DNS Monitor vs Spreadsheet Tracking

Tracking DNS records in a spreadsheet is one of those practices that starts reasonably and slowly becomes a liability. When you have five domains and a small team, a shared Google Sheet or Excel file with columns for domain, record type, value, and last updated feels perfectly adequate. It is simple, flexible, and everyone knows how to use it.

The problem is that spreadsheets are static documents in a dynamic world. DNS records change in real time. Spreadsheets update only when someone remembers to update them. That gap between reality and documentation is where incidents hide.

Feature Comparison

Capability	DNS Monitor	Spreadsheet Tracking
Real-time accuracy	✓	✗ (manual updates)
Automatic change detection	✓	✗
Alerts on unexpected changes	✓	✗
Change history with diffs	✓	✗ (version history only)
Propagation tracking	✓	✗
Custom notes and context	Limited	✓
Flexible formatting	✗	✓
Works offline	✗	✓
No cost	✗	✓
Scales with domain count	✓	✗

What Spreadsheets Do Well

Spreadsheets are not useless for DNS management. They have real advantages in specific contexts, and dismissing them entirely would be dishonest:

Flexible documentation

A spreadsheet lets you add any column you want: owner, purpose, ticket number, expiration date, notes about why a record exists. This contextual information is valuable and hard to replicate in a monitoring tool.

Accessible to everyone

Every team member knows how to use a spreadsheet. There is no learning curve, no new tool to onboard, and no account to create.

Good for planning

When planning a DNS migration or audit, a spreadsheet is an excellent working document. You can map out current state, desired state, and track progress through the migration.

Zero cost

Google Sheets is free. Excel comes with most business software subscriptions. There is no additional expense to start tracking DNS records this way.

Spreadsheets are great for planning, not monitoring

A spreadsheet excels as a planning and documentation tool. It fails as a monitoring tool. Recognizing this distinction helps you use each appropriately.

Where Spreadsheets Break Down

The problems with spreadsheet-based DNS tracking are not hypothetical. They are patterns that repeat in every organization that relies on them beyond a handful of domains.

Data goes stale immediately

The moment someone makes a DNS change and forgets to update the spreadsheet, your documentation is wrong. And people always forget. The spreadsheet becomes a record of what DNS should look like, not what it actually looks like.

No one knows when records actually changed

Spreadsheet version history shows when someone edited a cell. It does not show when the actual DNS record changed. If a record was modified three days before someone noticed and updated the spreadsheet, you have lost the real timeline.

Changes go undetected

A spreadsheet cannot detect DNS changes. If an unauthorized modification is made, a misconfiguration is introduced, or a record expires, the spreadsheet sits there with outdated information, offering no warning.

It does not scale

Managing 10 domains with 5 record types each means 50 rows to keep current. At 100 domains, you have 500 or more rows that need constant maintenance. At scale, the spreadsheet becomes a full-time job that no one wants.

Multiple versions create confusion

Teams inevitably create copies, forks, and local versions of the spreadsheet. Within weeks, no one is confident which version is authoritative. The "single source of truth" becomes multiple sources of uncertainty.

The stale data problem is real

In our experience, most DNS spreadsheets are at least partially outdated within a week of being created. After a month, they are more fiction than fact.

Replace Stale Spreadsheets with Live Data

DNS Monitor shows you what your DNS records actually are, right now, with change history that updates automatically.

When to Choose Spreadsheet Tracking

You are planning a DNS migration

Spreadsheets are excellent planning tools for mapping current state to desired state during migrations. Use them for the plan, not for ongoing tracking.

You need to document business context

If you need to record why a record exists, who owns it, and what ticket authorized it, a spreadsheet's flexibility is valuable. Use it alongside automated monitoring, not instead of it.

You have very few domains with rare changes

If you manage two personal domains that change once a year, a spreadsheet is probably fine. The risk of stale data is low when changes are infrequent.

When to Choose DNS Monitor

You need to know what DNS actually says, not what it should say

DNS Monitor queries your actual DNS records in real time. It shows you reality, not a document someone may or may not have updated.

You need to detect unexpected changes

Spreadsheets cannot alert you to DNS changes. DNS Monitor detects changes automatically and notifies you immediately.

You manage DNS for a growing organization

As domains and records multiply, manual tracking becomes unsustainable. Automated monitoring scales without proportionally increasing your workload.

You need reliable audit history

DNS Monitor maintains an accurate timeline of every change it detects, including diff views showing old and new values. This is audit data you can trust, unlike spreadsheet edit timestamps.

The Practical Migration Path

If your team currently tracks DNS in spreadsheets, you do not need to throw them away overnight. A practical approach is to layer monitoring on top:

Set up automated monitoring

Add your domains to DNS Monitor. It immediately starts tracking the actual state of your records.

Keep the spreadsheet for context

Continue using the spreadsheet for business context like record ownership, purpose, and authorization. This information complements the live data from monitoring.

Let monitoring be the source of truth

When there is a discrepancy between the spreadsheet and monitoring data, monitoring is correct. The spreadsheet documents intent; monitoring documents reality.

Gradually reduce spreadsheet maintenance

As your team builds confidence in the monitoring data, the spreadsheet naturally becomes a planning document rather than an operational one.

Our Honest Take

We understand why teams use spreadsheets for DNS tracking. It is the path of least resistance, and it works well enough in the early days. But "well enough" has an expiration date. The first time an undetected DNS change causes an outage, or a compliance audit reveals your documentation does not match reality, the spreadsheet approach shows its limits. DNS Monitor does not replace the contextual documentation that spreadsheets provide. It replaces the false confidence that a manually maintained document accurately reflects your live DNS state.

Use spreadsheets for planning and documentation. Use monitoring for truth. Your DNS is too important to trust to a document that is only as current as the last person who remembered to update it.

From Spreadsheets to Automated Monitoring

DNS Monitor shows you what your DNS records actually say, not what someone wrote down last month. Automated change detection, real-time accuracy, zero manual maintenance.

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