Hostpapa Web Hosting Review 2023
4.6
Ranked 13 From 3855 Webhosting
| Web Hosting | $1.88 – $4.98 |
| VPS Hosting | $9.88 – $17.88 |
| Dedicated Server | $48.88 – $299 |
| WordPress Hosting | $4.88 – $13.88 |
| Reseller Hosting | $19.88 – $58.88 |
Great Britain ✓
$1.98 / mo.
Reg. Price $1.98 – Get 50% Off!
- FREE Domain and Migration
- Decent Load Time
- Fully-Loaded Value Plan
- Unlimited storage
Namecheap Fast and Easy to Use, Perfect for Beginners and Basic Websites
Namecheap is widely known for its discounted domain names, but like many other registrars, it has also branched out into hosting. Are the hosting solutions on par with the best of the best the internet has to offer? I signed up to find out. Namecheap has been in the business since 2000 and has over 10 million active domains registered. It’s website hosting plans cover most hosting types and include shared, managed WordPress, VPS (virtual private server) machines, dedicated servers, and even private email hosting. All services are available in English. Now, while it’s extremely tempting to purchase your domain name and hosting plan from the same provider, you should be wary of doing so. An all-in-one solution simplifies everything – from management to support and billing – but a jack of all trades is (usually) a master of none. Laughing in the face of danger, I took the risk upon myself and signed up for managed WordPress hosting. To my surprise, I found a managed WordPress platform like few others, seamlessly designed and providing a fantastic user experience.
Still, does that ease of use come at the cost of features? Can the service really answer advanced needs, or will you find yourself limited and unable to grow? Well, read on and see for yourself!
Namecheap’s range starts with low cost and easy-to-use shared hosting, a perfect choice for first-timers and less demanding websites. There are Namecheap promo codes for bringing the cost down even more too.
Namecheap Review 2023: Hosting Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons
Namecheap provides powerhouse VPS and dedicated servers,but we’ll focus on the shared hosting side of things. Shared hosting is
the simplest, cheapest form of hosting, and in my opinion, there’s no better place to start.With Namecheap, shared hosting includes two subcategories: Regular shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting.I signed up for WordPress hosting, which is provided
through Namecheap’s proprietary platform – EasyWP. EasyWP is a WordPress-only cloud-based plan and can’t be used with any other CMS (content management system). Regular shared hosting, on the other hand, lets you install any CMS through the use of Softaculous.
In terms of storage space and bandwidth, the basic EasyWP plan, Starter, has 10 GB SSD storage and allows for 50,000 monthly visitors.
The mid-level plan, Turbo, comes with 50 GB of SSD space and about 200,000 monthly visitors. The most advanced plan, Supersonic, has 100 GB of space and about 500,000 monthly visitors.
This “monthly visitors” metric is confusing, as bandwidth is usually measured in GBs. I tried to get an answer from support, but they kept
claiming that there’s really a “visitor counter” working in the background. Either way, your site will have a lot of room to grow.On to regular shared hosting. The basic Stellar plan has 20 GB of SSD space, the second plan has unlimited space, and the last one is capped at 50 GB. Bandwidth is unmetered for all three. You must be thinking – how come the mid-tier plan comes with more space than the most advanced one? According to Namecheap, it has something to do with “premium support” and “extra caching.” I think it’s just cheap. Anyway, let’s go deeper, into features that can make or break your site.
Most of us know Namecheap as one of the best (and cheapest) places to register domain names. But did you know they also offer incredibly cheap web hosting too?
Well, they do! And in this Namecheap hosting review, we’ll be looking specifically at their EasyWP shared hosting for WordPress to determine whether it’s a good option for your website.
We’ll review how easy it is to use, what sort of useful features are included (and excluded), whether it’s fast and reliable enough and how well their customer support performs, as and when you need it.
Let’s get into it…
Namecheap is a domain name registrar that was founded in 2000 in Arizona, United States. It also provides web hosting, email hosting, SSL certificates and VPV services.
Namecheap has 11 million registered users and 10 million domains. Indeed, according to Statista they are the biggest registrar worldwide after GoDaddy – about 8% of all domain names are registered with Namecheap.
