.hardware
Is .hardware a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .hardware, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A clear dictionary word for tools and tech hardware, but most companies will treat it as a side address, not their main identity.
hardware startups and electronics makers, plus tool, fastener, and building-supply retailers wanting a descriptive product-category address
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “The fasteners and fittings behind every build.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: an uncountable trade/retail product-category noun with no single owner, sold to makers, suppliers and stores who want a descriptive namespace, and carrying the same dual literal/figurative read that makes registrant demand broad but shallow.
Another B2B/trade mass-noun category where the buyer is a supplier, distributor or dealer putting a descriptive shingle up rather than a brand, and success depends on the same thin-margin volume of small trade registrants.
The literal sibling half of the same industry pair — a tech-industry category mass noun whose registrant is a vendor or product team describing what it sells, betting that a whole industry's generic label is worth owning as an address.
What a .hardware domain is
.hardware is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. Nobody is chasing .hardware today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .hardware domain extension real yet?
.hardware is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .hardware domain?
You can’t yet. A .hardware name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .hardware was .tools, delegated on 23 January 2014.
Is .hardware a real TLD?
Not yet. .hardware is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .hardware and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.hardware · Manufacturing & Materials · “The fasteners and fittings behind every build.””Journey To The West Corporation
- The string carries a useful double meaning: physical hardware (fasteners, tools, building supply — the applicant's framing) and computer/electronics hardware, where the buyers are better funded. By analogy to other descriptive product-category TLDs (.tools, .equipment, .supplies), such strings tend to attract modest, price-sensitive registration volume and defensive or campaign use rather than primary identities — flagged as analogy, registration figures unknown. The tech-hardware angle gives it more upside than pure manufacturing descriptors, since hardware startups occasionally embrace category-word domains, but by analogy those companies overwhelmingly default to mainstream TLDs for their primary brand. This places it in the 30-49 band: it clears 10-29 because it is a broad dictionary word with two real buyer pools and plausible if occasional primary-identity use, but it misses 50-69 because there is no visible sustained demand cluster or aftermarket, and any serious adoption still needs explaining. Main market uncertainty: whether tech-hardware companies — the higher-value segment — would ever adopt it at meaningful scale rather than leaving it to low-price defensive registrations.