the truth about namecheap
NAMECHEAP REVIEW: BEST KNOWN FOR DOMAINS, BUT WHAT ABOUT THEIR HOSTING?
Namecheap is best known as a domain name registrar, but they also offer cheap web hosting. Before you sign up with them you should read our Namecheap hosting review and find out if their hosting is any good, or if they should stick with domain names. Visit Namecheap.com |
| Namecheap's Wesite |
Most people know of Namecheap as a domain registration and management service, but they also offer web hosting services. Founded in 2000, Namecheap began by offering value-priced domains and excellent customer service. Today, they have over 3 million clients and manage over 7 million domains.
In addition to domains and full web hosting packages, Namecheap sells SSL certificates, privacy protection services, and more. Because Namecheap thinks that an Internet presence for all is a necessity, they provide affordable access to everything you need to run a website.
Namecheap’s hosting plans offer fast, reliable service with a 100% uptime guarantee. If you need to build a new site, you can easily do so using one of Namecheap’s many site building apps. If you have an existing website, Namecheap will move it for you for free.
In addition to a solid knowledgebase, you can consult if you need help, Namecheap offers 24/7 chat support. You can also submit tickets for review.
WHAT ARE NAMECHEAP’S MAIN FEATURES ?
100% uptime service level agreement (SLA). (You’ll receive credits if this isn’t achieved.)
Namecheap uses the latest server technology from brands like Dell, HP, and Supermicro.
Every component has multiple redundancies, whether it’s the power source, the network card or the high speed of the servers.
Pages load extremely fast, a necessity for any business.
cPanel is used. This is the most commonly used control panel in the world and it makes life easier for users.
The Softaculous installer enables you to use WordPress or other apps with just a few clicks. You can update and maintain your applications with great ease.
Easy to upgrade your hosting package if your business grows too big for the current package.
The Ultimate package offers unlimited disk space. Note: it can only be used for your website and no other purposes according to Namecheap’s terms and conditions.
Daily backups and some plans have backups done twice a day.
100+ single click apps.
Single contact point for billing and support.
No contracts.
Free migration of sites from other hosting providers
WHAT BENEFITS DOES NAMECHEAP PROVIDE TO SMALL BUSINESSES?
Here’s a concise overview.
Have a website?
Free migration for current sites. Daily backups. “Softaculous” library of 400+ apps to add functionality to your site.
Need a website fast?
EasyWP gets you a WordPress site in 30 seconds. Other site builders available include Weebly, Canvas, and Strikingly.
Speed
SSD (solid-state drive) storage, Cloudflare Railgun CDN
Domains
Purchase or sell a domain, transfer, domain privacy.
Marketing
Online ad manager service runs PPC ads for you. Landing page included. Add marketing features to your site via “Softaculous” library of 400+ apps.
WordPress
EasyWP gets you a WordPress site in 30 seconds. Managed WP hosting takes care of software updates, security monitoring and backups. Platform optimized for speed and performance.
HOW IS SECURITY HANDLED?
- Use of best hardware and software firewalls and a highly technical in-house security system.
- “Leech Protect” allows you to set the maximum number of logins that can occur in a 2-hour period. Protects your site from brute force attacks.
- Namecheap regularly creates its own backups of your site, which you can request a copy of if necessary.
- “CodeGuard” — this add-on service provides monitoring, backup, and restoration services.
- Virus scanners are included
- Hotlink protection is provided
- Namecheap constantly tests their defensive measures and tweaks where necessary.
- SSL certificates available to ensure the security of your sites. SSL certificates help protect your sensitive data (including credit card information) from being stolen.
- DNSSEC is provided via Namecheap’s PremiumDNS service.
- WhoisGuard hides your name, address, email and contact number. This stops hackers, spammers and marketing companies from contacting you or accessing your precious data. All someone can see is that your domain is already hosted but that’s all. WhoisGuard is provided free for the first year for each hosted domain and domains transferred from elsewhere. However, not all domain extensions are covered by WhoisGuard so check yours before moving forward.
HOSTING TYPES AND PLANS
SHARED HOSTING
- 4 plans to choose from.
