Namecheap Domain and Hosting Review: Is It Any Good? (2023)

Last updated on January 17th, 2023 by Melinda Bartley

Do you want to create a website of your own? Want to know if Namecheap is a good platform to get your hosting and domain name from?

Namecheap is a popular domain registrar and web hosting company. They are a trusted name in the website space and are by far, one of the most affordable options out there.

In this review, we’ll look at everything Namecheap has to offer along with how much it’s going to cost you to get started on their platform. And to keep this review fair, we’ll also see how it stacks up against the competition.

This is going to be a long read, so we’ve created a table of contents to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for. Here’s what we’ll be covering in this review:

Brief: What is Namecheap?
Who is Namecheap for?
Namecheap Review: Is Namecheap any good?

Namecheap Domain Registrar
Namecheap Web Hosting (& Pricing Plans)
Namecheap Security & Backup
Namecheap Apps and Marketing Services

Namecheap Customer Support & Documentation
Namecheap Alternatives

Feel free to use the quick links to skip ahead to the section that interests you the most. Now let’s start with an overview of Namecheap.

Brief: What is Namecheap?

Founded in 2000, Namecheap is a company that offers reliable web hosting and domain registration services. They have a wide range of hosting plans that are designed to match different needs and budgets.

You can choose from shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated hosting. They also have dedicated plans for WordPress hosting that make it incredibly easy to set up and run a WordPress website.

Aside from this, they offer domain names starting at just $0.99 for the first year. You’ll also find plenty of addons to build your website and market your business. These include site builders, business email, a social media manager, brand builder, and logo maker.

One of the reasons Namecheap is so popular and loved by website owners around the world is that they offer complete transparency in their dealings. They don’t have hidden charges and they don’t try to cross-sell anything you don’t need when you’re setting up your website.

For beginners who have very little understanding of web hosting needs, Namecheap is one of the most trustworthy companies that will help you get your website online with a small budget.

Who is Namecheap For?

Namecheap is best for anyone who wants to start a website at affordable rates.

Keep in mind though that they offer well-crafted plans for everyone including individuals, bloggers, small businesses, startups, online stores, and large corporations.

Namecheap has some of the best renewal rates for both their domains and hosting plans. So if you want to create a simple online presence or run a small website without having to invest too much every year, then Namecheap is your best option.

You’ll also get free a SSL certificate, free CDN, and free domain privacy which a lot of web hosts offer as paid addons.

With that said, let’s take an in-depth look into Namecheap’s offerings.

Namecheap Review: Is Namecheap any good?

Many people ask us if Namecheap is legitimate and the simple answer is yes! They are quite popular and one of the most reliable domain and hosting companies in the industry.

1. Namecheap Domain Registrar

Namecheap manages 8+ million domain names with Top Level Domain (TLD) extensions. This includes .com, .net, .org, .co, .co.uk, .dev, and much more. You’ll also find ccTLDs for your country like .us, .ca, .in, and .uk.

They have a domain search bar that’s easy to use.

All you have to do is type in your desired domain name and Namecheap will display results for your search with 400+ extensions.

Domain names start as low as $0.99 for the first year and you can also get a domain name for free when you buy a web hosting plan.

What stands out about Namecheap is its renewal rates. Most domain registrars use domains as a loss leader. This means they offer domain names for super cheap so you can snag a domain name for a dollar or two. But after the first year, you’ll have to pay a hefty sum to keep your domain name. On average, this ranges between $17.99 and $29.99 per year.

Namecheap is one of the only registrars that offers renewal rates that are slightly higher than the initial year. They also display the renewal cost up front when you’re purchasing your domain name.

If you already have a domain name registered elsewhere, you can transfer it at nominal cost. You get to keep any time remaining on your domain registration.

Plus, the migration process is smooth and easy which means you won’t experience any downtime when you transfer your domain to Namecheap. It takes between 30 minutes up to 6 days for the process to be completed.

