Cloudflare Registrar vs 123-reg
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Cloudflare Registrar and 123-reg.
Quick Verdict
4.4/5
Cloudflare Registrar
0 reviews
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
Cloudflare Registrar is rated higher (4.4 vs 3.0). Cloudflare Registrar sells domains at wholesale cost with zero markup on renewal — unique in the industry. No upsells, free WHOIS privacy, and integrated with Cloudflare DNS and CDN. Transfer existing domains. 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.
Cloudflare Registrar Domains at wholesale cost — no markup | 123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.4 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid (at-cost per domain, no subscription or account fee) | paid |
| Starting price | From $5.3/mo | From $0.01/mo✓ |
| Best for | Anyone who wants the lowest honest renewal price on standard domain extensions and is willing to run DNS on Cloudflare — which is most individuals, developers and small businesses. | 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. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | api access | eu datacenter |
| Visit Cloudflare Registrar → | Visit 123-reg → | |
Cloudflare Registrar
Pros
- + At-cost pricing with no renewal markup — .com is $10.46 at registration, renewal and transfer
- + Complete public price sheet per extension, including renewals and restore fees
- + New domain registrations supported, not just transfers
- + First-class integration with free Cloudflare DNS and one-click DNSSEC
- + No privacy or add-on upsells at checkout
Cons
- - Domains must use Cloudflare nameservers — no split-vendor DNS setups
- - No internationalized domain name (IDN) registrations
- - No aftermarket, backorder or broker tooling for domain investors
- - Restore fees ($40.00 for .com) are standard but punitive if auto-renew fails
- - Support depth is account-tier-based rather than registrar-specialized
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
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