NameCheap Review 2021 7,225 Views

NameCheap Background

NameCheap is an independent domain name registrar founded in 2000. In addition to domain registration, they offer a complementary spectrum of hosting services. NameCheap also provides email, website builder, SSLs, and various services with 24-hour support and a 14-day money back guarantee. You can check out NameCheap’s Shared Hosting plan and current pricing here. Here’s my NameCheap Shared Hosting review - structured with pros and cons based on my experience as a customer.

Pros of Using NameCheap Hosting :

NameCheap’s hosting services hit out of the park. Here are a few of their best features.

Low Prices :

NameCheap’s primary advantage is their pricing. Web hosting companies are all selling the same thing - a home for your website - but they all have different plans with different caps, different bonuses, and different renewal prices. For most, figuring out their true value requires a breakdown into different parts. To compare “apples to apples” among hosting companies, I break things down into Core hosting features and Bonus hosting features. Core hosting features are the “3 D’s” – domains, databases and disk space. The core purpose of a hosting server is to serve website files when someone types in your domain name. Domains are how many domain names you can point to your hosting account. If you want multiple websites, you’ll want to have multiple domains allowed. Other features could include anything from website builder software to advertising credits to back-end software, etc.

NameCheap Shared Hosting Pricing

NameCheap Shared Hosting Plans and Pricing

NameCheap has three pricing tiers. Stellar renews at $33.88/year, Stellar Plus renews at $57.88/year and Stellar Business renews at $104.88/year. here’s how the plans work out.

NameCheap Shared Hosting Plans Full Features

For better or worse, NameCheap’s plans have so many limits that it’s really hard to compare them directly to other company’s hosting plans. But here’s how it concludes : If you plan on staying under those caps – NameCheap is almost always cheaper than the plan you would choose at another hosting company. NameCheap’s pricing is a solid advantage.

High Performing Servers :

They combine impressive performance and features with affordable prices and their plans at every level are full of great features and services. As far as their shared plans go, most of them will run as much as 50% faster as some of their competitors. Even the most basic plan already offers unmetered bandwidth and the ability to host up to 3 websites.

Great Shared Server Plans :

I could easily write a NameCheap shared hosting review that focused exclusively on their shared hosting plans. For an individual, a startup, and even small to medium businesses, these plans are a truly great place to start. The reason they can offer such fast servers and a 100% uptime guarantee is the way that they approach hosting. They use the most up to date Dell server technology and their control panel is one of the best and most intuitive to use in the world. And to top it all off, their servers are some of the most private and secure that you can find. They use both hardware and software firewalls in addition to other security protections.

Lots of Scalabilities :

Another thing to love about them is just how scalable they are. Not only do they offer a massive range of different web hosting plans but they make it as easy as possible to upgrade when you need more data or more power. You can upgrade at any time so you don’t have to wait for the next billing cycle. This means that if you are expecting a big spike in your site’s traffic to hit in the next couple of days, you can easily upgrade your plan and have it ready to go so that your site can handle the increase in traffic! In their business SSD plan (Stellar Business), you can host as many websites as you want while just paying $8.88 per month! This is really one of the most impressive offers you can find.

Wide Variety of Services :

But enough about shared servers, what else can NameCheap do? Well, for one, they can also host private email. And this is another case where I could easily write a full NameCheap email hosting review because this is not only a more difficult service to fine but NameCheap does a superb job. The cloud they use is very secure and extremely dependable.

Company Brand and Values :

NameCheap is also transparent about all their services and pricing. I like how they have an expandable list of all their hosting features, and how they prominently display renewal rates. Overall, they are a company that I think is trustworthy with a solid culture. When choosing who to do business with, I think it counts for a lot.

Onboarding and Account Management :

Just like any new product - signing up for a new web host can be both daunting and exciting. The process of getting a new customer up and running is a critical part of removing the daunting part - and adding to the excitement. In business jargon, the process is called “onboarding.” And there’s nothing that will create regret like a confusing onboarding process. Ideally, after signing up for a hosting plan, you’d immediately get your sign in credentials and be able to either go to a guided tutorial or be able to log in directly to your new dashboard. NameCheap does exactly that. They send out a welcome email where you can log in directly to your services or follow directions to the right help resources. There are no flashing banners or hard upsells. NameCheap Hosting Upsell - a huge plus in my NameCheap Shared Hosting Review. Their WordPress quick install software installs a clean version of WordPress with no additional plugins or themes. It’s a service well-tailored for DIYers or beginners looking for a super-cheap but straightforward web hosting company.

Backups and Datacenter Choices :

NameCheap also does several Bonus features really well. At sign up, they offer a choice between their US data center or UK data center. It makes them a great choice for non-US customers who are serving web visitors closer to the UK than the US. NameCheap also does 2x weekly backups of your hosting account. While you should do backups yourself, it’s a great safety net to have. And backups are included for free with NameCheap. Usually, it’s a paid or limited bonus feature at competitors like Web Hosting Hub, Dreamhost or HostGator.

