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Find Available .dev Domain Names
What .dev signals to your audience
Google operates the .dev registry and built HTTPS-enforcement directly into the TLD at launch — every .dev domain must serve over HTTPS or browsers refuse to load it. That constraint is a feature for developer tooling: it guarantees visitors that the site is encrypted, which aligns with developer expectations around secure-by-default infrastructure. The TLD has accumulated strong semantic meaning: it reads as "a tool built for developers" — used by OSS project homepages, CLI documentation sites, API references, and personal developer portfolios. That association is valuable if your audience is engineers; less so if your primary buyer is a procurement manager who has never seen a .dev URL.
When .dev is the right fit — and when it is not
Developer libraries, open-source project pages, internal documentation sites, and individual engineer portfolios are natural .dev territory. The TLD shortens the signal-to-noise path: a developer who sees "stripe.dev" or "tailwind.dev" immediately understands the intent. The friction appears in B2B SaaS aimed at non-technical buyers. Decision-makers in finance, HR, or operations may not parse .dev as a legitimate business URL — they associate unfamiliar TLDs with unfinished projects or niche communities. If your growth plan includes buyer-facing marketing to non-developers, owning a .com in parallel and using .dev for docs or the developer portal is a reasonable split.
Trade-offs before committing to .dev
Three trade-offs deserve explicit evaluation. First, .dev domains carry a price premium — typically two to three times the cost of a comparable .com on most registrars, and renewal pricing follows the same curve. Second, non-developer audiences occasionally read ".dev" as shorthand for "under development", treating it as a staging environment URL rather than production. Third, the HTTPS requirement means you cannot stand up a temporary HTTP placeholder while your SSL certificate provisions — minor friction, but worth noting if your deployment pipeline is not already certificate-automated. None of these is a reason to avoid .dev if your audience is developers; they are reasons to plan for them.
Common questions
Is .dev only for developer-facing products?
Not exclusively, but that is where it performs best. If your audience includes non-technical stakeholders who approve purchasing, the TLD can cause confusion. Using .dev for the developer portal while .com handles the marketing site is a common pattern for products that serve both audiences.
Why is .dev priced higher than .com?
Google sets the registry pricing for .dev and charges registrars more than legacy TLD operators charge for .com. Registrars pass that cost to end buyers. The premium is typically $15–$30 per year above a comparable .com, and renewal pricing is similar — check your registrar's renewal rate, not just the first-year promotional price.
Will customers think a .dev site is unfinished?
Among developers, no. Among non-technical buyers, the risk exists but is small — most people do not notice TLDs. Pair the domain with a polished site and professional branding to make the URL irrelevant to trust signals. The risk is higher if your site looks like a staging environment regardless of TLD.
Do I still need .com if I have .dev?
For purely developer-focused projects — OSS libraries, dev tools, personal portfolios — .dev alone is sufficient. For products with a commercial dimension or non-developer buyers, registering the .com for redirects is cheap insurance. Competitors or squatters can register the .com for your project name and create confusion in search results.