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Namecheap standout features
Performance99.939% uptime, reasonably fast servers
Average load timeApproximately 1.2 seconds
Average responseApproximately 537ms
Free domainYes, but not a .com domain
SSLYes. Free SSL with automatic installation
1-click passwordYes, included with all hosting packages
Support24/7 live chat support
Namecheap Landing Page
Source: Namecheap.com

What Are the Pros and Cons of Namecheap?

Namecheap has been around for a long time and for the right customers, it is a great hosting company to choose. The following pros and cons should give you a clear picture of what you can expect so you know if it’s the right option for your websites.

Pros

  1. Established company: Namecheap has been in business for over 20 years and is well-positioned to continue to operate successfully long into the future.
  2. Very popular: With about a million websites under its care, nobody can argue with the popularity of this company’s services.
  3. Diverse hosting options: You can sign up for anything from a basic shared server to dedicated servers, with several options. No matter what type of hosting you need, the chances are Namecheap has it.
  4. No hidden costs: In addition to being affordable, I appreciate Namecheap’s extremely clear pricing. They don’t try to upsell you or hit you with hidden charges, which is a common tactic in the hosting industry.

Cons

  1. Delayed customer support responses: While the technical support team is staffed 24/7, I have found that they do not always respond to requests for help very quickly. Fortunately, however, this company does have a good knowledge base that you can use anytime.
  2. Location issues: Namecheap data centers are located only in the U.S. (Phoenix, AZ), the U.K. (Nottingham), and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). This can be very limiting. Also, if you want to choose one of the European data centers, you need to pay $1 extra per month.
  3. Inconsistent uptime: While Namecheap has an excellent uptime guarantee, it doesn’t always meet its goals. Many months, Namecheap is up 100% of the time, but then in others it dips well below the industry standard of 99.9%.
Namecheap's cPanel
Namecheap uses a fairly generic version of cPanel, which is easy to use and allows you to manage your sites properly.

1. Solid state drives (SSDs) for storage

When it comes to web hosting, a few things are as important as site loading speed. While many factors contribute to the overall load speed, few of them are more impactful than the hard drive where the data is stored. That is why I love the fact that Namecheap provides solid state drives on all of the hosting packages that it offers.

Solid-state drives are far faster than traditional spinning disk drives, and can perform a lot more operations per second. Using SSDs with hosting is always going to provide a performance boost. Still, the benefits will be especially apparent on sites that get a lot of visitors or those that have a lot of elements on the page, such as e-commerce websites.

2. Great uptime guarantee

If you sign up for a reseller or VPS hosting package with Namecheap, you will get a 100% uptime guarantee. If you choose shared hosting, WordPress hosting, or dedicated servers, you get a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Both are at or above the industry standard for uptime and reliability.

When I first saw this uptime guarantee, I was quite skeptical because it is impossible for any hosting provider to be able to truly deliver on a 100% uptime guarantee. Given the fact that Namecheap is a lower-cost provider, I thought that the claims would not hold up. Instead, I was impressed with how Namecheap handles their uptime guarantees.

First of all, this company generally does a good job at keeping your website up and running smoothly, so most of the time, you will not have any noticeable downtime at all. When they do fall before their stated uptime levels, they will provide you with a credit on your bill.

In any given calendar month, every hour past the stated uptime guarantee that your site is down will earn you a full day’s payment credit. If you have a VPS hosting package with a 100% uptime guarantee, for example, and your site is down due to an issue with hosting for an hour, you’ll get a free day of hosting.

3. Affordable pricing for shared and VPS

With a business called Namecheap, nobody is going to be surprised by low prices. If you are like the vast majority of people looking for hosting and you need either shared hosting or VPS hosting, you will love the prices. When looking through the different packages, the price points are very attractive. In fact, Namecheap offers its entry-level shared hosting package free of charge for the first few months so you can give it a try. This is a great option for anyone just starting out.

However, I found that the prices for WordPress hosting and dedicated servers are not that great. Looking at the system specs on these packages, I can’t really see any justification for the higher prices, especially given the fact that this company markets itself as a discount provider. Namecheap may target users signing up for inexpensive shared hosting who then upgrade later to the more costly options. If you need WordPress hosting or dedicated servers, I recommend going to other companies.

4. Excellent domain name registration and management

Namecheap started off as a domain name registration company, which is still its main service with an impressive 17 million+ domain names registered for its customers. The fact that it sells domains at a significant discount compared to other sites also makes Namecheap a very attractive option for many people.

