Namecheap was established in 2000, and ever since, it has been in the domain registrar and hosting web business.

Namecheap is located in Los Angeles and has managed approximately one million users in over 18 countries, with nearly 13 million domain names registered worldwide. The hosting provider has received several awards for their customer service and simplicity of use on the internet.

Namecheap is one of the most affordable providers from which you can purchase a domain. Thus, their plans are suitable for anyone on a limited budget. Namecheap hosting aims to deliver exceptional service standards, first-class support, and the most reliable data security available to all users.

Despite its reputable standing and service accolades, Namecheap has mixed reviews: a 2.4 from 190 users on HostAdvice and a more favorable 3.9 from over 13,000 reviews on Trustpilot. Additionally, it holds a -D rating on BBB, highlighting some areas for improvement.

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

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Is Namecheap The Right Host For You?

Namecheap is a well-known provider of web hosting and domain registration services, and there are countless Namecheap reviews on the internet. So, I was excited when I got the opportunity to do this expert review because I haven’t had any first-hand experience with Namecheap hosting.

Having done many expert reviews and having read through various Namecheap brand reviews on the web, the low prices and many free trials captured my attention about this provider. Even though the prices are lower, sometimes cheap plans can be as good as expensive ones. Therefore, this was an excellent opportunity to evaluate this provider and check if they’re an excellent hosting company, as many customer reviews claim it is.

My question for the day is, is Namecheap hosting any good? So, let’s dig into the expert review and see!

Here Is How We Review:

1. Firstly, when doing an expert review is to purchase a hosting plan. Most of the time, it is the most affordable plan that includes all of the essential features and allows us to evaluate what the web host offers.
2. The next step is to go over every feature that the hosting provider offers carefully. Simultaneously, our designated professionals evaluate the provider’s performance and speed.
3. We closely evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of using the hosting provider, determining if the pricing is reasonable, the quality of the service provided, and whether their customer service is responsive and helpful.
4. We publish a written expert review after extensively examining every feature of the hosting provider, and we update it throughout the year.
5. Customer reviews are considered when calculating the overall score that shows the provider’s quality and reliability.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Cons:

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

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Namecheap Prices & Plans – 2023

Namecheap Hosting provides various plans with different bonuses and features at different price points.

This hosting provider offers shared hosting, WordPress Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Server Hosting. Additionally, Namecheap provides Email Hosting, Migrations, and Transfers.

Namecheap offers three different Shared Hosting plans: Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. All shared hosting plans come with unmetered bandwidth, free website builder, domain name and privacy protection, free automatic SSL installation, free Supersonic CDN, 30-day money-back guarantee, and free under 24-hour website migration. The cheapest plan is the Stellar for $1.88 a month, which provides the lowest storage available of 20GB, and the most expensive one is Stellar Business for $4.98 a month with 50GB of storage.

Shared Hosting

Namecheap offers three Reseller Hosting plans: Nebula, Galaxy Expert, and Universe Pro. The cheapest plan is Nebula for $19.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 25 cPanel accounts and 30 GB SSD. The Galaxy Expert comes for $39.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 100 cPanel accounts and 90 GB SSD. The most expensive plan is Universe Pro for $58.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 150 cPanel accounts, 150 GB SSD, and WHMCS Starter. All plans also include these benefits: Unmetered bandwidth, Free cPanel/WHM, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Resellers

Namecheap offers two types of VPS web hosting plans: Pulsar and Quasar. The plans are simple, reliable, and come at an affordable price. The cheaper plan is Pulstar and comes at $9.88 a month. With this plan, you get 2 CPU Cores, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD RAID 10, and 1000 GB Bandwidth. The Quasar plan comes for $17.88 a month. With this plan, you get 4 CPU Cores, 6 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD RAID 10, and 3000 GB Bandwidth. Both VPS plans come with full root access and Operating System (OS) selection, the highest security standards, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and total flexibility.

