123-reg vs Hover
A detailed comparison to help you choose between 123-reg and Hover.
Quick Verdict
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
3.2/5
Hover
0 reviews
Hover is rated higher (3.2 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. Hover is known for having the cleanest checkout experience in domain registration — no upsells, no bundled hosting pitches. Flat pricing, free WHOIS privacy, and email forwarding included.
123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | Hover Clean domain registrar — no upsells | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.0 (0 reviews) | 3.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $0.01/mo✓ | From $2.99/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. | Individuals and small businesses holding a few important domains who want a clean, upsell-free registrar experience and will pay modestly more for it |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | eu datacenter | — |
| Visit 123-reg → | Visit Hover → | |
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
Hover
Pros
- + Flat registration/renewal/transfer pricing on mainstream TLDs (.com $18.99/yr)
- + WHOIS privacy included free; $0.20 ICANN fee is the only surcharge
- + Clean checkout with no upsells or pre-checked add-ons
- + ICANN-accredited registrar backed by Tucows' wholesale infrastructure
- + Straightforward DNS and portfolio management, plus email forwarding
Cons
- - Above budget-registrar pricing on .com and other legacy TLDs
- - Public review scores are poor (Trustpilot 1.3 across ~120 reviews)
- - Promo-then-jump pricing on newer TLDs (.online $2.99 → $36.99 renewal)
- - No hosting, no notable reseller programme, thinner tooling for large portfolios
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