5. Free SSL certificate included and installed

All the hosting packages at Namecheap will come with a free shared SSL certificate. This is important as it will not only keep the data transferred to and from your site protected, but it will also lend trust to the page.

Additionally, Namecheap will install your SSL certificate. While SSL installs are common in the web hosting industry, it is nice to see that it is done even by this discount hosting provider.

What Are Some Good Alternatives to Namecheap?

Namecheap is one of the best discount hosting providers I have ever seen. The great prices for shared and VPS hosting and fairly high quality of services that are provided make it an excellent choice for those who really need to see great value in the hosting they use. Of course, Namecheap is not going to be able to outperform some of the other high-end hosting companies out there that come with higher price points.

See how Namecheap compares to other top-tier hosting companies the team here at Digital.com recommends:

Web hostPricingHosting packagesBasic plan featuresCompare
Namecheap

Overall rating
(3.4)

$1.48 to $237.88 per month
  • Shared
  • WordPress
  • VPS
  • Reseller
  • Dedicated
  • 3 websites
  • 20GB SSD storage
  • 30 Domain-Based Mailboxes
  • Free domain for 1 year
  • Free SSL certificate
SiteGround

Overall rating
(4.0)

$3.99 to $400 per month
  • Shared
  • WordPress
  • WooCommerce
  • Cloud
  • Reseller
  • 1 website
  • 10GB storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free email
SiteGround offers free website migration from other hosts, but Namecheap has lower prices and an easier uptime guarantee.

Consider SiteGround if: You’re interested in free site migration or value overall quality over just price.

DreamHost

Overall rating
(4.5)

$1.99 to $279 per month
  • Shared
  • WordPress
  • WooCommerce
  • VPS
  • Cloud
  • Dedicated
  • 1 website
  • SSD storage
  • Unlimited traffic
  • Free domain
  • Free SSL certificate
DreamHost offers additional security, antivirus, and anti-malware features for all its hosting packages. It also has a hosting option tailored specifically for e-commerce sites. While Namecheap is less expensive, it isn’t by that much.

Consider DreamHost if: Security is paramount or you want a hosting package focused on e-commerce.

GreenGeeks

Overall rating
(4.5)

$2.95 to $109.95 per month
  • Shared
  • WordPress
  • VPS
  • Reseller
  • 1 website
  • 50 GB storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Free nightly backups
GreenGeeks is more environmentally friendly than Namecheap, using only green energy sources. Namecheap, on the other hand, is focused on providing low cost hosting and great domain name registration.

Consider GreenGeeks if: You don’t mind paying a little extra for premium service and environmentally friendly hosting.

Frequently Asked Questions About Namecheap

Who owns Namecheap?

Namecheap is a U.S.-based company. It was founded in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall, who is still the CEO.

What are the Namecheap nameservers?

Namecheap’s nameservers are dns1.namecheaphosting.com and dns2.namecheaphosting.com

What kind of support does Namecheap offer?

Namecheap offers technical support 24/7. It offers this support through a live chat function.

Where are the Namecheap servers located?

Namecheap operates out of three data centers in Arizona, London, and Amsterdam.

What are the best alternatives to Namecheap?

Namecheap offers great hosting options to many customers, but if you are looking for an alternative, I encourage you to check out options such as GreenGeeks, SiteGround, HostGator, GoDaddy, InMotion Hosting, and DreamHost.

How I Rated Namecheap

When reviewing websites, I take a comprehensive approach to ensure anyone considering its services will have all the information that is needed to make an informed decision. With Namecheap, the process was a little nostalgic because I used them to register a domain and host a site many years ago. It was interesting to see how much the company has grown and changed.

Whenever looking at web hosting companies, the best place to start is the performance of the hosting. I wasn’t expecting much since Namecheap is a company that is focused on providing low-cost hosting, but I was pleasantly surprised that their speeds were quite competitive. In addition, I looked at a variety of third-party test results to see that Namecheap generally has good overall uptime, though not always.

Of course, speed and uptime are not the only factors to consider when choosing a website. That is why I also look closely at what types of hosting are provided and the system specs that are available with each hosting package. Beyond that, I dig into the company that runs the hosting to try to determine how it is doing. This is important because you don’t want to host with a company that may go out of business in the near future.

Finally, I take the time to log into the Namecheap control panel and get a feel for how things work. This hands-on experience is invaluable in helping me to come to conclusions on a variety of different aspects of the hosting that is provided.