VPS

The dedicated server is the most powerful and reliable server you can use. Namecheap offers six Dedicated Hosting plans: Xeon E3-1230 v5, Xeon E-2236, Dual Xeon Silver 4208, Xeon E-2234, Xeon E-2236, and Dual AMD EPYC 7282. The cheapest one is Xeon E3-1230 v5 for $47.88 a month, and the most expensive one is Dual AMD EPYC 7282 for $279.88 a month. With these plans, you will get a same-day setup, free migration, and excellent uptime.

Dedicated Server

Features & Benefits

Namecheap provides excellent features and benefits that can help all users, from beginners to professionals. Let’s see some of the excellent features I found while researching for this expert review.

1. Global Presence

Namecheap is located in Los Angeles and has managed approximately one million users in over 18 countries, with nearly thirteen million domain names registered worldwide.

2. Security

Namecheap features the most advanced hardware and software firewalls and a comprehensive in-house security system. Leech Protect, CodeGuard, Virus scanners, Hotlink prevention, Whois Domain Privacy Protection, and SSL Certificates are included. Leech Protect allows you to limit the number of logins in 2 hours. CodeGuard provides monitoring, backup, and restoration services. WhoisGuard hides your name, address, email, and contact number from hackers or spammers.

In addition, you have the option for two-factor authentication, the VPN service, personal privacy, and browsing protection. You can use the TOTP – Time-based One-Time Password feature, which allows you to use one-time passwords generated by an application, such as Google Authenticator, to protect your account. Namecheap also offers PremiumDNS. With this feature, your Domain is transferred to a PremiumDNS platform with 100% DNS uptime and DDoS protection at the DNS level. It includes security technology DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). This provider also offers free backups.

3. Regular Backups

Some of the plans (such as the Stellar plan) are offered backups twice a week, but it is not guaranteed. Other plans (such as Stellar Plus and Stellar Business) come with daily automatic backups. You can choose six daily, three weekly, or 11 monthly backups for these plans.

4. Email

Namecheap offers a professional email hosting service, and you have three Email hosting plans available. With these professional Email you can manage your email flow like a professional and add all your existing personal and professional email accounts into one unified Inbox. Also, Namecheap offers one month free trial for each plan.

5. Website Builder

Namecheap’s Website Builder is a drag-and-drop website builder for cPanel hosting. You can easily create an entire website without knowing any code or installing special software. The E-commerce tools will help you add a store, shopping cart, or configure a payment processor.

• Read more about the best website builders you can find today

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

Visit Namecheap

Performance

Every company is unique and may require a customized solution tailored to your company’s services, the size of your company, and your target consumers. The hosting provider’s perfect desired uptime and reliability is 100% uptime. You may not be able to find a hosting provider that will provide the perfect 100%, but you may try to find one that is close.

1. Speed – The closer the data center, the faster the server

Having great speed largely depends on how close your visitors are. Namecheap provides data centers in the US, UK, and EU. If your site is hosted in the US data center, the speed will be the fastest for your US customers, while those in the UK and EU might take longer.

2. Uptime – Decent (99.96% past 6 months)

For its hosted services, Namecheap provides a monthly uptime guarantee. Your cycle will be extended if Namecheap fails to uphold this guarantee. Reseller and VPS accounts have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, while Shared, Business, and Dedicated Server accounts have a 100% uptime guarantee. Based on our tests, Namecheap had an average of 99.96% uptime. So, Namecheap provided excellent uptime.

3. Loading Time – A descriptive

Even though there are quicker hosting companies on the market, Namecheap delivered an adequate load time. You can choose to use servers in the US, the UK, or the EU. The server will load faster if it is closer to the data center. But if you pick UK or EU, you will have to pay an additional $1, which is not great. You can also use SSD storage to provide faster loading times than regular drives.

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

Visit Namecheap

Level Of Support

If you need assistance or have a problem with your hosting package, you can contact Namecheap’s support team through their live chat service, ticketing system, or you can search their extensive help center. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Knowledge Base, Guru Guides, Blog, How-To Videos, and Status Updates can all be found in the Help Center.

