Namecheap’s charges are as low as its call suggests, and despite the fact that every now and then you could see why (SSL is a paid more after year 1 with shared hosting) there’s also real value here. Well well worth a glance, especially for bargain-hunters with simple sites, and enterprise customers who need low-fee devoted web hosting for more business-essential tasks.
Pros
Low fees
Quality manipulate panel and website hosting gear (cPanel, Softaculous)
Excellent guide website
USA, UK and Netherlands records facilities
Bitcoin supported
100% uptime assure for shared and committed plans
Cons
SSL best unfastened for the primary 12 months with shared plans
Underpowered Managed WordPress plans
Only three VPS plans gives users very little desire
Shared web hosting speeds are fractionally under common
Some plans ask a $1 a month top class to use non-US statistics facilities
No specialist ecommerce plans
Why you can believe TechRadar We spend hours testing each products or services we overview, so that you may be sure you’re buying the satisfactory. Find out greater approximately how we test.
Namecheap is nice called a popular area registrar, in which you locate and purchase whatever dot-com or other call you’d like to apply on your internet site. According to Domainstate, it handles greater than 12 million domains: handiest GoDaddy has greater.
But there is much greater to Namecheap than domains. The company has a extensive range of the fine internet website hosting carrier products, covering everyone from good buy-hunting first-timers to annoying business customers.
Recent additions include Namecheap’s personal CDN (content material shipping network), a era which speeds up your internet site speeds for visitors all over the global. The corporation even has a budget VPN to maintain you secure on public Wi-Fi, and assist you to get admission to nearby content material from other nations.
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What kinds of website hosting does Namecheap provide?
Namecheap’s range begins with low cost and smooth-to-use shared website hosting, a great preference for first-timers and much less traumatic web sites. There are Namecheap promo codes for bringing the value down even extra too.
WordPress website hosting comes optimized for WordPress, adding precious website management functions and delivering greater speed.
VPS and devoted web hosting offers you most overall performance. It’s also greater complex to manage, and normally a lot greater costly, making these a higher choice for business customers. But Namecheap does have a few cheap options which make the generation available to anybody (more on that beneath).
Next, we’ll take a look at every kind of website hosting in turn, and find out extra approximately what they provide, and which web hosting kind is exceptional for various commonplace uses.
Namecheap shared website hosting
Opting for a shared web hosting plan way your web page will be hosted on a unmarried server together with many others. That’s brilliant for pace, because the server charges are shared throughout a couple of accounts. It hurts pace, because you are also sharing the server’s CPU, RAM and community connection, however respectable shared web hosting plans can still frequently manipulate tens of heaps of visits a month.
Namecheap’s shared web hosting variety appears, well, severely reasonably-priced, with headline charges beginning at simply $1.88 a month over years ($four.Forty eight on renewal).
A top set of center functions consists of a loose area, unfastened migration, a bundled internet site builder, limitless bandwidth and at least two times-weekly backups. Softaculous is accessible to briskly deploy WordPress and one hundred fifty+ other apps, and cPanel has all the strength you’ll need to manage your internet area.
Even the most inexpensive plan supports web hosting three web sites, too (the others permit unlimited websites). Most companies simplest allow a unmarried web site on their starter shared plan.
The essential seize is SSL simplest comes loose for the primary year with all the shared plans. After that, it is a chargeable greater. This isn’t pricey at $five.99 a 12 months ($6.99 on renewal), but it does suggest Namecheap’s shared website hosting isn’t always pretty as reasonably-priced because it appears.
If it’s a subject, don’t forget Hostinger and HostGator. Both have starter costs under $3 a month, additionally with a few compromises, however SSL comes loose for all time.
Namecheap WordPress hosting
WordPress is a highly famous website creation platform, smooth for beginners to apply, but powerful sufficient to construct huge business web sites and main-side web shops.
As we’ve got mentioned above, you could explore one of the best WordPress web hosting gear with Namecheap’s shared account. If you are building a very simple website, you’re searching out a bargain, otherwise you’d much like to study the WordPress fundamentals and find out what it could do, the shared web hosting path makes quite a few feel.