In this review, we will concentrate on their shared hosting plans for WordPress. However, we will also take a quick look at the other products they offer too.
About Namecheap
Namecheap was founded all the way back in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall. Over the past 18 years, they’ve reportedly racked up three million customers. Domain names are the name of Namecheap’s game (sorry, couldn’t resist), with over seven million under their control.
Namecheap General Info & Hosting Overview
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
|
AVERAGE UPTIME : |
99.95% |
|
SPEED: |
614 ms |
|
SUPPORT: |
24/7 Live Chat |
|
BANDWIDTH: |
Unlimited Bandwidth |
|
STORAGE: |
Unlimited Storage Space |
|
SITE TRANSFER: |
Free Site Migration |
|
MONEY BACK POLICY: |
30 Day Money Back Guarantee |
Best Web Hosting Companies
Yes, there were several faster web hosts. Hostinger, for example, is one of Namecheap’s closest competitors in terms of price. And they had slightly faster load times.
But Namecheap also beat many other web hosts for speed, all of which are more expensive. One of them (Kinsta) costs many times the price of Namecheap.
And you can see in the table below that their speeds have been consistently good for the last two years.
2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
Page Load Time in Seconds | |||
2.39 | 1.56 | 1.29 | |
3.15 | 2.01 | 1.30 | |
3.40 | 1.94 | 1.44 | |
2.32 | 1.73 | 1.46 | |
2.14 | 1.54 | 1.56 | |
4.19 | 1.61 | 1.63 | |
2.21 | 1.65 | 1.66 | |
– | 1.60 | 1.69 | |
3.28 | 1.84 | 1.75 | |
2.98 | 1.77 | 1.82 | |
3.07 | 2.87 | 2.07 | |
– | 1.95 | 2.32 | |
4.36 | 2.75 | 2.58 | |
4.19 | 2.76 | 2.60 | |
3.77 | 2.78 | 2.72 | |
Results in seconds
Namecheap claims that it’s their genuine cloud based technology that is responsible for such impressive speed. And it also seems to be doing wonders for their reliability…
Advantages of Namecheap:
1- FREE Domain and Migration .-Namecheap excels at domain names. So it only makes sense that they’ll happily throw one in if you sign up for their hosting plan.
2- Decent Load Time – After the uptime, the second most important criteria is speed. The reason it’s so important is that speed has been directly correlated with visitor happiness.
3- 30-day Money-Back Guarantee-Namecheap does offer a rock-solid 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ve got a full month to see if their service is right for you. Otherwise, it’s not too late to back out and try something else.
4- Fully-Loaded Value Plan .- Namecheap surprised us, though. First, they offered unmetered bandwidth on their cheapest plan. They also give you access to standard features like cPanel access and apps like WordPress.
5- Unlimited storage.- They are generous with storage in each of their plans.
6- Unlimited transfer.- I like the idea of having unlimited transfer for my websites, especially on peak dates where I have more visits to my page.
Namecheap Prices, Hosting Plans:
Is namecheap hosting good for wordpress ?
Namecheap offers a range of web hosting services that provide users with the resources needed to host their website, including server space, bandwidth and technical support. You can choose your preferred service based on different website requirements and budgets, such as:
· Shared hosting: Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where multiple websites are hosted on a single physical server. Thanks to this approach, numerous users can share the resources of a single server and keep costs low. Namecheap’s shared hosting plans come with features such as free domain registration, cPanel, unmetered bandwidth and a free website builder.
· WordPress hosting: Namecheap’s WordPress hosting plans are optimized to provide faster loading times and better performance. The plans include an easy-to-use installer, SSL certificates and automatic backups.
· Reseller hosting: Namecheap’s reseller hosting plans allow users to sell hosting plans to their customers under their brand name, with the option to white label Namecheap’s hosting services.
· VPS hosting: Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans offer dedicated resources and full root access. The solution is completely customizable, allowing users to choose their operating system (Ubuntu, CentOS or Debian), get root access to the server and determine whether the control panel (cPanel) will be installed.
· Dedicated hosting: Namecheap’s dedicated hosting plans provide users with complete control over their server, with dedicated resources and a choice of operating system.
