Namecheap was created in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall, the company’s current CEO. Headquartered in Arizona, USA, it was first launched as a domain name registrar. It became very popular for the budget domain names it registered, currently managing more than 10 million domains, with 11 million registered users.
Like many other domain registrars, it was only a matter of time before Namecheap branched into web hosting. It now offers shared, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated web hosting plans. It now hosts over 1.5 million websites.
Quick Review
Here’s our quick review of Namecheap
- Low, affordable pricing
- Free domain for one year
- Shared, WordPress, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated hosting
- 24/7 Live Support
- Below-average uptimes
- Mediocre page load times
- Backups once every 3-7 days, depending on the plan
- cPanel present
- Managed WordPress plan
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Overview
Namecheap came into the market registering domains, and that is where it gained its popularity. In the 21 years it has been around, it has registered several million domains at very pocket-friendly prices. It really isn’t a surprise that it decided to branch out to web hosting – many such companies do. But web hosting is a different ball game entirely.
There is a wide range of hosting packages on offer. Shared, WordPress, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated plans come at affordable prices. They cover the basics, but Namecheap plans do not really stand out and there is not much in terms of advanced or extra features. All plans allow you to choose between a US and a UK server, though, which is great. UK servers $1 extra.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting has to do with multiple websites sharing a single server and the resources that come along with it. It is a great option for webmasters on a tight budget or just starting out.
Namecheap offers three shared hosting plans – Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. Compared to most others in the industry, Namecheap’s shared plans are almost ridiculously cheap. All plans offer:
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domains for the first year
- Free SSL Certificates, but only for the first year
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Free website builder
The Stellar plan is the entry plan and is the cheapest. Apart from the shared features, it comes with 20GB of disk space, 3 hosted domains, 30 subdomains, and unlimited parked domains. Users are allowed to back up twice a week. It starts at $1.44/mo for 2 years.
The Stella Plus plan takes things a level further, allowing unmetered SSD space, unlimited domains and subdomains. The auto-backup feature is activated here. This plan starts at $2.44/mo for 2 years.
Lastly, we have the Stellar Business plan which is the eCommerce-focused plan. It offers 50GB of SSD disk space, unlimited domains and subdomains. The Stellar Business plan costs $4.44/mo for a period of two years.
WordPress Hosting
WordPress plans come in three tiers – EasyWP Starter, EasyWP Turbo, and EasyWP Supersonic. The Turbo plan is the most popular and allows up to 200,000 website visitors a month. It also offers 50GB of disk storage space. All plans are managed WordPress plans, and come with one-click backups and restore.
VPS Hosting
The next level of web hosting is VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting. Unlike shared hosting, websites here get a dedicated amount of resources and do not need to share.
Namecheap has two VPS plans – Pulsar and Quasar. The Pulsar plan comes with 2 CPU cores, 2GB of RAM, and 40GB of SSD. It starts at $7.88/mo. On the other hand, the Quasar plan offers 4 CPU cores, 6GB of RAM, and 120GB SSD. It starts at $1.88/mo.
Dedicated Hosting
Finally, Namecheap offers dedicated hosting plans. Here, an entire server and all of its resources are assigned to the website. It ensures peak performance, and the webmaster assumes full control.
Namescheap offers three dedicated hosting plans, starting at $48.88/mo.
Namecheap Pros
1. Affordable Pricing
Considering it started out as a budget domain registrar, it should be no surprise that Namecheap’s web hosting are affordable. And they are REALLY affordable. Who would have thought you can get a year of shared hosting for a measly $1.44/mo? Granted, this pricing is for 2 years, and the plan only comes with 20GB of disk space. But still.
Namecheap may not offer the more standout features that A2 Hosting or Bluehost do, but it certainly comes at a much more pocket-friendly cost.
2. Value for Money on Shared Hosting Plans
For the prices that the shared hosting plans cost, Namecheap could be forgiven if it did not stand up to other web hosting companies in terms of features. Compared to the top companies, it lags a little behind, but it is certainly above average.
Each shared hosting plan shares features like unmetered bandwidth and free domains for the first year. Users also get free backups, which are convenient in cases of crashes. Additionally, the entry-level plan allows users to host up to 3 websites, which is two more than the industry standard.
3. 30-day Money-Back Guarantee
Namecheap offers a money-back guarantee on most of its plans, to allow customers to try them out, risk-free. For shared hosting, reseller hosting, and VPS hosting, users are allowed to test out the services and back out within a period of 30 days if they are unimpressed. Dedicated server customers only have a week to make up their minds, or get a full refund.
The money-back guarantee only applies to new users.
4. Free CDN with Namecheap Domains
With Namecheap domains, users get a free Content Delivery Network or CDN, with SSL certificates. A CDN does not replace your hosting provider, but it kicks a website to another level. CDNs deliver customer experience, enhance website performance, and advanced security.
Namecheap offers Supersonic CDN, and you get a free SSL certificate. It must be noted that the SSL certificate only comes free for the first year. You will need to pay to renew.
Namecheap Cons
1. Average Uptimes
Uptimes are extremely important for the optimal running of any website. Sites that experience downtimes regularly will lose visitors and business.
Namecheap offers a 100% uptime guarantee on its shared, business, and dedicated hosting plans, “as determined by us”. Over the period monitored using UptimeRobot, the average uptime recorded was 99.88%
While this may not look like much on the surface, over a period of time, the hours your website spends down may have a telling effect.
2. Average page load and response time
Response and page load times are just as important as Uptimes. If visitors find your website slow and laggy, they will move on.
Again, Namecheap does not record the slowest response and page load times in the industry, but they fall just below average. During testing, I found it took an average of 693 ms for a page to load. Hostinger, on the other hand, posted average hosting times of around 350 ms.
3. Few Outstanding features
As with its other plans, the Namecheap WordPress plan is very pocket-friendly. And it is hosted on the cloud. But that is where the attraction ends. In terms of features, it falls shorts of similar plans from web hosting providers like SiteGround. The most basic of its packages, EasyWP Starter, only offers 10GB of disk space.
It is a similar story on other plans, apart from the shared hosting plan, which is decent.
Summary
If you are on the lookout for a very cheap web hosting platform without a lot of bells and whistles, then Namecheap will fit the bill. It does the basics decently enough.
Unfortunately, it may not be what you are looking for if you desire a top-notch web hosting provider. Speeds and uptimes are not the best, and you do not get much in terms of advanced features.