The Knowledgebase is very extensive, so you’ll probably get what you’re looking for. The Knowledgebase includes Apps, EasyWP, How-To Videos, General & Support, Checkout & Billing, Domains, Domain Privacy Protection, Domain Transfers, Hosting, Email service, SSL Certificates, My Account, Affiliates, API & Resellers, Legacy Products, and PremiumDNS.In addition, there is a FAQ section that might be of help.

Namecheap also provides Guru Guides, where you can find Affiliate Marketing, Expert Advice, Expert Insights, Getting Started, Online Marketing, Parents, Product general, Products, Apps & Deals, Security, Students, and Tutorials categories. Here, you can filter using Beginner or Advanced level, depending on your knowledge.

On Namecheap’s blog, you can find the top articles on business, tech, and more from Namecheap’s resident bloggers. You also have access to how-to videos. You can select your product or service and get all the information you need.

If you want to leave a ticket, you need to choose a department. Then, you should enter General Information, User Ticket Creation, Account Ownership Verification, Your Message, tick a few boxes and click Submit. Then, you need to enter your domain name, user name, hosting package, Namecheap username, and support PIN.

I checked out their live chat support and contacted a live agent.

Once you click on Live Chat Support, you need to enter some information regarding your problem. Enter your name, department, and Email.

Once I clicked on Start Chat, I was connected with a live chat agent within a minute. However, the agent asked me to use the ticketing system. So it is safe to say that the live chat agent was not helpful.

User Friendly

While doing my Namecheap review, I noticed that the provider makes everything pretty straightforward. Namecheap uses a mix of a native account management panel and a cPanel. The cPanel is intuitive, functional, and easily used by beginners or professionals. Namecheap’s Dashboard is simple, and everything you need is accessible. It mainly works as navigation to reach cPanel or your owned domain management tools.

Namecheap also provides a comprehensive help center with an extensive Knowledge Base and a blog with how-to-do video tutorials. You can pretty much find an answer for any issue there, and if you don’t, Namecheap provides help through tickets or live chat 24/7.

1. Creating an Account with Namecheap

It’s simple to set up a new Namecheap account. The first thing you need to do is select a hosting service and an appropriate plan for your needs. Then, you need to fill in your information, choose a payment method, and sign up. In no time, your account will be up and running. The instructions are simple to follow, and you will have no trouble setting up your account.

2. Creating or Managing a Domain

Installing and managing a domain with Namecheap is simple. From the start, Namecheap suggests the most popular domains and domains with discounts so you can purchase one at an affordable price. If you register a domain with Namecheap, you will get free privacy protection.

In addition, you can get a free domain by purchasing an all-in-one package deal.

3. Installing WordPress

Installing WordPress is simple and easy with Namecheap. The provider uses a simple point-and-click method of installation. If you are a beginner, there is no need to know SQL or PHP, or even what those are. You need to open your cPanel, click on the “Softaculous” icon, and follow the easy steps Namecheap provides.

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

Visit Namecheap

Step By Step Walkthrough – Namecheap

If you decide to purchase a plan with Namecheap Hosting, you can research by entering data and searching for availability using the Search engine or the Beast Mode option.

You may input many parameters in the Beast Mode option, such as a pricing range or filter TLDs.

Even though you may access the plans from the Top Menu, you can also get to them by scrolling down on the home page. Promos, Domains, WordPress, Hosting, Security, and Apps, are all available here.

At this point, Namecheap points out the best deals so that the clients can get the most out of their services. Here, Namecheap provided free domains, 99-cent domains, and a variety of pricing discounts on various plans. However, I wouldn’t rely on this information because these deals are constantly changing.

In the Domains tab, you can find the most popular domains.

In the WordPress tab, you will find WordPress plans offered by Namecheap Hosting and free trials within a few WordPress hosting plans. In the Hosting tab, you can find plans on sale, free trials, and free domains. In the Security tab, you will find high-performance security products on sale, and in the Apps tab, you can find free marketing tools.