- Up to 3 websites on the smallest plan where most only offer 1 site and unlimited on the biggest plan.
- Sub-domains range from 50 – unlimited.
- All plans have unlimited bandwidth.
- Plenty of autoresponders, databases, email accounts and email forwarding accounts, depending on your plan choice.
- A healthy amount of disc space.
- A long list of other features that easily compare to other providers.
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| Namecheap's VPS hosting |
VPS HOSTING
There are four VPS plans to choose from.
- You get everything the shared plans offer and a lot more as well.
- All plans are easy to upgrade/downgrade when necessary.
- You get higher priority support service, receiving answers ahead of people on shared plans.
- VPS plans hosted on the lightning-fast networks in Phoenix, Arizona so page speeds are unbelievably quick, often faster than dedicated servers provided by other hosting companies.
- Either one or just a few customers use the same server under these plans. This means there are enormous stability and performance benefits and no downtime (as guaranteed by Namecheap).
Choose to self-manage, half-manage or have Namecheap fully manage your server for you. If you manage it yourself, you: can choose the operating system, have reboot access, root access and the ability to do reinstalls on the server.
If you have it fully managed for you, you only have Reseller access to the server configurations are handled by the technical staff at Namecheap.
DEDICATED SERVERS
- A lot of different plans to meet your needs.
- You get everything available in the shared and VPS plans but some quantities may be bigger. These plans are ideal for sites with a lot of site traffic.
- You have your own server so you can choose to do it all yourself or have Namecheap manage it for you.
- Prices to suit all budgets.
RESELLER PLANS
- You can earn passive income through a Reseller plan and selling plans to your customer base and other people you know.
- Limited disk space and the bandwidth will depend on which of the four plans you choose.
- Anonymous name servers so nobody will know you’re reselling services.
- Full priority support is available to help with every aspect of the process.
- Unlimited domains and sub-domains.
MARKETING TOOLS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Namecheap offers an online advertising service called “Business Promoter.” You simply tell Namecheap about your business and they run the Google ads for you.
This can be a time-saver for small business owners, since learning Google AdWords — even the simplified version — can be time-consuming.
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| Namecheap's Business Promoter |
SOFTACULOUS: IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE WITH EASE
One of the perks of a Namecheap shared plan is access to Softaculous, a tool that allows you to easily install software to extend the features and functionality of your website.
You can access the Softaculous tool via the administrative area of your control panel.
HUNDREDS OF APPS TO EXTEND YOUR SITE’S FUNCTIONALITY
You can think of it as an app store. Through it you get access to hundreds of apps, enabling you to easily add discussion forums, blogs, photo galleries, media players, and so on, to your Namecheap-hosted website.
WHAT CAN I INSTALL WITH SOFTACULOUS?
Some of the things you can install with Softaculous include:
- Wikis
- Blogs and micro-blogs
- Social networking features
- Ad management
- Online calendars (useful for events and bookings)
- Web-based games
- Email services
- Polls, surveys, and analytics
- E-commerce software and tools, like PrestaShop and Magento
- Customer support tools to serve your online customers, like live chat
- Educational software platforms like Moodle
- Portals and CMS tools like Open Real Estate, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla
- For developers: frameworks like Laravel, Bootstrap, CodeIgniter, and Cake PHP
For a busy small business owner, Softaculous makes website management quicker and simpler.
DOMAINS: WHAT DOES NAMECHEAP OFFER?
As we have mentioned (as its name implies), Namecheap is a major domain registrar. One of its biggest competitors is GoDaddy.
When it comes time to register a domain name, who should you go with?
PERSONALIZED SERVICE
Namecheap is a smaller company, so you’re likely to get a more personalized, customer-oriented approach. GoDaddy, on the other hand, is a massive company that offers a wide variety of services — if you want to have all of your website-related services under the umbrella of one company, GoDaddy is for you.
DOMAIN PRIVACY PROTECTION
When you purchase and register a domain name, your personal information, such as address, email, phone numbers, is (by default) listed in the public WHOIS directory and accessible to anyone. You can, however, purchase what’s called domain privacy protection. This hides your personal information and lists alternate details instead — typically, you will see information for your domain registrar instead, but the specifics may vary.