2. Namecheap Web Hosting (& Pricing Plans)

Namecheap offers reliable, secure, and stress-free web hosting solutions. You get top-notch service at a fraction of the cost you’d pay with competitor hosts.

Namecheap has a robust infrastructure with top-tier security measures in place so you can rest assured your site is on a secure server.

They have data centers in the US, UK, and EU. While the US comes included in the hosting plans, the UK and EU datacenters cost $1 per month.

Plus, you get stable backups that actually work when you need to restore them.

Added to all this, Namecheap offers 100% uptime guarantee on their hosting services. They monitor websites every 5 minutes to make sure they’re live and operational 24/7. This performance data is logged right to your dashboard.

If any issues occur, you can reach out to them and they will do their best to resolve them in the shortest time period.

The best part is that you can choose between monthly, quarterly, and yearly plans. This is a big plus for Namecheap as most web hosts need you to commit to at least a 12-month plan.

Here are the different kinds of hosting plans Namecheap offers:

Shared Hosting
WordPress Hosting
Reseller Hosting
VPS Hosting
Dedicated Hosting

We’ll explain this in detail so that you’ll know what you get for each plan and how much it will cost you.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the easiest and best hosting to get a website online at affordable prices. It’s made for beginners and entry-level websites.

These plans are cheap because one physical server hosts multiple websites, often hundreds of them. This means each user will get a section of the server with limited resources such as database, disk space, CPU, and RAM.

It’s a cost-effective option for startups, small businesses, and personal websites. You can get started for as low as $1.88 per month.

The 4 shared hosting plans that Namecheap offers are:

Stellar: Costs $1.88 per month for the first year and renews at $3.88. Includes a free domain name, 3 websites, and 20GB SSD.
Popular: Costs $2.98 per month for the first year and renews at $5.88. Includes a free domain name, unlimited websites, unlimited subdomains, unmetered SSD, and autobackup.
Stellar Business: Costs $4.98 per month for the first year and renews at $9.88. Includes everything in Popular + 50GB SSD, autobackup and cloud storage.

Every plan comes with access to unmetered bandwidth, free website builder, domain name and privacy protection, website migration, and automatic SSL installation. Plus, you can create as many subdomains as you want.

Plus, there’s the Softaculous App installer that lets you install WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Zen Cart, and other apps in one click.

You also benefit from free Supersonic CDN to make your website’s performance faster and better.

Keep in mind, if you want to speed up your site, you can use caching plugins.

WordPress Hosting

This is a fast and affordable managed WordPress solution for those that don’t want to handle website maintenance tasks.

You can set up your website in less than 2 minutes with EasyWP.

Managed WordPress Hosting is a hosting environment that is specifically designed for WordPress, which doesn’t require any maintenance on your part.

Why is it better than shared hosting?

For starters, Namecheap will auto-install WordPress for you and also handle security, backups, and updates.

Plus, with Shared Hosting, you share your resources with other website owners. This means that if someone else’s website gets a lot of traffic, you may experience downtime.

But with Managed Hosting, you’ll also never notice if a server or any hardware fails because your website stays containerized from such incidents.

Now Namecheap has 3 Managed WordPress plans:

EasyWP Starter: Costs $24.88 per year, renews at $34.88 per year. It allows 50k visitors per month and 10GB SSD storage.
EasyWP Turbo: Costs $48.88 per year, renews at $78.88 per year. It allows 200k visitors per month and 50GB SSD storage. You also get 1.5x more CPU and RAM along with free CDN and SSL.
EasyWP Supersonic: Costs $54.88 per year, renews at $108.88 per year. It allows 500k visitors per month and 100GB SSD storage. Along with free CDN and SSL, you get 2x more CPU and RAM with a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

The WordPress hosting plan allows you to create 1 WordPress website that’s hosted on their Namecheap Cloud server. You won’t get access to cPanel (control panel) but you will get an easy-to-use dashboard to manage your site along with backups, SFTP, and database access.

