Spaceship vs 123-reg
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Spaceship and 123-reg.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Spaceship
0 reviews
3.0/5
123-reg
0 reviews
Spaceship is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.0). Domain registrar offering registration, transfer, and DNS management. Built for developers and small businesses seeking straightforward domain services without upselling. 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.
Spaceship Modern domain registrar with developer-focused tools and competitive pricing | 123-reg UK domain registrar with hosting bundles — cheap first year, materially higher renewals | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $2.9/mo | From $0.01/mo✓ |
| Best for | Developers, technical founders, and domain investors managing portfolios who want flat renewal pricing, free privacy, and programmatic control | 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 Spaceship → | Visit 123-reg → | |
Spaceship
Pros
- + Near-flat lifecycle pricing — small register-to-renewal gap on .com and flat pricing on .net and .ai
- + Free WHOIS privacy for life, DNSSEC on by default, domain lock on by default
- + Renewal price shown at search time; no pre-checked add-ons at checkout
- + API access, bulk registration, and modern DNS (A/AAAA/ALIAS/CNAME/MX/NS/TXT/SRV/CAA)
- + Five-year .com cost (~$48.80) well below Namecheap and GoDaddy
Cons
- - Short operational record (public since 2023) despite Namecheap backing
- - Support is smaller-team and slower at peak; no phone-support culture
- - No bundled SSL with bare domain registration; email hosting is basic
- - Promo-code pricing ($2.90 first year) distorts comparison — standard prices are higher
- - Steep redemption fees if a domain lapses ($165.60 on .ai; $80-100 on standard gTLDs)
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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