You can find Domains, Hosting, WordPress, Email, Apps, Security, Transfer To Us, Help Center, and Account tab in the top menu.

This Namecheap brand review is focused on exploring their hosting. So firstly, you need to choose the hosting plan you find suitable for your needs.

Now it’s time for me to purchase a plan.

I chose Web hosting, the shared hosting option. This option suits my needs, and it is the cheapest one. As mentioned earlier, Namecheap offers three different Shared Hosting plans, Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business.

You can choose between three data center locations, the US, UK, or Europe, and select a monthly plan, an annual one, or one for two years.

To give you a clear picture of Namecheap Hosting and its services and create an expert review, I decided to purchase the Stellar monthly plan with a US data center to see the primary features Namecheap provides.

The Stellar plan comes with three websites, 20 GB SSD, unmetered bandwidth, free website builder, domain name and privacy protection, free automatic SSL installation, Supersonic CDN, 30-day money-back guarantee, and under 24 hours of website migration.

Once you click on the Get Started tab, the next step is to connect a domain to your hosting plan. You can choose a new domain name or an existing one in the Domain Name Connection. You can check the disk space, bandwidth, and the number of websites you get with your purchase.

I chose the Existing Domain Name option since I already have a domain name that I use for all testing purposes. This required me to sign in to Namecheap.

Once you click on Sign In, you can either enter your credentials if you have a Namecheap account or you need to create one. You will need to enter your username, password, first, last name, and Email, and you’ll be good to go. This will only take you a few seconds.

Now you need to enter your Domain so that Namecheap can connect it to the hosting plan you’re purchasing.

And when Namecheap has set the structure in place, you will see the following screen.

You can check your purchase and click add to cart. Namecheap will then transfer you to check out, where you can once again check if your order is correct.

In Bulk Settings, you can choose if the eligible services should automatically be renewed before the expiration date or not.

Furthermore, you can check or modify your purchasing plan, whether monthly, yearly or for two years. You can also select auto-renew.

If you scroll down a bit, you can see several add-ons that can help you to improve your sites, such as SSL, VPN, EasyWP WordPress, and Professional Email.

With EasyWP WordPress, you can build and manage your WordPress site within seconds. It also has a free SSL certificate, simple backups, and a user-friendly dashboard with a solid security layer. So, if you choose this option, you wouldn’t have to purchase the SSL.

When it comes to the VPN, Namecheap Hosting provides a free trial for the first month.

Namecheap offers three different VPN plans, a monthly plan, a plan for one year, and three years.

Namecheap also provides a free trial for a professional email. So, you can check and see whether this service is suitable for you and your needs.

Once you confirm your order, Namecheap provides an option for a promo code if you have one.

Next, you need to fill in your Account Contact Information form. Here, you need to enter your First and Last Name, Address, City, State/Province, Zip/Postal Code, Country, Phone Number, Fax Number, and Email Address.

If you choose the option I’m registering on behalf of a company, Namecheap will ask you to provide your Company Name and Job Title.

When you fill out all information needed, you should click Continue, which will take you to fill in your payment method. You can pay by card, Paypal, or Account Funds. I chose the first option.

You can also add your billing address as your default account contact or add a new contact here.

By checking the boxes in the section, you can change the renewal settings for your purchase.

When you’re done filling in your payment methods, you will proceed to order. Here, you can edit your order details, update your shopping cart, or change payment details.

You can purchase your order by clicking on Pay Now. When you’re done, check all details and information.

That’s all there is to it! You’ve completed setting up your account.

Learn more about Namecheap:

Using And Managing Your Website On Namecheap

Once you’ve signed in, you will see the Dashboard.

Here, you can find a new domain using Beast Mode, or you can check your active plans. You can also top up your account balance or activate two-factor authentication.

If you click on Manage, you will be redirected to the Domain List. In the Domain List, you can find Domain, Products, Sharing and Transfer, and Advanced DNS sections.

