DNS Propagation Checker

Verify DNS propagation across 10+ global resolvers for any domain and record type. During migrations and DNS changes, inconsistent records across providers cause downtime, email failures, and SSL issues that are hard to diagnose without multi-resolver visibility. Run scheduled checks from the cloud with no infrastructure to maintain.

Features

• Global resolver coverage — queries Google, Cloudflare, OpenDNS, Quad9, and 6 more resolvers across North America and Europe
• All major record types — supports A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, TXT, NS, SOA, and PTR lookups
• Propagation status — compares results across all resolvers and flags inconsistencies automatically
• Response time tracking — measures query latency per resolver for performance insights
• Bulk domain processing — check hundreds of domains in a single run
• Configurable timeouts — adjust query timeout to handle slow or unresponsive resolvers
• Zero dependencies — uses Node.js built-in DNS module for maximum reliability

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
domains	array	Yes	["google.com"]	List of domain names to check DNS propagation for
recordTypes	array	No	["A"]	DNS record types to query (A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, TXT, NS, SOA, PTR)
timeout	integer	No	5000	Query timeout in milliseconds. Increase for slow resolvers

Input Example

{
  "domains": ["example.com", "staging.example.com"],
  "recordTypes": ["A", "MX", "TXT"],
  "timeout": 5000
}

Output

Each domain and record type combination produces one dataset item with propagation status and per-resolver results.

Key fields:

• domain (string) — the domain that was checked
• recordType (string) — the DNS record type queried
• propagated (boolean) — whether all resolvers returned identical results
• checkedAt (string) — ISO 8601 timestamp of the check
• servers (array) — individual resolver responses with name, IP, region, result, response time, and errors

Output Example

{
  "domain": "example.com",
  "recordType": "A",
  "propagated": true,
  "checkedAt": "2025-03-09T14:30:00.000Z",
  "servers": [
    {
      "name": "Google Primary",
      "ip": "8.8.8.8",
      "region": "Global",
      "result": ["93.184.216.34"],
      "responseTimeMs": 42
    },
    {
      "name": "Cloudflare Primary",
      "ip": "1.1.1.1",
      "region": "Global",
      "result": ["93.184.216.34"],
      "responseTimeMs": 18
    },
    {
      "name": "Quad9",
      "ip": "9.9.9.9",
      "region": "Global",
      "result": ["93.184.216.34"],
      "responseTimeMs": 35
    }
  ]
}

Pricing

Event	Cost
Domain Check	Included in platform usage

Free to use — you pay only for Apify platform compute time.

Use Cases

• Domain migration monitoring — verify DNS changes have propagated globally before cutting over traffic
• Email infrastructure setup — confirm MX and TXT records are consistent across resolvers after configuring new email providers
• CDN rollout validation — check that CNAME records are live in all regions before directing production traffic
• Scheduled health checks — run daily or weekly to catch DNS drift, hijacking, or misconfiguration early
• Multi-domain portfolio management — audit DNS consistency across hundreds of client domains in one run

Related Actors

Actor	What it adds
SSL Certificate Monitor	Check SSL expiry and security grades after confirming DNS is propagated
Subdomain Finder	Discover all subdomains to feed into DNS propagation checks
DMARC / SPF / DKIM Validator	Validate email authentication records alongside DNS propagation