We recommend that small businesses opt for domain privacy. Some of the benefits include protecting your personal information from being used in identity theft schemes and preventing your email from being targeted for unwanted spam/solicitations.
Domain privacy protection is not expensive, and the privacy it affords is nothing to sneeze at — however, we understand that budgets are not unlimited.
DNS HOSTING
Namecheap (and many other registrars) offer DNS hosting with each domain sold, but if you have a registered domain that does not include DNS hosting, you can purchase this service from Namecheap.
DNS hosting is, in short, the service that “translates” your domain name into the unique IP address for your website. Essentially, the larger your DNS network, the faster this can happen, leading to faster page load times for your website.
Namecheap offers two DNS hosting services: the FreeDNS and premium DNS hosting.
FreeDNS is secure, reliable, and geographically-dispersed. It comes with an easy-to-use management console, and all users get 24/7 customer support. It can be used as the primary DNS hosting service, but you could also use it as a backup to your existing DNS hosting.
Namecheap’s premium DNS hosting, however, is for those who want to minimize downtime. PremiumDNS offers a 100% service level agreement for DNS resolution, which is useful especially for businesses, where downtime leads to lost profits.
RESELL YOUR DOMAIN VIA THE NAMECHEAP MARKETPLACE
The Namecheap Marketplace is a platform that you can use to resell domain names.
Generally, you are required to pay upfront for an extended contract (usually one year or more) when purchasing a domain name. If you decide that you no longer want your domain name, you are stuck with it until your contract expires and you choose to not renew it.
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| Namecheap's reseller hosting |
However, with the Namecheap Marketplace, you can resell your domain names before your contract is up. The Marketplace operates on a fixed-price model. You list your domain, as well as the price you want to charge.
Buyers peruse the marketplace and purchase the domain names in which they’re interested the way they’d purchase any other domain name.
Namecheap charges sellers a flat 10% fee for each domain sold through the Marketplace.
In addition to being able to offload domain names you no longer want, you might be able to purchase a domain name that has otherwise been purchased already. Finding unique domains gets harder and harder as more and more people create websites, so the Marketplace is a good option for those who are having trouble finding a unique option that reflects their business and brand.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND HELP
24/7/365 Live chat, emails, a comprehensive knowledgebase and a forum where you can find your own answers. No form of phone support is available.
MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Only 14 days whereas most other companies offer at least 30 days.
Shared plans have 100% uptime.
All other plans “only” have 99.9% uptime.
Sales of all extra add-ons such as server management, dedicated IP address and licenses are non-refundable.
WHAT ARE THE PROS & CONS OF NAMECHEAP?
Is web hosting from Namecheap any good? There are lots of pros and cons to weigh up when considering buying hosting from Namecheap.
PROS
- A well-known brand that has been around for 15 years.
- Cheap domain names.
- Support is good quality.
- Reliable hosting services.
- The design and interface are very user-friendly.
- Free and fast migration from other hosting providers.
- Backups on a daily basis.
- Choose the largest shared plan and backup is twice per day and also weekly.
- Quick registration and setup process.
- Lots of TLDs available with varying extensions.
- No upsells when you sign up.
CONS
- 14-day money-back guarantee. This is the lowest of any company.
- Live support speed will depend partly on what plan type you have.
- Setting up SSL certificates is difficult and often needs help.
- Some aspects of the dashboard are hard to find.
- No phone support.
SUMMARY
Namecheap has a lot of useful features. It’s critical that you read all the terms and conditions before signing up as there are some details you may need to weigh up. As you only have a 14-day money-back guarantee, be extra diligent in analyzing everything before making your choice.
TRY NAMECHEAP. FREE TRIAL. 14-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE.
NAMECHEAP PLANS & PRICES
Namecheap offers a range of reliable and affordable hosting solutions; from shared hosting and VPS hosting to dedicated servers. Here below is an overview of their plans and current price list. For latest and most up to date prices visit Namecheap’s website.
Find a domain starting at $0.88
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