Namecheap’s EasyWP plans are fractionally greater highly-priced, however add extra assets and are mainly optimized to supply better WordPress speeds (Namecheap says they’re at the least 3 instances quicker than regular WordPress on its shared web hosting account.)
EasyWP Starter has 10GB storage, a loose CDN (Content Delivery Network) to reinforce overall performance, and supports a unmarried web page with up to 50K site visitors a month. It appears cheap at $2.08 a month on the annual plan, $2.Ninety one on renewal, even though there may be one catch: there is no SSL, which provides at least $zero.50 a month with Namecheap’s most primary certificates.
The other EasyWP plans consist of SSL for the lifetime of the plan (no longer simply the primary 12 months), and add greater garage and assets. The pinnacle-of-the-range EasyWP Supersonic plan can control a huge 500K site visitors a month, however it is still true price at $four.Fifty seven a month at the annual plan, $nine.07 on renewal.
The EasyWP range may be a clever choice for WordPress freshmen with simple websites and no longer plenty coins to spend. Even the monthly billing option is amazing price. Sign up with EasyWP Starter, the first month is free, and you will pay most effective $four.88 a month after that. That’s three months to learn WordPress and check the carrier, curious about underneath $10.
The plans have a few weaknesses, too. They aid growing only one website, and also you do not get the identical variety of WordPress-orientated functions that we see with the quality competition.
If Namecheap would not have the electricity you want, take a look at A2 Hosting’s Managed WordPress range. The JUMP plan is extra steeply-priced ($22.Ninety nine at the annual plan), but receives you 250GB of fast NVMe storage, loose SSL, top rate backups, and help for 5 WordPress sites, a miles greater succesful preference for superior users.
Elsewhere, business WordPress users ought to check out Bluehost’s WP Pro range, which adds advertising and marketing and search engine marketing gear to the managed WordPress web hosting mix. And in case you’re after the maximum hardware strength, InMotion Hosting has WordPress products for VPS and devoted servers.
Namecheap VPS website hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS) website hosting is quicker and greater configurable than shared web hosting. But it’s also highly high priced, and more complex to installation and manage, which means that it’s not an ideal preference for amateur users with easy, low-site visitors websites.
If you are an professional or have a more annoying internet site, even though, it is a totally exceptional story. A correct VPS can provide you with big control over your server, and the strength to handle loads of lots of visits a month, every so often for less than the value of high-end shared website hosting.
Namecheap’s VPS hosting begins at $6.88 a month billed annually for a 2 CPU core, 2GB RAM, 40GB garage and 1TB bandwidth device. While that appears cheap, maintain in thoughts that it’s an unmonitored machine, this means that you are left to run the server your self (add, set up and update software program, restore a failed server, and more.) You do not even get a manipulate panel.
Managed VPS is simpler to apply, but additionally greater high priced. The unmanaged Quasar plan is $15.88 billed month-to-month for a four center, 6GB RAM, 120GB storage and 3TB bandwidth machine. Adding full server control and cPanel lifts the price to $50.Seventy six (and you can add $1.50 a month in case you want Softaculous to install WordPress or something else).
Namecheap’s pinnacle-of-the-range Magnetar VPS plan is greater powerful, with eight CPU cores, 12GB RAM, 240GB garage and 6TB bandwidth. It’s $28.88 billed month-to-month for an unsupervised gadget, growing to $sixty three.76 with the managed alternative.
The essential advantage of Namecheap’s VPS range is its charge. We frequently suggest Hostwinds’ vast VPS range, but what do you get for $29 a month there? Two CPU cores, 6GB RAM and 100GB garage, a much much less succesful machine.
The problem with Namecheap is it handiest has 3 VPS plans, and they may be not as configurable because the first-class of the opposition. If Namecheap’s selections do not fit your desires, you may find a long way extra attractive deals some other place.
