ASP.NET Hosting Reviews - Does 123-Reg Offer Reliable and Affordable Hosting Service?

Does 123-Reg Offer Reliable and Affordable Hosting Service?

Being formed since 2001, and hosting over 1 million domain names, they have something to show for it. They are unique in terms that they are a UK company, but rank even for US related hosting searches. 123 Reg also offers dedicated servers, VPS servers, the amount of servers they host, is not known, but its safe to say that they can be classified as a large business; and the issue we always monitor for, is when you try to buy from large businesses, they sometimes, not always, get disconnected with their ability to provide reliable customer service.

123-reg's hosting package and other offerings are a little different than most of the UK hosting services on our lineup. With 123-reg, you only get unlimited bandwidth; all of its other features are limited. That said, 123-reg is easy to use and understand. Whether you're just starting or you're already familiar with the web hosting industry, you'll find useful tools and features available from this service.

Web hosting features

We have already mentioned that the main focus of 123reg is offering cheaper domain names. Apart from this primary package, they offer other basic web hosting plans including email hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated hosting. But it would have been a lot better for them if they could provide shared hosting plans. For cloud hosting, there are three different packs for both windows and linux. The starter pack comes with a free domain registration along with 500MB disk space and unlimited bandwidth. But it does not support multiple SSL certificates. The business pack includes 25GB space, unlimited bandwidth, 5 databases, 5 applications and 2 domain names. This is very good for smaller businesses. The unlimited plan has almost everything “unlimited.” Only the number of free domains is limited which is 3. The other things like disk space, bandwidth, SSL certificate, databases, applications and everything else is unlimited. There are also three different VPS hosting plans named VPS100, VPS200 and VPS300. Apart from these, there is a good dedicated hosting plan.

123-reg has many of the tools and features we look for in the best UK hosting services, but not all of them. Of particular note is the absence of the ability to customize error pages. This means that when an error on your site occurs, visitors will only see an error code that likely means nothing to them. You also don't get unlimited email accounts. Aside from those two missing features, you can take advantage of this service’s powerful control panel, site statistics, custom cron jobs and script library. All of these features help ensure that your site will look and behave the way you want it to.

Help resources are an important part of any UK hosting service's offerings. 123-reg gives you plenty of options to choose from if you have questions or just want to learn more about the service. The knowledgebase is particularly useful. Unfortunately, there isn't a user forum where you can discuss issues or features with other users. If you need to contact the support team, you can do so through phone, email or live chat. All three of these contact methods are available at any time of the day.

So how does 123-reg services? Here are some comments by people who have actually used their service:

Advantages of 123-reg

1. The 123reg Plus account also offers a good selection of apps for your website, including popular plug-ins such as WordPress and the Joomla content management system.
2. The Control Panel is really good. It was easy to access and its design is nice and clean. It's easy to find relevant FTP details and upload your site to the 123reg servers.
3. The main point is that everything worked as advertised - it had a good solid feel to it.

Disadvantages of 123-reg

1. Base on our investigation, more than one customer complained that the crew of 123reg’s support center does not even read the actual info written in the ticket.
2. Visually they lost my custom in the first place as they look too childish and do not have the looked of a trusted business.
3. Their customer service was poor, the majority of my support requests were followed by excuses and links to random articles that were generally irrelevant.
4. This service’s limited email accounts, databases and storage space can limit your website's growth.
5. The system was just too slow in response times with the simplest application.

Another Recommendation for your ASP.NET Hosting Site
After years of dealing with web hosting companies which offered little else than cheap domains and cheap web hosting. It started to affect my business and clients because the services they offered were not up to scratch. I then began some research to find a new smaller reliable UK-based web hosting company. If you are looking for a decent web hosting or domain company I can recommend HostForLIFE.eu for web hosting as they’re honest, approachable and extremely hard working. Whatever company you choose to work with regarding your website it is very important that support should be second to none. Their support is truly brilliant. The live support chat is excellent and will help you with any issues you may have.