There’s a 30-day free trial so you can get started with zero commitment.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller Hosting is a type of web hosting that allows you (the reseller) to purchase a hosting provider’s resources at wholesale rates and resell them to your clients for a profit.

It’s ideal for web developers, web design firms, or entrepreneurs as it allows you to create your own branded hosting service. You can even make your own pricing structure for the hosting plans you offer.

Namecheap lets you choose from 3 reseller hosting plans:

Nebula: Costs $19.88 per month for 25 cPanel accounts and 30GB SSD
Popular: Costs $36.88 per month for 100 cPanel accounts and 90GB SSD
Universe Pro: Costs $54.88 per month for 150 cPanel accounts, 150GB SSD, and WHMCS starter (Web Host Manager Complete Solution)

All plans come with unmetered bandwidth, free cPanel/WHM (web host manager), and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

VPS Hosting

Virtual private servers provide control and flexibility for your business needs. In VPS hosting, a physical server is divided into multiple ones. Each VPS section gets its own Operating System (OS) along with a specific share of resources from one physical server.

Unlike shared servers, your website is placed in an isolated section on a server that can be separately rebooted.

VPS Hosting is perfect if you need more resources than a shared server but prefer not to spend as much on a dedicated hosting plan.

Namecheap offers only 2 VPS hosting options:

Pulsar: Costs $9.88 per month, renews at $118.56 per year. It gives you 2 CPU cores, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD RAID 10, and 1,000 GB bandwidth.
Quasar: Costs $17.88 per month, renews at $214.56 per year. It gives you 4 CPU cores, 6GB RAM, 120GB SSD RAID 10, and 3,000 GB bandwidth.

You get full root access and a selection of your operating system. You’ll also get your choice of server management.

If you already have existing websites and VPS, it’s free to transfer them over to your Namecheap hosting.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Server Hosting gives you sole access to all the resources available on your server.

Namecheap’s Dedicated Servers are best recommended for those who have a technical background. If you’re comfortable with managing and configuring servers with root access, then dedicated hosting is ideal.

This is used for high-traffic websites, website and business applications, content streaming, podcasting, machine learning, big data, storage, infrastructure virtualization, and game servers.

Namecheap offers top-tier performance to take your business to the next level with these plans:

Xeon E3-1230 v5: Costs $47.88 per month, renews at $60.88 per year. It gives you 4 cores @3.4GHz, 8GB DDR4, 240GB SSD, and 100 TB/month bandwidth.
Xeon E3-1275 v6: Costs $17.88 per month. It gives you 4 cores @3.8GHz, 15GB DDR4, 2 x 1 TB HDD, and 100 TB/month bandwidth.
Dual Xeon Gold 5218:Costs $298.88 per month. It gives you Dual 16 cores @2.3GHz, 128GB DDR4, 4 x 1 TB NVMe, and 500 GB backup storage, and unmetered bandwidth.

With that, we’ve covered everything Namecheap has to offer under its web hosting umbrella. Next, we’ll talk about 2 very important aspects of website operations, and that’s security and backups.

3. Namecheap Security & Backup

Just like the real world, the web is prone to risks like identity thieves, hackers, viruses, and other threats. This makes security a top priority when you run a website. Namecheap follows best security practices and they also have security addons that you can make use of.

Fast VPN: A fast VPN experience to secure all your devices that comes at low prices. This functionality lets you hide your IP address to protect your privacy, keep your data hidden, and browse safely on public Wi-Fi.

Domain Privacy: Keeps domain owner contact information concealed in the public Whois database. This is offered free with every domain registration.

PremiumDNS: Offers a secure, globally available premium DNS service for better uptime and performance. This also gives you protection against DDoS attacks and other DNS attacks. Premium DNS costs less than $5 per year.

SSL Certificates: Protect’s your site’s customers and data against identity theft and data theft. Get basic to in-depth validation for one site or several with Namecheap’s SSL certificates.