Email hosting: Namecheap’s email hosting plans provide users with a business email address with their domain name, secure webmail access and spam protection.
While the company may have gotten its start by offering domain names, Namecheap has built a solid web hosting platform as well. Many features that other platforms charge for, such as domain names and SSL certificates, are included for free.
Namecheap Storage and Bandwidth Limits
Namecheap offers a moderate amount of space to store databases, files and emails. Its most basic plan has a 20GB SSD and its most premium version has a 50GB SSD.
Notably, Namecheap offers unmetered bandwidth, which means it offers users a set amount of bandwidth that they can use. While the server speed is limited, the amount of data that can be transferred between your website and your visitors is not.
By contrast, unlimited bandwidth describes a type of hosting plan that offers an unlimited amount of data transfer between the website and its visitors. Unlike plans with metered or capped bandwidth, users do not face extra charges for exceeding a set limit.
Namecheap Extras and Inclusions
Namecheap’s annual shared hosting plan includes a free domain name, a free SSL certificate and automatic backups. For the first year, there are several discounts and offers available for new users. Select plans also offer additional add-ons such as server setup, access to a free website builder and two-month free trials.
Namechep Webhosting Ease of Use
Namecheap has a user-friendly interface and straightforward dashboard for managing domains, hosting and other services. Namecheap’s account control panel looks a little cluttered at first glance, with lists, and sidebars, and menus and icons everywhere you look. But spend just a moment exploring, and it begins to make a lot more sense.
There’s a list of your domains over
here, for instance, hosting panels over there, and some of these pages are
hugely useful. Visit your hosting plan’s Manage panel, for instance, and you’ll
find its disk space and bandwidth allowance; server hostname, IP address and
data center; cPanel Launch button and shortcuts; usage stats, auto-renewal settings,
a Cancel button and more.
That’s a huge improvement on many
providers, where key settings and options are scattered around, and you can
spend an age trying to find the features and details you need.
You’ll probably spend more time managing
your website rather than your hosting plan, of course, but Namecheap scores
here, too. While IONOS, iPage and some other hosts try to cut corners by
providing their own custom management tools, Namecheap uses industry standards
such as Softaculous to install and manage WordPress, and cPanel to set up your
domains, emails and just about everything else.
This is good news, for a couple of
reasons. First, it’s a guarantee of quality (that’s how these tools got to be
industry standards.) But mostly, it makes life easier for everyone. If you’ve
ever used cPanel or Softaculous before, you’ll feel at home here immediately.
And even if you haven’t, the time you spend learning the cPanel basics won’t be
wasted. If you move from Namecheap in a few years, there’s a good chance your
next provider will also use cPanel, and you’ll already know how to do all your
most important hosting tasks.
Namecheap shared hosting review
Finding a list of shared hosting providers is easy. Choosing the right one for you, less so. Certain features are fairly standard among the best hosting companies. But how do big names like Namecheap, GoDaddy, Hostgator, Bluehost, and StableHost stack up against one another? Here, we take di look at the most popular features on the marke, to lend a hand in and help you find your ‘host with the most’
One reason shared hosting is such a popular choice is due to affordable pricing. Owning a dedicated server has advantages, but for the budget conscious, shared web hosting is a strong alternative. With most companies, choosing the annual payment option offers the best overall value. When you compare similar products from the major players, there is a clear leader in terms of low price.
Namecheap Stellar Plus is the winner when it comes to price. At $26.44 for a full year of hosting, you save at least $50 during the first year, compared to the next lowest price. If you just consider Stellar Plus from Namecheap vs. GoDaddy hosting, with the comparable Deluxe plan, you save over $100 over the first 12 months. These prices do change from time to time, so be sure to check individual product pages for the most up-to-date pricing.
Bluehost is somewhat inexpensive for the first year but then jumps up to one of the most expensive offerings during year two. Hostgator Baby and Stablehost Pro fall somewhere in between, with Namecheap still retaining the low-price lead after first-year discounts expire.
With shared hosting, there are always access limits to CPU resources. This barrier is one of the major reasons why it is a more affordable product than a fully dedicated server. Therefore, it’s important to review how much of a restriction is placed on your CPU usage.
