123-reg vs GoDaddy
A detailed comparison to help you choose between 123-reg and GoDaddy.
Quick Verdict
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
3.1/5
GoDaddy
0 reviews
GoDaddy is rated higher (3.1 vs 3.0). 123-reg registers .uk and international domains with integrated hosting options. Designed for UK small businesses and individuals seeking bundled services at competitive introductory prices. 82M+ domains (about 81M under management as of Dec 31, 2025)
123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | GoDaddy The world's largest domain registrar | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.0 (0 reviews) | 3.1 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $0.01/mo | From $0.01/mo |
| Best for | UK small businesses and individuals registering .co.uk/.uk names who want domains, email, and hosting bundled under one control panel and are comfortable budgeting at renewal prices. | Support-first buyers and domain investors who value phone support and portfolio tooling over renewal price |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | eu datacenter | mobile app |
| Visit 123-reg → | Visit GoDaddy → | |
123-reg
Pros
- + Established UK registrar since 2000 with 400+ extensions and consolidated domain, email, and hosting billing
- + Transparent first-year and renewal prices published together on 123-reg's own pages
- + Free .co.uk/.uk transfers in and free Nominet WHOIS privacy on UK domains
- + cPanel on hosting, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and DDoS protection with 24/7 monitoring on VPS
- + Bundles (domain + email + hosting + SSL) suit non-technical UK small businesses
Cons
- - Renewals jump sharply — .co.uk from £3.99 to £12.99/year, Economy hosting from £1.99/mo to £251.64 per 3-year term
- - WHOIS privacy for gTLDs costs extra (around £4.99/domain/year), compounding portfolio costs
- - UK-hours-only support with no published response-time SLA; phone support restricted to the UK
- - Backup advertising says daily; terms say files weekly and databases daily
- - April 2016 mass site-deletion incident across 67 servers remains on the reliability record
GoDaddy
Pros
- + World's largest registrar — about 81M domains under management, broad TLD coverage
- + Domain Privacy now included free on eligible domains and on by default
- + 24/7 phone support with local numbers in dozens of countries
- + Strong portfolio tooling: auctions, backorders, broker service, bulk management
Cons
- - Renewal pricing roughly double at-cost registrars (.com renews at $22.99/yr)
- - Intro offers require multi-year purchases; true first bill is far above the sticker price
- - Aggressive checkout upselling of protection tiers, email, and hosting
- - Best domain-protection features (change alerts, lock-down) are paid tiers
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