If you’re on a budget, IONOS’ simple VPS starts at $2 billed month-to-month, for instance. It’s as primary as a VPS gets (1 center, 512MB RAM), but perfect as a cheap way to learn how the technology works.
At the alternative quit of the marketplace, Liquid Web’s VPS website hosting is crammed with capabilities, with outstanding help, and is typically for traumatic enterprise customers.
If you simply want most preference, check out Hostwinds. It has both inexpensive and extra powerful plans than Namecheap, they may be extra configurable, and every VPS is available in Linux and Windows flavors. That’s what we name comprehensive.
Namecheap dedicated hosting
Opt for shared or VPS web hosting and you’re forced to share your web server with others. Sign for a devoted bundle, although, and it’s entirely yours. RAM, CPU time, the community connection, it is all reserved for your website most effective, so that you’ll in no way once more be slowed down via what’s taking place with other bills.
Namecheap used to offer only a handful of devoted server deals, however proper now there are 44, more than many competitors. There’s some thing for anybody, with charges starting low at below $50 billed monthly for an unmanaged four core, 8GB RAM device, growing to round $250 for a sixteen middle CPU with 128GB RAM and speedy-as-it-receives 4 x 1.92TB SSD NVMe storage. All plans include loose web page migration and a 99.99% uptime assure.
As with VPS web hosting, the lowest fees are for unmanaged structures (you should run the server yourself.) Choosing the Complete Management choice (Namecheap continues the server for you) with a cPanel Solo license adds around $sixty five to the server price (billed month-to-month.) But it’s nevertheless extraordinary fee, specially as there may be no setup fee, and you can pay substantially extra someplace else.
The most important problem with Namecheap is the dearth of configuration alternatives. You can not take a base server and pay more to feature greater RAM, or an additional backup force, as an instance: what you notice is greater or less what you may get. There’s nonetheless no Windows hosting option, and servers are most effective available within the Arizona information center: you can’t pick out the United Kingdom or Netherlands.
If you haven’t any special configuration wishes, and you are trying to run a excessive-visitors or enterprise-vital web page where speed and reliability are important, then Namecheap’s lengthy listing of base servers and incredible price need to earn it an area in your shortlist.
Also recall IONOS. It doesn’t have as many server plans, but there are some very cheap managed and unmanaged deals, and different alternatives you won’t discover at Namecheap (Windows website hosting on some servers, garage servers with up to 48TB garage and US or Europe information centers).
Elsewhere, each A2 Hosting and InMotion Hosting have a huge variety of controlled and unmanaged plans, with strangely bendy billing to keep expenses down (1, three, 6 and one year.) And in case you’re looking for actual strength, take a look at out Liquid Web. Its excessive-cease servers can deal with pretty much some thing, and the employer’s 100% uptime and electricity guarantee (and fantastic support) need to get you an ultra-dependable service.
Does Namecheap have a website builder?
If you don’t have a internet site but, and WordPress looks too complicated, a internet site builder may be the solution. Choose a starting layout from a site gallery, then add content to a web page by way of dragging and losing textual content, pictures, maps, touch paperwork and greater.
Namecheap includes a free internet site builder with its shared website hosting programs. This has 230 templates of diverse types (business, blogs, food, more), and a respectable choice of widgets permits you to add masses of content on your website online: photo galleries, maps, paperwork, blogs, merchandise listings, price buttons and extra. It’s not a horrific product, specifically without cost, and provides an easy alternative to WordPress for simple web page-developing tasks.
Namecheap additionally has a paid website builder referred to as Visual. Answer some questions, upload an photo or two, pick a shade scheme and Visual robotically creates your site. You can then replace the default textual content with your own, and upload pre-built blocks to insert new content, along with forms and photograph galleries.
Namecheap does not prevent with the internet site. Bonus unfastened gear can help you create a brand, layout commercial enterprise cards and greater.
