NameSilo vs 123-reg
A detailed comparison to help you choose between NameSilo and 123-reg.
Quick Verdict
3.6/5
NameSilo
0 reviews
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
NameSilo is rated higher (3.6 vs 3.0). Budget-friendly domain registrar offering .com, .net, .org and 500+ TLDs. Includes free WHOIS privacy, DNS management, and basic email forwarding for all 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.
NameSilo Affordable domain registration with competitive renewal rates | 123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.6 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $17.29/mo | From $0.01/mo✓ |
| Best for | Portfolio managers, domainers, and developers holding many domains who want flat, item-free billing, free privacy on everything, and an API for automation. | 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 NameSilo → | Visit 123-reg → | |
NameSilo
Pros
- + Flat registration-equals-renewal pricing on core extensions (.com $17.29 both ways)
- + Free WHOIS privacy for the life of every eligible domain, plus free DNS, email forwarding, and Domain Defender
- + No hidden fees: no privacy renewal charges, no charge for auth codes, transparent pricing page with regular prices marked
- + Free documented API and strong bulk tools for portfolio automation
- + Discount Program and volume tiers lower per-domain cost for large holdings
Cons
- - Ticket-based support only — no phone line and historically no live chat
- - Retail .com at $17.29 is above at-cost and several mid-market registrars
- - New-gTLD renewal cliffs apply here too (.shop $38.99, .store $58.99 after cheap first years)
- - Interface is dated and denser than newer competitors
- - Side products (hosting, SSL, email) are not reasons to choose this registrar
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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