The way domains resolve at Netlify is as follows:
User enters example.com in browser → DNS lookup gives browser the server’s IP Address (in this case, Netlify’s) → browser contacts Netlify to serve that domain → Netlify receives the request and maps the requested domain to the database to see which site the domain is connected to → if match found, Netlify serves the website, if match not found, Netlify serves the not found page.
In your case, it absolutely is your decision on what kind of a configuration you’re looking for. Both would work fine, both have their pros and cons. In short, if you’re going to host a lot of subdomains on that domain on Netlify, then Netlify DNS might be a better choice as the DNS would be managed automatically. If not, the choice you make won’t have a huge impact.
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Having read through this thread, I’m still confused about whether I need to have a “DNS Zone” in my site config. I have a static website hosted on netlify, called (let’s say) my-site and I own the domain name my-site.co.uk. My Netlify site is called my-site-co-uk and so appears at my-site-co-uk.netlify.app.
I want to completely manage the DNS externally, via the domain registrar I got the domain from (for various reasons not relevant here). However, in my Netlify config for the site, I created a “DNS Zone” but it has no records, do I need to have this zone or can I delete it? My DNS setup has an ALIAS record pointing to apex-loadbalancer.netlify.com and all seems to work. However, in my Netlify config for the site, in the “Production domains” part, it shows both my-site.co.uk and www.my-site.co.uk as being managed by Netlify DNS.
I suspect that I don’t need the zone, but if I delete it then Netlify has no knowledge of my domain my-site.co.uk does it? Will that break things? Or is it okay to have a zone with no DNS records?
Also, clearly this domain is not managed by Netlify DNS, it is all set up via the domain reg (fasthosts).
I would love some assistance on this, or just a clearer explanation of what having a “DNS Zone” means in this particular case. I haven’t been able to discern a definitive answer through the online docs (which I would say are generally excellent).
You’ve answered your own question. You don’t wish to use Netlify DNS, thus no DNS zone.
You should delete it.
Deleting it won’t break anything.
Thanks!
However that leaves me with another question… if someone tries to go to my apex domain, how does apex-loadbalancer know how to route the request to my app?
By matching the host header with the custom domain set in our database.
Okay, thanks again, I have deleted the DNS Zone and now I think I understand how it all comes together. I think 