| Namecheap standout features | |
| Performance | 99.939% uptime, reasonably fast servers |
| Average load time | Approximately 1.2 seconds |
| Average response | Approximately 537ms |
| Free domain | Yes, but not a .com domain |
| SSL | Yes. Free SSL with automatic installation |
| 1-click password | Yes, included with all hosting packages |
| Support | 24/7 live chat support |
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
- Established company: Namecheap has been in business for over 20 years and is well-positioned to continue to operate successfully long into the future.
- Very popular: With about a million websites under its care, nobody can argue with the popularity of this company’s services.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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%.
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:
Frequently Asked Questions About Namecheap
Who owns Namecheap?
What are the Namecheap nameservers?
What kind of support does Namecheap offer?
Where are the Namecheap servers located?
What are the best alternatives to Namecheap?
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.