This is not the most powerful of internet site developers (there is no web save support, for example), however it’s sufficient for simple private websites, and the price is right. Visual is $3.88 billed monthly, with a unfastened SSL certificates, 99.Ninety nine% uptime, and help for creating a unmarried website. There’s a free .Contact, .Design or .Xyz area, too, even though beware, .Com, .Internet and other pinnacle-stage domain names should be purchased one at a time.
HostGator’s Gator website builder and Hostinger’s Zyro have greater features, and aid adding an internet store. They’re reasonably-priced in the first term, too (Zyro is priced from $2.99 a month), despite the fact that the pleasant deals require lengthy-term contracts, and the fees bounce on renewal.
Can I construct an internet shop with Namecheap?
Namecheap would not have any expert ecommerce merchandise, as a minimum but (we suspect the brand new Visual website builder will upload something soon), however you are unfastened to construct an internet keep the use of any of the employer’s shared, devoted or VPS hosting plans.
Sign up for shared hosting, as an example, and you will get a duplicate of Softaculous. It’s a succesful platform which will let you install OpenCart, PrestaShop, WooCommerce or other ecommerce systems. Namecheap does not provide you with any unique equipment or keep-building support to point you within the proper course, so you’ll must analyze the basics yourself, however it is now not too tough (in case you know your way around WordPress, you may learn WooCommerce.)
If you are looking for some thing simpler, strive HostGator’s Gator or Hostinger’s Zyro internet site builders. Both make it clean to create a website, and feature the choice to add a web shop. Bluehost’s WooCommerce plans are an excellent mid-range opportunity which add a bunch of beneficial commercial enterprise-pleasant advertising extras, and Wix has terrific templates, piles of functions, and the power to construct nearly some thing.
How fast is Namecheap?
We measure a website hosting issuer’s overall performance by means of signing up for a shared website hosting account, installing a easy WordPress website online, then placing it thru a sequence of in depth exams.
First, we’ve tracking provider Uptime.Com try to get admission to our web page each five minutes, logging the consequences and how lengthy the server takes to reply whenever. Namecheap scored a great one hundred% uptime, and its common reaction time become a suitable zero.436 seconds (it is a very mid-variety eighth quickest in our remaining 15 exams).
We used GTmetrix to check the uptime and reaction time of Namecheap’s main web site (Image credit: GTMetrix)
Next, we use GTmetrix to get admission to a pattern page and calculate how long it takes for the principle content material to load, a determine technically known as Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP. The lower the LCP, the faster your pages are in all likelihood to seem within the browser, and the happier your site visitors ought to be.
Namecheap’s LCP was a touch slower than common at 0.789 seconds, ranking the agency eleventh in our ultimate 15 reviews (maximum vendors score around 0.6 to zero.Eight seconds.) That’s a little disappointing, however it’s nonetheless a suitable time, and way in advance of a number of the price range opposition (the last placed iPage scored 1.6 seconds).
One-off load times are critical, however it is also essential to recognize how a domain copes while it is absolutely busy. We used the strain-checking out web site k6 to unleash 20 simultaneous visitors on our take a look at website and watch what occurs.
Namecheap’s effects were a touch underneath average, with the web page dealing with an average 12 requests in line with 2nd and a peak of 16.33. (Most vendors averaged 14-16 requests according to second and peaked at round 20.)
Our exams recommend Namecheap grants at high-quality decrease mid-variety shared website hosting performance. But although it’s trailing the velocity leaders, Namecheap’s instances could be flawlessly appropriate for lots sites, and there’s extra than enough energy right here for plenty non-public and small enterprise websites.
(Keep in mind that our figures and comparisons best relate to shared website hosting plans. If you’re shopping for VPS, devoted or other plans, you may see completely extraordinary results.)
How smooth is Namecheap to apply?
Namecheap’s account manage panel seems a little cluttered at the beginning look, with lists, and sidebars, and menus and icons everywhere you look. But spend just a moment exploring, and it begins to make a lot extra sense.