PremiumDNS, Private Email, and Domain Contacts are all available in Domain.

In Products are listed all your Namecheap products. You can filter according to Status (Active, Alert, Grace, or Expired), Flags (Trial and Blocked), or Others (New). Also, from there, you can manage your products or access the cPanel.

In the Private Email tab, you can set up a private email, and it comes with a Domain-Based email, Anti-Spam protection, Email & File Storage, and POP3/IMAP/Webmail access, and you can get two months free.

In the SSL Certificates tab, you can find the ID, Name, Status, and time remaining for your SSL.

In the Apps tab, you can find the application you have activated on your plan, and if you have none, you can purchase them in the store Namecheap offers.

You will enter Namecheap’s app store by clicking on getting some apps. Namecheap offers free and paid apps. You can get Supersonic CDN, EasyWP, Namecheap VPN, Logo Maker, Namecheap Uptime Monitoring, and Canvas. But, Site Maker, Validation.com, Google Workspace, Business Card Maker, Strikingly, Hosting, Weebly, Ghost Machine, and Namecheap Legal are apps you have to pay for.

Going back to the Dashboard, you can access Personal Info, Security, Billing, Tools, and Inbox in the Profile tab.

In Personal info, you can access Name, Username, Primary Email, All Addresses, and Social media.

The Security section is divided into Access and Recovery & Alerts. The Access section gives you access to passwords, Two-Factor Authentication, and Support PIN. The Recovery & Alerts section gives you Access to Recovery Settings, Security Alerts, and Incoming Invitations.

In the Billing billing section, you can view Account Funds, Payments, Apps Payments, and History. In Account Funds, you can see your balance, withdraw Marketplace Earnings, or Affiliate Commissions.

The Payment and Apps Payments sections refer to your payment methods, and you can edit and add a new card to your account.

In History, you can find all Orders, Transactions, Apps Orders, and Apps Transactions you had with Namecheap.

You have access to Organization, Notifications, Advanced, Business & Dev Tools in the Tools section. Organization separates your domains into groups for easier management. In Notifications, you can manage the notifications sent by Namecheap. In Advanced, you can preset domain contacts and DNS/host records for use with new domain registrations. And in Business & Dev Tools, you can manage your involvement in Namecheap’s Affiliate Program, API Access, Reseller Program, and Domain Marketplace.

Finally, in Inbox, you can access messages from Namecheap about your account and other services.

You can also access the cPanel by using the Hosting List tab and the Go to cPanel button.

Now it’s time to look into cPanel.

I like the cPanel since it is straightforward to use while still providing a lot of possibilities. Within the cPanel, Namecheap Hosting includes standard sections. The provider goes a step further to deliver its customers a pleasant experience by including the option Exclusive for Namecheap Customers.

Emails

In Email, you can Email Accounts, Forwarders, Email Routing, Autoresponders, Default Addresses, Mailing Lists, Track Delivery, and Global Email Filters. You can also set Email Filters, Email Deliverability, Address Importer, Spam Filters, Calendars and Contacts, Email Disk Usage, Email FAQ, and Email Client Setup.

Files

In the Files tab, you have access to File Manager, Directory Privacy, Disk Usage, Web Disk, FTP Accounts, Backup, Backup Wizard, Git Version Control, and Inodes Usage.

Databases

In Databases, you can access phpMyAdmin, MySQL Databases, its Database Wizard, and FAQ.

The phpMyAdmin allows you to manage your settings, and MySQL Databases allows you to create a new database and check your pre-existing database. With MySQL Database Wizard, you can create a database with a more streamlined process.

Domains

The Domains section contains add-ons, subdomains, aliases, redirects, Zone Editor, Dynamic DNS, and FAQ.

Metrics

Metrics provides access to all the needed information and analytics regarding your account. Here, you can find Visitors, Errors, Bandwidth, Raw Access, Awstats, and Resource Usage.

