efficiently.
Robust DNS Solution with Some UI Hiccups
What do you like best about the product?
I really like that IBM NS1 Connect supports the full range of DNS record types, making it easy to manage redirects, aliases, CNAMEs, and multiple A records. The clear UI is a big plus, and having access to metrics about query count helps us understand how clients are using DNS, which is crucial for making decisions about deleting records. The fantastic uptime is essential, especially since downtime could significantly impact our revenue. Also, the initial setup was very easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
There are some UI bugs, the hydration pattern in the UI is a bit flaky, and records can be slow to load.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM NS1 Connect for all our customer-facing DNS, supporting e-commerce and hosting domains. It supports all DNS record types for redirects and aliases, provides metrics for query analysis, ensures fantastic uptime, and prevents revenue impact from DNS downtime.
Great API Docs and UI for Managing DNS Records
What do you like best about the product?
IBM NS1 Connect has good API documentation and a good UI to manage your DNS records.
What do you dislike about the product?
The page to load your zones takes a while to load if you have a lot of zones. Perhaps pagination and allowing to search would be helpful.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It allows us to manage DNS records dynamically and in real time.
Reliable, Secure, and User-Friendly DNS Management
What do you like best about the product?
I would say I really appreciate the ease of use of IBM NS1 Connect and the added features it has developed over time. The sustainability and security it provides make it a dependable tool for us. Anytime I need to make an entry for compatibility with third-party entities, it's always seamless. I never really need to contact support because there's always a knowledge-based article available, and the user interface is so easy that it's hard to make a mistake.
What do you dislike about the product?
I have no complaints or dislikes about NS1 Connect.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM NS1 Connect to manage DNS records for connectivity with multiple third-party entities. It's dependable and simplifies ensuring compatibility, making connections seamless for transactions, website access, and API links.
Great API Potential, But Developer Account Setup and Support Fell Short
What do you like best about the product?
The product integration features including the API functions are very attractive to me as a network engineer.
I intend to integrate NS1 into our network source-of-truth to enhance provisioning processes.
I intend to integrate NS1 into our network source-of-truth to enhance provisioning processes.
What do you dislike about the product?
I need to have a development environment set up to test automations. The NS1 website just led me around in circles and sent me to a chat bot when I tried to sign up for a developer account.
Instead, I reached out to the sales team indicating I was a current customer and needed the developer account. There was no response.
Hopefully that is not indicative of the level of support that the product has. I am a subject matter expert on DNS myself and I know this could just be a deficiency in the sales or support process.
Instead, I reached out to the sales team indicating I was a current customer and needed the developer account. There was no response.
Hopefully that is not indicative of the level of support that the product has. I am a subject matter expert on DNS myself and I know this could just be a deficiency in the sales or support process.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
NS1 seems to meet our needs for scalability and availability. It also seems to be very flexible. I withhold my opinion on the integrations pending resolution of my request for a developer account.
I was impressed with the documentation for the product; it seems to have all the features that we require as a service provider.
I was impressed with the documentation for the product; it seems to have all the features that we require as a service provider.
IBM NS1 Connect Improved Our Global Traffic Stability
What do you like best about the product?
We’ve been using IBM NS1 Connect to manage our global application traffic, and it has made a noticeable difference in overall stability.
What do you dislike about the product?
Complexity and learning curve
The platform’s powerful “Filter Chain” system and its advanced steering policies are often seen as challenging for beginners or smaller teams to learn and use effectively, especially without significant network expertise.
The platform’s powerful “Filter Chain” system and its advanced steering policies are often seen as challenging for beginners or smaller teams to learn and use effectively, especially without significant network expertise.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Increased uptime and reduced latency are key benefits. DevOps efficiency also improves through automation via APIs (Terraform, Ansible).
Global resilience is strengthened by a 100% uptime SLA and 26 global PoPs, helping ensure applications remain accessible even during massive DDoS attacks. Cost control is another advantage, since organizations can optimize multi-CDN and multi-cloud usage based on real-time performance data and contractual commitments.
At the same time, there are clear limitations and risks with more traditional approaches. Static routing limitations mean traditional DNS relies on fixed rules that can’t account for real-time network congestion or ISP outages. Single points of failure are common when organizations depend on a single cloud or CDN, which increases vulnerability to major regional outages. Manual deployment risks also matter: managing global DNS records by hand is slow and error-prone, especially during rapid deployment cycles. Finally, performance inconsistency can occur when users in different geographic regions experience different latencies depending on which server they are routed to.
Global resilience is strengthened by a 100% uptime SLA and 26 global PoPs, helping ensure applications remain accessible even during massive DDoS attacks. Cost control is another advantage, since organizations can optimize multi-CDN and multi-cloud usage based on real-time performance data and contractual commitments.
At the same time, there are clear limitations and risks with more traditional approaches. Static routing limitations mean traditional DNS relies on fixed rules that can’t account for real-time network congestion or ISP outages. Single points of failure are common when organizations depend on a single cloud or CDN, which increases vulnerability to major regional outages. Manual deployment risks also matter: managing global DNS records by hand is slow and error-prone, especially during rapid deployment cycles. Finally, performance inconsistency can occur when users in different geographic regions experience different latencies depending on which server they are routed to.
NS1 Makes DNS Automation Easy with a DNS-as-Code Approach
What do you like best about the product?
NS1 was built for automation. Unlike older legacy systems where you might have to click through a dashboard to update records, NS1 treats DNS as code.
What do you dislike about the product?
I didn’t find anything wrong with NS1. It’s reliable and good.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): It integrates seamlessly with Terraform and Ansible.
Real-time Updates: Changes propagate globally within seconds, which is especially important during emergency failovers or blue-green deployments.
Real-time Updates: Changes propagate globally within seconds, which is especially important during emergency failovers or blue-green deployments.
Real-Time Traffic Steering That Reroutes Before Alerts Fire
What do you like best about the product?
The real-time traffic steering based on actual endpoint health is what keeps us loyal, when something goes down, NS1 reroutes traffic before our monitoring alerts even fire.
What do you dislike about the product?
The monitoring capabilities feel native, like you end up relying on third-party observability tools to fill gaps that really should be built into the platform itself.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Managing traffic across multiple cloud regions used to mean constant manual DNS updates whenever an endpoint went unhealthy, NS1 Connect handles that automatically now, keeping our applications available without anyone having to jump in at 2am. The benefit has been tangible: fewer outages, faster recovery times, and an ops team that finally sleeps through the night.
Finally, a DNS Solution That Keeps Up With Our Scale.
What do you like best about the product?
What I like best about IBM NS1 Connect is its intelligent traffic routing, the Filter Chain architecture gives you surgical control over how DNS queries are resolved, something you simply don't get with conventional DNS providers.
What do you dislike about the product?
The pricing structure can feel opaque for smaller teams, and the learning curve around Filter Chain configuration can be steep without dedicated onboarding support.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Before NS1 Connect, managing DNS traffic across regions was a constant firefight, now it practically runs itself, and our team can finally focus on building rather than troubleshooting.
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