There’s a list of your domains over here, as an example, web hosting panels over there, and some of these pages are hugely useful. Visit your website hosting plan’s Manage panel, for instance, and you will locate its disk area and bandwidth allowance; server hostname, IP cope with and facts center; cPanel Launch button and shortcuts; usage stats, vehicle-renewal settings, a Cancel button and greater.
That’s a huge development on many providers, where key settings and options are scattered round, and you can spend an age trying to find the features and information you need.
You’ll likely spend greater time dealing with your internet site instead of your hosting plan, of route, but Namecheap scores here, too. While IONOS, iPage and a few other hosts try and reduce corners through presenting their personal custom control gear, Namecheap uses industry standards consisting of Softaculous to install and control WordPress, and cPanel to installation your domains, emails and just about the whole thing else.
This is right information, for a couple of reasons. First, it is a guarantee of first-rate (that is how those tools were given to be enterprise standards.) But in most cases, it makes existence less difficult for anybody. If you’ve ever used cPanel or Softaculous before, you will experience at domestic here immediately. And even supposing you have not, the time you spend studying the cPanel basics might not be wasted. If you pass from Namecheap in some years, there is a very good hazard your next provider will even use cPanel, and you may already recognise how to do all of your maximum essential hosting obligations.
What is Namecheap’s guide like?
Namecheap has 24/7 support thru its website, stay chat and price tag (there’s no smartphone guide).
The net knowledgebase is a big collection of articles organized into common hosting classes: email, SSL certificates, domains, EasyWP (Namecheap’s WordPress range), and greater.
Choosing a segment like WordPress shows articles in subsections: Getting Started (Dashboard Overview, How to create a website etc.), WordPress migration, plugins and subject matters (How to install a brand new topic), database get right of entry to, domain names and greater.
It’s each highly comprehensive, and additionally exceedingly clean to apply. Just scrolling down the WordPress class web page reveals articles that many users will need to examine: ‘What’s the exceptional among managed WordPress hosting and shared website hosting?’, ‘How to get right of entry to your WordPress dashboard?’, ‘How to improve WordPress internet site security’, and lots of greater. This is not simply a place for troubleshooting unique issues; it is someplace we might fortuitously go to simply to learn about a product.
Sometimes you want to clear up an immediate trouble, of path, and that is where stay chat comes in. This labored properly for us: chat was continually available, the longest we waited for a communication to start turned into round three mins, and the marketers did an excellent activity of figuring out our troubles, and sincerely explaining what to do next.
Our test price tag left us expecting a touch longer, but we nevertheless had a respond in around 90 mins. It changed into useful, summarizing the whole thing we needed to recognise in a single paragraph, and supplying a link if we had to realize extra.
The loss of any phone alternative might be an difficulty for a few, but usual Namecheap’s aid worked properly for us, specifically considering the (very low) expenses you’re paying. If that is a key precedence for you, take a look at out the assist website for yourself; you do not have to be a purchaser to view it, and simply browsing the kinds and articles will come up with an awesome concept of how the carrier ought to give you the results you want.
Final verdict
Namecheap’s hosting doesn’t pretty have the electricity or capabilities you’ll see with the high-quality of the competition, however it may be a clever cost choice for first-timers with extraordinarily primary web sites, or companies who can make accurate use of its more powerful devoted web hosting variety.
Namecheap internet hosting FAQs
What charge types does Namecheap aid?
Namecheap accepts payments thru card, PayPal and Bitcoin.
Does Namecheap provide refunds?
Namecheap’s refund coverage is some distance more complex than maximum providers, with all kinds of special clauses and exceptions. Scala Hosting describes its money-returned guarantee in below 140 phrases; Hostwinds, beneath 180; Namecheap needs greater than 1,500.
If we summarize that, as a fashionable rule, Namecheap offers a 30-day cash-lower back guarantee for maximum shared and VPS hosting applications, and seven days for committed website hosting. Add-on services and products in general are not protected, with some exceptions (a few area call renewals are refundable in case you make a request within 5 days of purchase, as an example).