Namecheap allows users CPU access of up to 40% with the Stellar Plus option. GoDaddy Deluxe and Hostgator Baby plans both limit your CPU usage to 25%. Stablehost Pro dedicates only one core to each shared hosting account. Bluehost does not publish CPU allocations for each package, but their website does indicate that you may need to buy additional CPU and RAM resources if you exceed the usage limitations of the Plus plan.
I/O Usage
Data transfer speeds between the hard disk and the RAM are known in hosting circles as I/O usage. I/O stands for input and output, but you might see this described as the throughput on some websites. This measurement includes every process related to reading or writing on the server’s hard disk. I/O usage is important because it affects how fast your website can be updated and served.
Bluehost and GoDaddy came in last on this one, with speeds of only 1 Mb/s. Stablehost Pro was faster, at 5 Mb/s. Namecheap came in considerably better with an I/O rate of 50 Mb/s. Overall, the fastest I/O came from Hostgator, however, as we mentioned earlier, CPU usage is a real limitation with their Baby plan.
FTP Users
From time to time, webmasters need to connect directly to the server, and review existing files or upload new ones. If you have a large team with many people who must have access to FTP, putting a limit on the number of users can be a distinct hindrance. Most of the web hosting plans we compared offer an unlimited number of FTP users. GoDaddy, however, restricts you to only 50 users.
Email Accounts
Today, there are many ways to communicate online, from voice chat to hundreds of instant messaging apps. Email remains the most universal way to get in touch, especially for website publishers. Both business and individuals rely on email to stay field requests from page visitors and clients. All of the shared hosting packages we reviewed allow an unlimited number of email accounts, with a notable exception. GoDaddy Deluxe offering grants only one email address unless you subscribe to a higher level of service.
Solid-State Drive
Many people choose shared hosting as opposed to an on-site server because you get affordable access to the best technology. A solid-state drive (SSD) is well known to enhance performance over traditional hard disk drives (HDD). SSDs have no moving mechanical parts and offer faster access time and low latency. Electromechanical drives, such as HDDs and floppy disks, contain spinning disks and movable heads, making them slower and more prone to malfunction.
Of the brands we compared, Namecheap, Bluehost, and Stablehost were the three that have upgraded to SSDs for shared hosting customers. GoDaddy and Hostgator still use the older electromechanical technology.
MySQL Databases
An open-source relational database framework, MySQL is integral to several popular content management systems, including WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. MySQL databases keep and retrieve your blog data as well as other types of posts. Looking squarely at Namecheap vs. GoDaddy, the number of databases allowed are very different. Stellar Plus from Namecheap grants access to 10GB of MySQL storage, and an unlimited number of databases. A Deluxe Plan from GoDaddy only gives you 1GB of database storage for MySQL, a considerable limitation.
Backups
In tech circles, there’s a saying that goes something like: “There are two types of webmasters–those who do backups and those who already do them.” All providers give you the option to manually backup your data at any time. Still, busy people can easily forget to do this before major updates. Even with minor updates, like installing a new plugin or CMS version, completing a manual backup before helps avoid possible trouble. In any of these situations, automatic backups are very helpful.
Namecheap executes an automatic backup of your data twice per week. If you do run into errors after making a change, you can request the most recent backup through customer service, 24 hours a day. GoDaddy charges an extra monthly fee for automatic backups. Hostgator only runs one automatic backup per week, on a random day.
Free SSL Certificates
To keep your data, and your customers’ data, safe, you simply cannot manage a site without an SSL certificate in place. Without a verified SSL, users trying to access your site may get a warning in their browser that proceeding is unsafe. This security features gives users peace of mind and prevents unwanted parties from intercepting private information. Three of the web hosting providers reviewed offer free SSL certificates. GoDaddy and Hostgator do not.
With Bluehost Plus and Stablehost Pro, you receive Let’s Encrypt certificates with your plan. Namecheap Stellar Plus empowers you with up to 50 free Positive SSL certificates for the first year you subscribe to shared hosting.
Website Builder
There aren’t a lot of things you can do with a web hosting package unless you build a website. Sure, there are myriad ways to do this, from hiring a professional developer to doing a WordPress self-installation. If you are interested in an easy and low-cost way to build your new website, you might want to choose a provider that offers a free website builder to all customers.
