Gandi vs 123-reg
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Gandi and 123-reg.
Quick Verdict
3.2/5
Gandi
0 reviews
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
Gandi is rated higher (3.2 vs 3.0). Free WHOIS privacy and free Anycast DNS (LiveDNS with DNSSEC) on every domain; SSL free for the first year only; the formerly included free mailboxes were withdrawn in 2023 and email is now a paid subscription 123-reg registers .uk and international domains with integrated hosting options.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.
Gandi French registrar — no bullshit policy since 1999 | 123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $11/mo | From $0.01/mo✓ |
| Best for | EU and privacy-conscious buyers with a handful of names who want a principled, GDPR-native registrar with strong free DNS and are willing to pay above-market renewals | 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 | eu datacentergdpr compliantapi access | eu datacenter |
| Visit Gandi → | Visit 123-reg → | |
Gandi
Pros
- + No checkout upsell carousel; transparent per-TLD price list with a public A-E volume discount grid (up to 50% off)
- + Free WHOIS privacy, free Anycast LiveDNS with DNSSEC and automatic DNS backups, unlimited aliases and forwarding with every domain
- + Long, mostly reliable track record: registered 1999, ICANN-accredited (IANA ID 81), GDPR-native French jurisdiction
- + Solid automation: public API across domains, DNS, email and billing, plus bulk portfolio actions
Cons
- - Renewals are among the highest in our comparison: .com renews at $38.38/yr, about 3.5x at-cost
- - Included mailboxes were removed in 2023, including for customers who had prepaid multi-year registrations
- - Volume discounts only start at $600 annual spend; small portfolios pay full price
- - Paid email and post-first-year SSL add-ons cost more than standalone specialists
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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