Those are the main security features Namecheap has to offer. You also get top-notch Two-Factor Authentication (U2F, TOTP & OneTouch) to keep your account secure – free of charge.

Coming to backups, Namecheap offers automatic backups on most of its web hosting plans. This is included in your hosting package.

They also back up their server data once every 3-7 days. If you experience a data loss, they will try to recover it for you.

Up next, we’ll explore what Namecheap has to offer so that you can grow your website.

4. Namecheap Apps and Marketing Services

Aside from web hosting and domains, Namecheap offers marketing tools and other apps to help you get your website or online business off the ground.

1. Professional Business Email

Namecheap offers professional business email addresses starting at just $0.87 per month ($10.42 per year). You’ll get an email address that matches your website brand and domain name. So instead of [email protected], a business address would look like [email protected].

This gives you 1 free mailbox, 5GB space for emails, 2GB for files, and anti-spam protection.

You can add on new email accounts at $0.66 per month. Or you can upgrade to higher plans with more storage space, mobile support, and access to built-in docs, sheets, presentations, and more.

If you have multiple alias emails such as [email protected] and [email protected], you can unify your inboxes and have them exist as one. This makes it easier to manage your email marketing and support.

All of Namecheap’s email plans are free for 60 days, no payment details are required. After that, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

2. App Marketplace

Namecheap gives you access to a wide range of apps that you can use to grow your business online.

These include popular tools like Google Workspace, Site Maker, Relate, and Weebly. You can subscribe to these tools from your account panel and manage them all in one place.

If you have a Namecheap domain, after you purchase an app, Namecheap will automatically set it up for you.

Namecheap Customer Support & Documentation

Namecheap has a friendly support team that’s available 24/7 to help you find solutions to your problems. You can chat with them or submit a ticket on the website.

Namecheap has a help center that gives you access to a knowledge base, guides, blog, and how to videos. You can even check the current status of their service.

Best Namecheap Alternatives

Now that we’ve taken an in-depth look at Namecheap, you can see that it’s a reliable and affordable platform to buy a domain and web hosting plan.

However, there’s a lot of competition in the market so it’s good to look at alternatives before you make a commitment.

See our full list: Namecheap Alternatives: Switch to Better a Host.

Here are the top web hosting providers as alternatives to Namecheap:

Bluehost: The most reliable web hosting platform with a robust set up to run your website
Domain.com: Best and oldest domain registrar. You can buy your domain, hosting, and site builder in one place
GoDaddy: The most popular one in the market. They offer incredibly low rates to get your website started, but their renewals are expensive.

With Bluehost, you can even get an Woocommerce plan that’s designed to help you set up an e-Commerce store fast. With every plan, you get access to a user-friendly dashboard and cPanel, that you can use to manage your domain and hosting.

When you sign up for one of their hosting plans that start at just $2.75 per month, you’ll get a free domain name for 12 months, free SSL certificate, and free CDN.

You can also subscribe to paid addons like email hosting, Sitelock security, Codeguard backups, Yoast SEO, website builder with templates, and more.

You may also want to check out Hostinger, SiteGround, HostGator, InMotion Hosting, and Dreamhost.

You can find more domain name registrars here: Best Domain Registrars

That’s all we have for you today. We hope you found this Namecheap review helpful.

In a nutshell, Namecheap is a great option for anyone looking to run a website on a small budget. You get all the bells and whistles at a low cost.

Our top recommendation is Bluehost. They are a well reputed web hosting service and are even officially recommended by WordPress.org.

If you’re ready to start building your WordPress site, we have a step-by-step guide that you can use to href=”https://www.nameboy.com/how-to-start-a-small-business-website-step-by-step/” title=”How to Start a Small Business Website (Step by Step)”>Build a Small Business Website.

Next, you’ll definitely want to see more of our resources:

These posts will help you build, protect, and grow your website with ease.

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