Namecheap hosting review

Richard Kirkendall formed Namecheap all the way back in the year 2000. They have already racked up three million customers in the last 18 years. Namecheap is known to provide low-cost domain registration and hosting of websites. Many of us will consider Namecheap as one of the best registrars of domains around.

Namecheap is a budget web host that you might want to use. It just gives you 20 GB storage, but that’s plenty for several pages, and there’s plenty of other highlights: unmetered bandwidth, a free domain name with private security, a free website creator, simple WordPress installation and hundreds of other common applications, industry-standard cPanel control panel, 24/7 live chat support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Is Namecheap good for you?

Let’s work it out. A host is just as successful as their servers and the support staff.

Uptime

The first thing to remember is the uptime of Namecheap, which in the initial phase may be a little deceptive. There were several reviews within the first month that called it ‘flawless’ and ‘excellent,’ which is also, coincidentally, the duration of the money-back guarantee. Besides DreamHost, Namecheap was the only company to guarantee 100 percent uptime and give compensation if the pledge is broken. The pledge has recently been updated to a more practical 99.9%. It was a bit disappointing to see the average availability of 99.82% in 2018. Nevertheless, the uptime has never fallen below 99.9 percent since February 2019 and the good success continues well into 2020.

Speed

Website speed is becoming more and more relevant. It’s perhaps more relevant for many end-users than the uptime. The service has a mean speed of approximately 830ms.

When you visit a website that you know and it happens to be offline once, it’s not such a biggie given that it’s available every time you search it. Nonetheless, usually visiting a site that is sluggish and unresponsive means you can never type the URL again.

Customer Support

Quality professional assistance produces a peace of mind without comparison. Understanding that qualified experts are ready to assist if a issue arises instills massive amounts of confidence in every web hosting service.

Nonetheless, there were also comments from the support team’s ‘more experienced’ member who did not always make an effort to help out. Instead, they only sent links to guides and related material, without even trying to be helpful. This lack of continuity does not leave a major mark, but it should be remembered that often the human factor contributes to bad service. It may not be the universal law, but it is something that should be kept in mind.

Namecheap Hosting Options

Whether you’re looking for a cheap place to host your personal website, or you want to start a hosting business with a white-label, Namecheap has a strategy.

Shared Hosting

Namecheap provides three options for the general shared hosting (excluding WordPress Hosting). Shared hosting means hosting several domains on the same Web server. This is also the cheapest and friendliest plan for beginners. The drawbacks with shared hosting, however, are lower performance and less robust security compared with VPS and Dedicated Servers. Therefore, if you intend to scale up your company and add more sites later on, you can run into some problems. Although this plan is the most common option for people starting their first blog, more advanced users should take VPS hosting into account:

VPS Hosting

You share the site with other domains, too, with VPS hosting. However, using a computer operating system all worlds are “shielded” from one another. You may claim it’s between Shared and Dedicated hosting right here.

It is the best option for more experienced web professionals needing better performance and greater protection.

Dedicated Servers

If you need more space or prefer to have your own physical server, choose Dedicated Hosting. They sell three distinct hosting plans, beginning at $78.88 a month. You are renting your very own physical computer with a Dedicated Server. This service is the perfect option for power users and owners of small businesses who need absolute best output and protection.

WordPress Hosting

That kind of hosting is designed primarily for those who want to use WordPress as their content management system. They offer three WordPress hosting plans which start at less than $4 a month. I really like the manner in which they dissect site traffic plans. That gives an easy-to-understand the reference point for the less tech-savvy.

If you hit your speed limit, they recommend that you increase your schedule.

In addition, WordPress plans to offer:

Backups for one-clicks
SSL passwords
WordPress Pre-installed
The money-back-guarantee of 30 days.

Namecheap Hosting Plans

Stellar

Steller provides 3 Web domain support, 20 GB storage, and unrestricted bandwidth. Additionally, you’ll get up to 30 email accounts with this package. The outstanding package is priced at $2.88 a month.

For beginners who are absolutely certain that they will never have more than 3 websites, I think this is the best option.

Need a domain and hosting for your website building? Get it here.

Plan	Disk	Sites	Price (yr)

Stellar	20 GB	3	$17.28
Stellar Plus	Unlimited	Unlimited	$29.28
Stellar Business	50 GB SSD	Unlimited	$52.88

Stellar Plus

With the Stellar Plus package, there will be both a limitless number of domains and storage space. In addition, you will have an unlimited number of email accounts, too. The Budget for Stellar Plus is $4.88 a month.

In my view, that’s the best choice. Especially if you have plans to scale out your company in the future.

Stellar Business

Advertised as a top e-commerce website package, this contract offers 50 GB of pure storage space on SSD. Namecheap servers are also compatible with PCI and you don’t have to think about this.

Nonetheless, if you want to use this e-commerce package, you will need to buy an SSL certificate, as it is not included.

Reseller Hosting Plans

Looking for thousands of websites to host, or even start your own hosting business? Namecheap provides three bundles for resellers from $16.99 a month. Plans vary according to the number of reseller accounts and disk space.