Although we might select a policy that’s a bit less difficult to comply with, Namecheap’s 30 day refund duration is trendy for the industry. If you want greater, HostGator offers forty five days, InMotion Hosting an exquisite 90 days on many plans.
Does Namecheap have an uptime assure?
Namecheap has a 99.9% uptime guarantee for its VPS and reseller money owed, and, strangely, a 100% uptime guarantee for its different shared and dedicated website hosting plans.
For each hour of unscheduled preservation or downtime you experience in a month, Namecheap will provide you a day without cost, as much as a most of one month’s free web hosting.
This isn’t always quite as accurate as it sounds. Other providers typically have a ninety nine.Nine% uptime guarantee, which translates to an acceptable downtime of 43.83 mins a month. Although Namecheap specifies a 100% uptime guarantee, it may not start to pay out until your site has been down for a complete of one hour: the organisation is permitting itself more downtime, no longer less.
Despite that, Namecheap’s deal continues to be higher than we see with many carriers. GoDaddy has a 99.Nine% uptime guarantee, for example, but if it does not meet that, you could simplest receive a most 5% credit score in your month-to-month price.
Where are Namecheap’s records centers?
Web hosts run and keep their servers in homes referred to as data centers. A accurate web host must have lots of net hosts round the world, and can help you pick out which one will host your web site. If your target audience is in California, say, deciding on a US records center will get you plenty higher overall performance than some thing in Australia.
Namecheap has records centers within the USA, UK and Netherlands. There’s a trap in an uncommon more $1 a month for deciding on the UK or Netherlands places for a few plans (look carefully inside the buying cart whilst you pick out a facts center, to be sure you’re now not caught out.) But if you could live with the price, that should deliver suitable outcomes for each North American and European customers.
Namecheap’s places are not lots help in case you’re in Asia, though, and a few vendors have a more worldwide reach. For instance, GoDaddy has records centers in North America, India, Singapore and Europe.
What is my Namecheap IP cope with?
It’s from time to time beneficial to realize the IP deal with of the server hosting your internet site. For instance, this could help you point a site you’ve got registered some other place to point at your Namecheap web area. Whatever the cause you need the IP, it best takes a moment to discover. Here’s what to do.
Log into your Namecheap manage panel (ap.Www.Namecheap.Com).
Click ‘Hosting List’ inside the left-hand sidebar.
Find your plan in the Hosting Subscription listing, and click on its ‘GO TO CPANEL’ button on the proper-hand facet.
Look at the General Information container at the proper-hand side. Your server IP is indexed because the ‘Shared IP Address’.
(If you don’t see a General Information, find and click the Server Information link).
What are Namecheap’s nameservers?
If you’ve got a Namecheap shared website hosting package (Stellar, Stellar Plus or Stellar Business), you should use the nameservers dns1.Namecheaphosting.Com and dns2.Namecheaphosting.Com.
With other plans, take a look at Namecheap’s ‘How to connect a domain to a server or web hosting’ assist file for greater information.
How do I cancel a Namecheap product?
Log into your Namecheap manipulate panel (ap.Www.Namecheap.Com).
Click ‘Hosting List’ on the left-hand side.
If you want a plan to expire whilst its subscription ends, click Auto-Renew to show it off.
To cancel a plan proper now, click the arrow to the proper of the ‘GO TO CPANEL’ hyperlink and click Manage.
Click Cancel Service to open the cancellation web page and entire its diverse steps. Be positive to read everything cautiously, because there are essential info right here. You may be advised if you could (or can’t) get a refund, for example, and if there is some thing else you need to do to cancel the account.
Where can I discover my Namecheap aid PIN?
Contact Namecheap aid with any account-related question and the agent will ask for a support PIN, a secret number which verifies which you’re the real account proprietor.
If you cannot don’t forget your PIN, log into the Namecheap account panel (ap.Www.Namecheap.Com), then hover your mouse over (or simply click on) your account name top-left of the display screen. The Security web page seems, and your guide PIN is listed on the left, inside the Access section.