Once again, Hostgator and GoDaddy come up short in this area, as neither one offers a free website builder with shared hosting. Stablehost Pro and Bluehost Plus both included a cost-free way to build your own website. Namecheap offers an easy and intuitive website builder that includes hundreds of free templates, tools, and features to enrich your website content. You can even build an e-commerce website to sell your products without the costly upgrades some other hosts require.
Uptime SLA
Once your website is launched, it’s essential to keep it running. So with all web hosts, you’ll see some sort of uptime guarantee. Typically, you’ll see a 99.9% uptime SLA, but Namecheap takes it one step further. Namecheap’s Hosting Guarantee assures 100% uptime SLA, the best you can ever expect to see. If on the rare chance that your hosting service falls short, Namecheap will gladly issue credits to your account.
Namecheap WordPress hosting
WordPress is a hugely popular website creation platform, easy for beginners to use, yet powerful enough to build huge business websites and leading-edge web stores.
As we’ve discussed above, you can explore one of the best WordPress hosting(opens in new tab) tools with Namecheap’s shared account. If you’re building a very simple website, you’re looking for a bargain, or you’d just like to learn the WordPress basics and find out what it could do, the shared hosting route makes a lot of sense.
Namecheap’s EasyWP plans are fractionally more expensive, but add more resources and are specially optimized to deliver better WordPress speeds (Namecheap says they’re at least three times faster than regular WordPress on its shared hosting account.)
EasyWP Starter has 10GB storage, a free CDN (Content Delivery Network) to boost performance, and supports a single site with up to 50K visitors a month. It looks cheap at $2.08 a month on the annual plan, $2.91 on renewal, although there is one catch: there’s no SSL, which adds at least $0.50 a month with Namecheap’s most basic certificate.
The other EasyWP plans include SSL for the lifetime of the plan (not just the first year), and add more storage and resources. The top-of-the-range EasyWP Supersonic plan can manage a mammoth 500K visitors a month, but it’s still good value at $4.57 a month on the annual plan, $9.07 on renewal.
The EasyWP range could be a smart choice for WordPress newcomers with simple websites and not much cash to spend. Even the monthly billing option is great value. Sign up with EasyWP Starter, the first month is free, and you’ll pay only $4.88 a month after that. That’s three months to learn WordPress and test the service, all for under $10.
The plans have some weaknesses, too. They support creating only one website, and you don’t get the same range of WordPress-oriented features that we see with the best competition.
If Namecheap doesn’t have the power you need, take a look at A2 Hosting’s Managed WordPress range. The JUMP plan is more expensive ($22.99 on the annual plan), but gets you 250GB of fast NVMe storage, free SSL, premium backups, and support for five WordPress sites, a far more capable choice for advanced users.
Elsewhere, business WordPress users should check out Greengeeks(opens in new tab)’s WP Pro range, which adds marketing and SEO tools to the managed WordPress hosting(opens in new tab) mix. And if you’re after the maximum hardware power, A2 Hosting (opens in new tab) has WordPress products for VPS and dedicated servers.
Namecheap VPS hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS(opens in new tab)) hosting is faster and more configurable than shared hosting. But it’s also relatively expensive, and more complex to set up and manage, which means it’s not an ideal choice for novice users with simple, low-traffic sites.
If you’re an expert or have a more demanding website, though, it’s a very different story. A good VPS can give you huge control over your server, and the power to handle hundreds of thousands of visits a month, sometimes for less than the cost of high-end shared hosting.
Namecheap’s VPS hosting starts at $6.88 a month billed annually for a 2 CPU core, 2GB RAM, 40GB storage and 1TB bandwidth system. While that looks cheap, keep in mind that it’s an unmanaged system, which means you’re left to run the server yourself (add, install and update software, restore a failed server, and more.) You don’t even get a control panel.
Managed VPS is easier to use, but also more expensive. The unmanaged Quasar plan is $15.88 billed monthly for a 4 core, 6GB RAM, 120GB storage and 3TB bandwidth system. Adding full server management and cPanel lifts the price to $50.76 (and you can add $1.50 a month if you need Softaculous to install WordPress or anything else).
