Skip to navigation
Preview & publish

Move your custom domain off Vercel

View as Markdown

Fern Docs sites are prebuilt as static pages and served from the edge, meaning:

  • Pages load faster.
  • A publish no longer slows your site down.
  • Every page is served with a stricter security policy.

Fern Docs hosting has moved from Vercel to Cloudflare.

All domains must point to cname.ferndocs.com by December 1, 2026. From that date, fern generate --docs fails for any domain that still points to Vercel. Your docs stay live on the current setup until you change the DNS record, so the switch causes no downtime.

Who’s affected

A domain needs to move if its DNS has either of these records:

  • A CNAME record to a vercel-dns.com host, such as cname.vercel-dns.com or b7278b3c9357963d.vercel-dns-013.com.
  • For a root domain, an A record to a Vercel IP address, such as 76.76.21.21.

Subpath domains (mydomain.com/docs) and domains served through a reverse proxy or your own CDN aren’t affected.

To check a domain, look up its DNS records:

dig +short CNAME docs.mydomain.com
dig +short A mydomain.com

Make the switch

An admin of your Fern organization needs to complete these steps.

1

Start the switch

Open the Fern Dashboard, select your docs site, and select Make the switch. If you started earlier and didn’t finish, the button reads Finish the switch.

2

Verify domain ownership

Add the TXT records the Dashboard shows to your DNS provider: one for domain ownership and one for the SSL certificate. The certificate record appears after ownership is verified. Then select Verify TXT records.

Provider guides for TXT records: Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route 53.

3

Update your CNAME record

Change your domain’s CNAME record to cname.ferndocs.com. For a root domain, use an ALIAS record or a flattened CNAME pointing to cname.ferndocs.com. Return to the Dashboard to confirm the DNS change.

CNAME   docs    cname.ferndocs.com

Provider guides for CNAME records: Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route 53. On Cloudflare, set the record’s proxy status to DNS only.

After the DNS change propagates, your site is served from Fern’s new hosting and fern generate --docs stops warning about the domain. For general DNS setup, see Set up a custom domain.

For help, reach out in your Fern Slack channel or email support@buildwithfern.com.