Great Customer Support :

If you’re looking for support, you will get it. In my experience with NameCheap's support, I've to say they are very helpful. Every time I had a problem, I could use Their Knowledgebase and search about my problem and in 95% of times, I've got my answers to my problems. And if I don't, I could use Live Chat, which I was always happy with their answers and effort in solving customers problems, no matter what your problem is, they have always tried their best to solve my problems. and also they were very kind and friendly in Live Chat. And of course you can submit a ticket and for me they've always answered very fast.

Cons of Using NameCheap Hosting :

Like any other web host, NameCheap Hosting has some disadvantages. Here are the cons that I've found while using NameCheap for hosting.

Plan Limitations :

Like I mentioned in the Pricing section, NameCheap places caps across domains, disk space, databases and email addresses. If you have 1 to 2 sites that you know will stay small, NameCheap can be great. But for many website owners the problem isn’t in the caps themselves, but in how NameCheap has several overlapping caps. Many hosting companies tier out their plans, but they usually focus on one or two caps to separate the plans. For example, HostGator’s Hatchling Plan allows 1 domain while the Baby Plan allows unlimited domains. The difference is very straightforward. When you want to add on another site, then you upgrade. With NameCheap, you have several upgrade triggers. If you have a single site with lots of images and video, you could hit the upgrade trigger. If you are running several small projects on different domains, you could hit the upgrade trigger. And ironically, if you pay for NameCheap’s top plan, you could still get limited by the amount of disk space. They sell the plan for e-commerce websites that need a lot of memory even though the plan itself heavily caps disk space, which e-commerce sites need more than they need multiple domains. Either way - I could go on with further comparisons, but NameCheap’s limitations are a disadvantage because there are so many of them that require additional planning when purchasing.

Bonus Features :

While NameCheap has a fairly complete feature set for each plan, they do exclude some bonus features. First, their money-back guarantee is shorter. NameCheap does 30 days. But corporate hosting competitors like HostGator do 45 days. And independent competitors like DreamHost, InMotion and Web Hosting Hub all do at least 90-day money back guarantees. Second, they overprice some of their upgrades like dedicated IP addresses (usually necessary for installing SSL certificates). They charge $24/yr when most companies charge $2 or bundle it for free. Neither of those points is a huge disadvantage, but together they form yet another disadvantage to be aware of.

NameCheap Hosting Comparisons :

Out of the most well-known web hosts that I’ve used as a customer or consultant, here’s how NameCheap Hosting compares directly to each.

NameCheap vs GoDaddy :

GoDaddy has one of the most recognized brands in the industry due to their TV, offline and everywhere advertising. Though they’ve improved in the past couple years, GoDaddy has a reputation for upsells, confusing backend and poor performance. Like NameCheap, they are a domain registrar first that also offers hosting. Between NameCheap Hosting and GoDaddy Hosting, I’d go with NameCheap. They are cheaper than GoDaddy – and GoDaddy doesn’t make up the difference with better performance or customer support.

NameCheap vs iPage :

iPage is a sister brand of HostGator focused on budget web hosting. They are owned by Endurance International, but unlike HostGator, they don’t seem to be receiving active investment. Their main thing is extremely cheap short-term pricing. Their support and performance are superb. Despite iPage’s unlimited features, I’d go with NameCheap in nearly every case.

NameCheap vs HostGator :

HostGator is a very well-known brand in the hosting industry. They are also owned by Endurance International, which makes them another sister brand to Bluehost/iPage. They are one of Endurance International’s main brands and have a solid balance between cheap long-term pricing, good support, and good performance. HostGator has fewer plan limitations and about the same level of performance and support. If you are running a single small website, I’d go with NameCheap. If you are building several or a more substantial website, I’d go with HostGator.

NameCheap vs InMotion :

InMotion Hosting is one of the largest and fastest growing independents (ie, owned by employees, not a large corporate holding company) hosting companies. InMotion has better performance and better plans features than NameCheap. They are more expensive than NameCheap across the board. I’d choose whichever one fits your priorities.

Conclusion :

Overall, I found NameCheap Hosting to be a great budget hosting option. Everything is straight forward with NameCheap. They have great customer services, clean website, and dashboard, No hidden fees or hard upsells or monkey business. Although NameCheap is first and foremost a domain registrar, their hosting plans, prices and customer services are all professional. I recommend them especially to whom that are starting their businesses and they want good features with low prices especially for the first year, but they are not so sure about their business that they are just starting out.

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Published : Tue 03 Apr 2018
Updated : Sat 09 Jan 2021