.soft
Is .soft a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.soft is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry and Link Freedom Group. Identity Digital named .soft as a backup string for four of its applications: .firm, .edge, .portfolio and .maker. ICANN deactivated those backups, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
One of the two already run TLDs, 11.96M names between them. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A short, likable English word with software and lifestyle appeal, but more a clever budget pick than a serious project's first-choice address.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .soft’s closest 2012 strings hold .cool 23K, .software 27K and .fast 2K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .cool, held 23,197 names, June 2026. .software held 27,350; .fast held 2,447. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet in its purest reading: a bare, ownerless English quality adjective with no industry attached, sold as an open registry whose value comes from tone and short left-of-dot pairings rather than from any category of business that must adopt it as primary identity.
Covers the other live reading of .soft as a clipped form of 'software' — same buyer (software vendors and product companies) and same category-namespace logic, but a full unambiguous category noun rather than a truncation that also carries a non-tech meaning.
Another one-syllable descriptive adjective doing double duty as a tech-quality signal and a consumer-goods modifier, where success depends on registrants inventing brandable phrases rather than on an existing industry migrating onto it.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .soft included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
software makers and brands with 'soft'-suffixed names looking for a name hack, plus lifestyle and aesthetic creators drawn to the word's gentle, calming connotation
What a .soft domain is
.soft is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .soft domain extension real yet?
.soft is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .soft domain?
You can’t yet. A .soft 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 .soft was .cool, delegated on 23 January 2014.
Is .soft a real TLD?
Not yet. .soft is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .soft is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Identity Digital · fact correctedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T98497 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-218 XL2625T-T69224 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-218”ICANN
The source’s 6 linesHide the lines
LFGL2683T-T98497 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-218 NS2662T-T21198 · Neigh Sayer, LLC · replacement string of .maker · Deactivated NS2662T-T52874 · Neigh Sayer, LLC · replacement string of .portfolio · Deactivated NS2662T-T79522 · Neigh Sayer, LLC · replacement string of .edge · Deactivated NS2662T-T95360 · Neigh Sayer, LLC · replacement string of .firm · Deactivated XL2625T-T69224 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-218
“.soft · Lifestyle · “Code that powers possibility.””Link Freedom Group
- I place .soft in the 30-49 band (usable but limited) over the next 5 years. The string has two plausible readings: a software shorthand (the applicant's own tagline, 'Code that powers possibility.', leans this way despite the 'Lifestyle' catalog category) and a lifestyle/aesthetic word. By analogy, longer software-adjacent generic TLDs have historically drawn steady but modest registration volume, heavy on discount-driven signups, with thin aftermarkets and few flagship primary identities; .soft would likely track that pattern, helped somewhat by being shorter and a real word. Its most distinctive upside is the brand-hack pattern, since many software companies use 'soft' as a name suffix, so a two-part hack of an existing brand name is conceivable, though by analogy with other suffix-hack TLDs that behavior tends to produce redirects and vanity uses rather than primary identities. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no evident sustained community or category for which .soft is a natural primary identity; adoption would need explaining and demand looks price-sensitive rather than pulled. It is not in the 10-29 band because the string is short, memorable, dictionary-real, and dual-use across tech and culture, which by analogy supports genuine if modest registration demand beyond joke or event-driven use. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its list ahead of Reveal Day; a portfolio applicant of that breadth is stated here neutrally and mainly implies this string competes for marketing attention within a large catalog, which tempers adoption expectations. My main market uncertainty is which reading wins: if the software-suffix brand-hack reading dominates and a few visible developer tools or studios adopt name.soft as a primary identity, the ceiling rises toward strong-niche; if the lifestyle reading dominates, demand likely stays shallow and price-driven.