Namecheap Features

Control Panel

Namecheap hosting services, rather than on WordPress sites, use cPanel, which is the industry norm for control panels. Whether you used a different host before, there is a fair chance that you’re familiar with cPanel.

On Namecheap, cPanel advantages include:

User-friendly graphical interface
Managing files
Setting up and use of Gmail
Managing the Database
Set Up Access
System director Softaculous.

Website Creator

The website builder of Namecheap is a cPanel resource available for all hosting plans shared. It can be reached in cPanel via the Website Creator. The website builder is a simple, drag-and-drop template builder. Close to 200 models to choose from. The models are relatively simple but they look clean and modern.

Overall, it’s pretty good for a free website creator. If you’re trying to create more than a four or five-page site, or if you’ve passed the basics of accessibility, you’d want to look somewhere else.

Backups

Namecheap backups data on their servers for server restoration purposes only every three to seven days. It is quite a feature for hosting plans on the budget.

In cPanel, you can use the Backup / Restore feature to back up your site content locally. When you lose your data, Namecheap will seek to get data back on most plans for free. When you cancel or terminate your account, they will try to restore your site but there will be a service charge of $15.00.

Datacenters

Namecheap has two US (Phoenix, AZ) and UK (Nottingham, in the Midlands) datacenters. If you buy a shared hosting package, you can pick which datacenters you are using, which is a pleasant choice. There’s no hint of what kind of protection the servers have, including guards, back-up power, etc.

Content delivery networks (CDN)

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) are one of the easiest forms of accelerating websites, so that is important. Fortunately, setting up your own is not difficult.

Cloudflare provides a CDN that you can use with any website. Most hosts sell it embedded in their plans. Not Namecheap.

SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are used to guarantee that all data are kept secure. For most websites, you’ll want an SSL certificate but especially if you’re planning to sell products, whether physical or digital.

Many Namecheap plans don’t come with SSL certificates which are bundled into their plans by many hosts. Namecheap however provides a dozen free SSL add-ons. Their SSL entry-level package starts at $8.88 a year, which is relatively inexpensive.

Namecheap’s Hosting Costs

One of Namecheap’s major advantages is the fact that its pricing is cheap. We’re talking; it’s shocking at its cheapness. It’s crucial to bear in mind, though, that when pricing is low, that doesn’t mean you are getting a good value. Hence, the structure of the hosting pricing is an essential part of this review.

Looking at comparisons among hosting companies in a “apples to apples” manner, it becomes clearer in a breakdown between Bonus hosting features and Care hosting features when doing so.

Care hosting features offer consumers databases, disc space, and domains, most commonly referred to as the “3 D’s.” When an individual type in your domain name is used, a hosting company’s primary purpose is to serve website files whenever this happens.

Domains are those names which point to a user’s selected hosting account. For those who want to have several websites; several domain names will be needed for them. Users must also ensure that they have appropriate email addresses for their domain, as some have limits.

Pricing and Features:

It is a lot of detail, so I will first talk about the features and pricing of Namecheap as a domain registrar, and then as a host. The other considerations — ease of use onward — are more easily measured together.

No doubt Namecheap has a registrar that is solid. The short version: it has decent rates, nice features and, as a business, is really straightforward. No wonder 10 million domains are handled there.

The longer version: At the time of this writing, a single.com domain on Namecheap is normally worth $8.88 a year.

In fact, Namecheap is one of the better choices if you want to keep your domains for more than the first two years, since renewal rates are consistently low across the board.

You also get a free year of WhoisGuard, which is perfect because domain registrars continue to charge for it separately, so it’s important for most users (WhoisGuard preserves your privacy by shielding your registration information from the public domain register).

Namecheap is also a good choice when you choose to buy in bulk. It has a tonne of top-level domains (TLDs) to choose from, most of which are priced in competitive terms. The tools of Namecheap are sufficiently straightforward to allow even a bulk buyer to handle things without much trouble.

Namecheap’s work as a domain registrar is very strong, without bogging you down with unnecessary detail. There aren’t a whole lot of resources, but that’s very normal given that you’re running domains, not websites — and as far as those resources go, they’re working well and they’re quite easy to get the hang of.

Namecheap’s Pricing Breakdown

Namecheap has four price ranges available including:

Renewed Value: $38.88 a year
Professional renewals: $78.88 per annually
Current renewals: $129.88 per annually
Renewed Business Pro: $17.98 a month

Each of these plans is available at an extremely low promotional rate like $9.88 for the Value Plan annually.

Namecheap’s Values and Branding

Namecheap is an independent hosting company owned by private companies. It is a novelty in a technology world where the bulk of the hosting firms are owned by a small few businesses.

Being private and separately owned, however, is not always a good thing. Yet holding big companies is not inherently a bad thing either for hosting businesses.

The one thing that makes Namecheap succeed as an industry-wide independent business is their passion for openness and how they describe their brand values, both of which is known to create uncertainty in the industry.