Namecheap’s top-of-the-range Magnetar VPS plan is more powerful, with 8 CPU cores, 12GB RAM, 240GB storage and 6TB bandwidth. It’s $28.88 billed monthly for an unmanaged system, rising to $63.76 with the managed option.
The major advantage of Namecheap’s VPS range is its price. We often recommend Hostwinds’ extensive VPS range, but what do you get for $29 a month there? Two CPU cores, 6GB RAM and 100GB storage, a far less capable system.
The problem with Namecheap is it only has three VPS plans, and they’re not as configurable as the best of the competition. If Namecheap’s choices don’t suit your needs, you’ll find far more appealing deals elsewhere.
If you’re on a budget, IONOS(opens in new tab)’ basic VPS starts at $2 billed monthly, for instance. It’s as basic as a VPS gets (1 core, 512MB RAM), but ideal as a cheap way to learn how the technology works.
At the other end of the market, Liquid Web(opens in new tab)’s VPS hosting is crammed with features, with great support, and is mostly for demanding business users.
If you just need maximum choice, check out Hostwinds(opens in new tab). It has both cheaper and more powerful plans than Namecheap, they’re more configurable, and every VPS is available in Linux and Windows flavors. That’s what we call comprehensive.
Namecheap dedicated hosting
Opt for shared or VPS hosting and you’re forced to share your web server with others. Sign for a dedicated package, though, and it’s entirely yours. RAM, CPU time, the network connection, it’s all reserved for your website only, so you’ll never again be slowed down by what’s happening with other accounts.
Namecheap used to offer only a handful of dedicated server deals, but right now there are 44, more than many competitors. There’s something for everyone, with prices starting low at under $50 billed monthly for an unmanaged 4 core, 8GB RAM system, rising to around $250 for a 16 core CPU with 128GB RAM and fast-as-it-gets 4 x 1.92TB SSD NVMe storage. All plans include free site migration and a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
As with VPS hosting, the lowest prices are for unmanaged systems (you must run the server yourself.) Choosing the Complete Management option (Namecheap maintains the server for you) with a cPanel Solo license adds around $65 to the server cost (billed monthly.) But that’s still great value, especially as there’s no setup fee, and you can pay significantly more elsewhere.
The main issue with Namecheap is the lack of configuration options. You can’t take a base server and pay extra to add more RAM, or an extra backup drive, for instance: what you see is more or less what you’ll get. There’s still no Windows hosting option, and servers are only available in the Arizona data center: you can’t choose the UK or Netherlands.
If you don’t have any special configuration needs, and you’re looking to run a high-traffic or business-critical site where speed and reliability are vital, then Namecheap’s lengthy list of base servers and great value should earn it a place on your shortlist.
Also consider IONOS. It doesn’t have as many server plans, but there are some very cheap managed and unmanaged deals, and other options you won’t find at Namecheap (Windows hosting on some servers, storage servers with up to 48TB storage and US or Europe data centers).
Elsewhere, both A2 Hosting (opens in new tab) and InMotion Hosting have a wide range of managed and unmanaged plans, with unusually flexible billing to keep costs down (1, 3, 6 and 12 months.) And if you’re looking for real power, check out Liquid Web. Its high-end servers can handle just about anything, and the company’s 100% uptime and power guarantee (and excellent support) should get you an ultra-reliable service.
How Dose Namecheap Control Panel Looks
Namecheap Alternatives
Namecheap vs. MochaHost
MochaHost offers a range of hosting plans, including shared hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers, as well as specialized plans for e-commerce, WordPress and reseller hosting. Each plan offers free SSL certificates for life. However, a free domain name only becomes available from its more premium Business plan—unlike Namecheap, which offers this service on every plan.
MochaHost offers a variety of options for customer service such as phone support and a knowledge base. In terms of uptime guarantee, Namecheap narrowly wins with its 100% uptime guarantee on Stellar Plus plans, compared to MochaHost’s 99.9% uptime.
Namecheap vs. HostGator
HostGator is known for its reliable hosting, user-friendly interface and excellent customer support. It offers a variety of hosting plans to fit different needs, including shared hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers. HostGator also provides a range of domain services, including domain registration, transfer and management.