Security

In Security, you have SSH Access, SSL/TLS, Manage API Tokens, Hotlink Protection, Leech Protection, SSL/TLS Status, and Two-Factor Authentication.

Software

The software tab contains WP Manager by Softaculous, PHP PEAR Packages, Optimize Website, Application Manager, Softaculous APPs Installer, Setup Node.js App, Select PHP Version, Setup Python App, Setup Ruby App, and PHP FAQ.

Advanced

The Advanced section features Cron Jobs, Indexes, Error Pages, and find the Virus Scanner.

Preferences

The Preferences section allows you to manage Password and Security, Change Language or Style, Contact Information, and User Manager.

Softaculous Apps Installer

The Softaculous Apps Installer tab is divided into two sections, Scripts and Categories.

The Scripts section gives you access to WordPress, Joomla, AbanteCart, phpBB, SMF, WHMCS, Open Real Estate, MyBB, Dolphin, pH7CMS, Laravel, OpenCart, Concrete5, and Oxwall.

And the Categories section provides Access to Blogs, Micro Blogs, Portals/CMS, Forums, Image Galleries, Wikis, Social Networking, Ad Management, Calendars, Gaming, Mails, Polls and Analytics, Project Management, E-Commerce, ERP, Guest Books, Customer Support, Educational, DB Tools, Music, RSS, File Management, Others and Libraries.

Exclusive ForNamecheap Customers

The Exclusive for Namecheap customers section contains the Jellyfish Spam Protection, Google Apps, Namecheap SSL, CodeGuard, Website Builder, Contact Support, Namecheap Knowledgebase, and Manage Shell.

General Information

Additionally, on the right side of your screen of the cPanel, you can find the General Information section. This section displays the Current User, Primary Domain, Shared IP Address, Home Directory, Last Login IP Address, and Theme.

If you click on the blue button with the tool emoji, you can see the SSL status of your domains.

When you click on Server Information, you’ll see information about Hosting Package, Server Name, cPanel Version, Apache Version, PHP Version, and MySQL Version. The Architecture, Operating System, Shared IP, Path to Sendmail or Perl, Perl Version, and Kernel Version are also displayed.

Statistics

Statistics can be found in the General Information section. Statistics show how near you are to attaining the full potential of your hosting package. File usage, disk usage, MySQL disk usage, PostgreSQL disk usage, bandwidth, add-on domains, subdomains, email accounts, mailing lists, autoresponders, forwarders, email filters, FTP accounts, MySQL databases, CPU usage, entry processes, physical memory usage, IOPS, I/O usage, and several processes are all displayed here.

Conclusion: Do We Recommend Namecheap?

Based on our research for this Namecheap brand review and other Namecheap reviews on the internet, I can state that this provider is excellent. It offers excellent uptime and speed, advanced hardware and software firewalls, and a comprehensive in-house security system. Namecheap hosting provides a fantastic array of security-enhancing tools, such as Leech Protect, CodeGuard, Virus scanners, Hotlink prevention, Whois Domain Privacy Protection, TOTP, PremiumDNS.

Namecheap Hosting offers low-cost plans, various free tools, and free domain registration and transfer. However, the renewal fees for the domain increase after the first year. The plans are simple to set with their very intuitive interface, allowing you to configure your site to your liking. You can easily find everything you need on the cPanel.

While doing this expert review, I noticed that Namecheap’s list of top-level extensions is constantly updated, and you may choose from a variety of exciting options.

Regarding Namecheap’s customer support, their Knowledge Base is excellent, providing every hosting-related information you may want. However, they might need some work regarding their live chat and ticketing system. The provider needs to improve the ticketing system because filling out the information takes a long time, the live chat agent was not as helpful as expected, and no phone support was available.

Overall, I think Namecheap is a fantastic provider with numerous unique features.

Namecheap

Namecheap offers versatile hosting solutions with an intuitive interface and premium features such as automatic backups and free email accounts. With access to numerous single-click apps and award-winning customer service, Namecheap ensures a seamless, user-friendly experience.

Visit Namecheap