Namecheap hosting review: Pros and cons in 2024 (2024)

If you’re looking for a cheap hosting service, Namecheap will inevitably come up in your search since it offers some of the best pricing on the market. It’s best for website owners who have a primary audience near one of Namecheap’s server locations in the U.S., the U.K. or the European Union.

If you’re serving a customer base in another part of the world, you may want to look at alternatives. If you’re in one of those three markets, though, Namecheap has a wide range of products that can help meet your hosting needs for less.

Namecheap overview

Namecheap started out as a platform to purchase domain names, but it evolved into a full-fledged hosting platform. It still allows you to register domains, but you can also get a wide array of web hosting services along with an integrated website builder.

Namecheap offers the top four types of web hosting: Shared hosting, hosting with WordPress integrations, VPS hosting and dedicated servers. It also offers reseller hosting plans.

Namecheap pros and cons

True to its name, Namecheap is, in fact, cheap. This is a pretty big pro, but as with any product, there are positives and negatives to the service.

Pros

The biggest pro is Namecheap’s pricing. It’s cheaper than almost any comparable product on the market, especially during the first year when you’re likely to see a promotional discount.

While it doesn’t have the fastest response times, Namecheap sites do perform within the realm of acceptability, meaning they’re generally not overly slow to load. Plus, Namecheap offers a 100% uptime guarantee with a wide range of hosting packages.

Cons

While most sites perform acceptably, Namecheap isn’t the fastest host around — especially when you purchase shared hosting. Part of the reason for that is that there are only three server locations across the world. Users who are farther away from these server locations may experience longer load times.

While base prices are low, you may find yourself shelling out extra cash for things like SSL certificates after the first year, CDN access or server management, depending on your plan. While there is 24/7 customer service available, there’s no phone number you can call. Everything’s done through ticket support and live chat.

Namecheap plan pricing and value

Namecheap’s plans are some of the cheapest on the market and each one includes a one-year SSL certificate, access to Namecheap’s Supersonic CDN and lifetime WHOIS privacy protection. Also, if you’re moving over from another hosting provider, Namecheap will ensure the migration happens in less than 24 hours.

All shared hosting plans also come with a free website builder and a discounted or free domain name. Whether it’s free or discounted will depend on the top-level domain (TLD) you choose. As far as features go, the base Stellar plan allows you to build up to three websites, have up to 30 email addresses and use up to 20 GB of SSD storage.

The Stellar Plus plan adds AutoBackup and comes with unlimited SSD storage, websites and email addresses. The largest shared hosting plan is Stellar Business. It restricts your hard storage to 50 GB SSD but adds cloud storage capacity.

If WordPress integration is a big deal for you, Namecheap does have EasyWP plans. They cost a little more than Stellar plans ($6.88 to $19.88 per month compared to $4.48 to $9.48 per month), but they do come with lower storage capacities. Additionally, only some of the EasyWP plans come with a free SSL certificate.

Both Stellar and EasyWP hosting options do come with the added benefit of a free, 30-day trial. You will have to provide a credit card, but if you cancel before the 30 days are up you won’t be billed.

Type of hosting

In addition to shared hosting and EasyWP hosting, Namecheap provides dedicated servers and VPS hosting. As your business and website traffic grow, you may find you need the speed and reliability of a dedicated server.

Namecheap does offer dedicated servers, but these hosting plans are significantly more expensive. You may also have to pay extra for things that come free with Stellar plans, like SSL certificates and access to the Supersonic CDN.

If you want more control and dedicated resources than a shared plan but don’t have the budget for a dedicated server, you may be interested in Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans. They cost $9.88 to $28.88 per month and include features like full root access, OS selection and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

By default, you’re in charge of server management, but you can pay an extra $10 or $25 per month for varying levels of support from Namecheap.

Performance and uptime

Namecheap advertises 100% server uptimes — even on shared hosting plans. Namecheap only has servers in three locations, which could prove problematic for some users as server proximity plays a large role in server response times. The three server locations are:

• Phoenix, Arizona, United States.
• Amsterdam, Netherlands, European Union (shared hosting only).
• Near Nottingham, England, United Kingdom (extra $1 per month fee).

Namecheap’s server speed is typically acceptable, but it’s not the fastest. It’s consistently outperformed by competitors like DreamHost and GoDaddy.

Bandwidth and storage

All Stellar plans come with unmetered bandwidth. You’ll want to be careful with the base Stellar plan, though. It doesn’t include automatic backups, which are of the utmost importance if you ever have to restore your site.

Automatic backups are also crucial for data protection, but they’re only available on Stellar Plus and Stellar Business plans if you opt for shared hosting.

Security features

SSL certificates are free if you have a shared hosting plan. Otherwise, Namecheap charges anywhere between $6.99 to $13.20 per year for certificate terms of one to five years. There are frequent promotional offers that make the first year cheaper. While Namecheap does have a free CDN option, if you pay for a Supersonic CDN, a CDN WAF (web application firewall) is included. The CDN WAF protects you from DDoS attacks.

Customer support

Regardless of which hosting plan you sign up for, you have two options when it comes to reaching out for customer support. First, you can submit a ticket. Namecheap says that it has representatives working on these tickets 24/7. Live chat is also always available, regardless of time of day. There is no phone support.

Namecheap vs. top competitors

More often than not, Namecheap is going to be your cheapest option. There are some competitors that don’t make you pay for as many add-ons, though, so you’ll want to run the math for your individual package before making any final decisions.

Namecheap vs MochaHost

While Namecheap charges for an SSL certificate if you’re not on a shared hosting plan, MochaHost doesn’t. It has SSL certificates for free with every package. MochaHost plans also include firewall protection. With many Namecheap plans, you’ll have to pay extra to get access to the CDN WAF.

Despite the extra fees you may run into, Namecheap’s base pricing is lower than MochaHost’s in most cases. MochaHost also doesn’t provide automatic backups on its shared hosting plans unless you pay for the most expensive package — $23.90 per month.

Namecheap vs A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting and Namecheap offer fairly comparable products, but at first glance, A2 Hosting is much more expensive. One thing to bear in mind is that if you do want your server managed by Namecheap, you’ll have to pay extra monthly fees, which can drive up the price to be more comparable with A2 Hosting.

Namecheap and A2 Hosting both offer 24/7 customer support, but A2 Hosting offers this support over the phone while Namecheap does not.

Namecheap vs DreamHost

Dreamhost is known to have faster response times than Namecheap. Its prices for self-hosted plans are only slightly more expensive than Namecheap, but you can start seeing a bigger difference when you move into WordPress, VPS or dedicated server hosting.

While there are several circ*mstances where you could find yourself paying extra money for an SSL certificate or firewall protection with Namecheap, those things are included for free in most circ*mstances with DreamHost.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)