Some of the most important aspects of businesses is that they remain open with respect to both their products and services. I like the way they display their renewal levels prominently and have a number of expandable hosting features.

At the end, I think this is a trustworthy business with a strong culture. This matters enormously when choosing an organization that does business with.

Pros of Hosting with Namecheap

FREE Migration and Domain

Namecheap provides for free site migration. The steps are clear, straightforward, and require very little effort on your behalf if you have an established cPanel website somewhere and want to move to Namecheap.

You just need to provide your current cPanel with access to Namecheap web hosting technicians and that is it. They’ll work their magic with no further interference and potentially no downtime. And if there is one, that’s not going to reach 15 minutes.

Decent Time to Load

The second most important criteria, after the uptime, is speed. The explanation of why it is so relevant is that speed was directly associated with the happiness of tourists.

Google has recently found that if your pages take up to six seconds to load, the probability of someone bouncing increases by more than 100 percent. During the past 24 months, Namecheap was able to post an average page speed of 687ms. This figure is nearly twice as slow as our other favorite hosts like A2 Hosting and Cloud HostGator. That’s always a better outcome than our industry-standard, though.

Guarantee for 30-day cash back

Namecheap does give a rock-solid money-back guarantee of 30 days. You have a full month in which to see if their service is right for you. Then it’s not too late to go back and try anything new.

Good Starting Program

Further information about the Namecheap hosting plans can be found but I want to make it clear that the company’s smallest package is a total gem. This will cost as little as $2.88 a month and requires three websites to be a host.

Some of the other companies I’ve tested are tailor-made starting plans that are perfect for a single website and nothing more, making the Namecheap product interesting and exclusive.

Considering all the functionality that includes the smallest Namecheap package, I would say it’s a perfect opportunity for people who want to host two or three small or medium pages.

Fair Policy on Prices

Unlike many other hosts that raise fees considerably once it’s time for renewal, the price of Namecheap renewal is not growing. This I find refreshingly honest, because some companies’ scandalously low fees are unrealistic in the long run.

Owning a web site is not an investment in the short term. If the site goes well, it could be something that you’ll pay for decades. GoDaddy and HostGator enjoy cheap promotional pricing tactics and even steeper renewal rates. Even this marketing approach is deployed by SiteGround, an otherwise open and transparent firm. The fees remain identical at Namecheap.

Superb status page

Namecheap is down or has scheduled maintenance, which is very easy to see.

The status page is informative and fairly detailed. There you can find advertisements for maintenance, service upgrades, server migrations, network status, emails, and domain services.

Solid WordPress Support

WordPress is the most common content-management (CMS) system in the world. And that platform is what will be used by most bloggers and website managers. The good thing is that the Namecheap app is completely integrated with WordPress. And you can install it from cPanel with just one click.

Low Prices

If there’s one area where Namecheap is shining, it’s their prices. Besides great prices, its plans are loaded with just about everything a web hosting manager needs. And as we have seen above, the price of their Shared Hosting service is as follows:

Stellar: US$ 2.88 per month

Stellar Plus: 4.88 $a month

Business: $8.88 / month

Cons of Hosting with Namecheap

Space is limited

There’s limited storage space for both the smallest and largest plan.

20 GB is not too little for three websites, while the 50 GB of SSD space also looks good.

Nonetheless, many rivals do not impose any practical limitations on the space that an account can use, as long as it does not violate the terms of service

Data Centers limited

Namecheap has not much to say in terms of locations for the hosting. The company operates a data center in Phoenix, Arizona, which offers UK collocation servers. The latter would cost more. Several other big hosts run at least two of their own data centers, and some of them have servers on three continents.

This restriction is not so clear for people looking to host their website in the US but it could reduce the output ever so slightly for everyone else. If the speed Namecheap displays were higher, it might hardly matter but it doesn’t make any sense at all for an already slower than average operation.

Not that easy to install certificate SSL

Namecheap provides very generously, free SSL certificates. But their installation is not that fast. And after an hour of trying to reach customer service, I decided to. They walked me through the process and I ended up getting it to work.

Are we suggesting Namecheap?

In a given sense, Namecheap is a good host. I recommend this to people who have a few small sites and are on a tight budget.

The main explanation for this is that the Stellar plan has enough functionality, costs less than $16 a year while prepaid, and small sites don’t cause crazy traffic because it can handle it. Lastly, usually small sites have fewer items that can break, so you’re not going to be very consistent on the dubious Namecheap service. If you’re after a secure, high-speed hosting where your online presence can grow and prosper, with some of the best website hosting companies we have here, you’d be better off. After all, there’s a reason why most positive Namecheap comments are about the management of domain names.

Conclusion

Namecheap is a fine, inexpensive choice if you don’t have great hosting requirements.

Yet if you have more challenging needs, then you can look elsewhere. I found their speed, customer service and uptime to be below industry standards.

With a few bucks extra, one of their rivals will give you even better hosting. But if you’re critical of price, go to Namecheap and check it out.

Author: SM Asif Hssan, Farjana Dolon

Namecheap Hosting Review