Unlike Namecheap’s remarkable 100% uptime on Stellar Plus plans, Hostgator offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Namecheap vs. Bluehost
One key difference between Namecheap and Bluehost is their focus. Namecheap offers a wider range of hosting options, including VPS and dedicated hosting, while Bluehost is known for its excellent WordPress hosting.
A downside for Bluehost is that it doesn’t specify an uptime guarantee and has a storage limit of 100 GB. If you’re looking for affordable hosting with a user-friendly interface, Namecheap may be the better choice. If you’re looking for reliable WordPress hosting, Bluehost may be the better option.
Namecheap vs Hostpapa
Plan Cost
As low as per $2.95 per Month
Money back guarantee
30 days
Basic Plan Storage
100 GB SSD
Namecheap Is Not Recommended For:
· International users seeking nearer data center locations: Namecheap’s data centers are located primarily in the U.S. and U.K. If you’re a user based in Asia or other regions, you’ll find better options elsewhere for performance or regulatory reasons.
· Medium-sized businesses and companies looking for premium features: While Namecheap provides excellent basic features for web hosting and domain registration, it may not have all the advanced features that larger businesses or more technically advanced users may require.
· Customers seeking low renewal rates: While Namecheap offers cheap pricing for new users, its renewal rates increase significantly after one year. This is a downside for users looking to host their website in the long term.
Security – is Namecheap secure?
Security is one of the most important factors to consider when looking for the best hosting provider. While preparing this Namecheap review, I found it to be quite secure yet a little basic. It did a pretty good job of including several security features in its plans – from free SSL certificates to firewalls and backups.
For a better understanding of Namecheap’s security standards, I’ll break it down for you. Here’s what this provider offers:
§ Free Positive SSL with one-click activation is available. In my case, the tool was stuck, and I had to contact support about it. But in the end, I came out with a working SSL, so no hard feelings here.
§ WHOIS Domain Privacy Protection is free for all clients who are getting a domain name from Namecheap. It protects your personal privacy, prevents spam, identity theft, and unwanted solicitation.
§ DDoS protection – basic DDoS protection through Supersonic CDN is free, but you have to turn it on yourself.
§ Firewall – ModSecurity is the basic traffic filtering option that NameCheap offers. If you’d like more protection, an advanced Web Application Firewall is available through Supersonic CDN paid version.
§ Automatic backups – the Stellar plan offers backups twice a week, but that is not guaranteed. Stellar Plus and Stellar Business come with daily automatic backups. For these plans, you’re given access to 6 daily, 3 weekly, and 11 monthly backups. It’s up to you which one you choose.
Namecheap covers website and server security on the basic level. That means you’re protected from the most common threats if you choose to enable these features. At the same time, websites that need more security should look into additional solutions.
Namecheap FAQ's
Is Namecheap good?
Namecheap is a very good domain registrar but its hosting quality is lagging behind because of poor performance.
Where is Namecheap located?
Namecheap is a US-based company located in Phoenix, Arizona. It operates data centers in the US, EU, and the UK.
Is Namecheap safe?
Yes, Namecheap is safe. It has many security features included in its plans. Plus, you can always purchase more via the provider’s app market.
Does Namecheap offer free SSL certificates?
Yes, Namecheap offers free SSL certificates, but they’re entry-level. If you’re looking for something more advanced, you’re going to have to pay for it.
Does Namecheap use cPanel?
Yes, Namecheap uses cPanel for hosting management. It doesn’t have custom skin, but it’s intuitive and easy to use.
Who owns Namecheap?
Namecheap is owned by the founder and current CEO Richard Kirkendall.
Pros & Cons of Using Namecheap Hosting
Pros
- CloudFlare Partner
- Unlimited transfer and free site migration
- SSD servers up to 20 times faster
- Free automatic daily backups and Server Rewind tool
- Money back guarantee at any time
Cons
- Lackluster Customer Support
Conclusion
They started out pretty well. Existing customers seem to like them, and the fact that their cheapest plan compares favorably to most other company’s upper-tier ones looked promising. Despite that, the fact that your renewal rates will rise over 200% is tough to stomach. Especially, when you consider the poor uptime and borderline lazy customer support.