Namecheap Hosting Review: Is It the Perfect Fit for Your Website?

Namecheap is well-known for registering domain names since it started in 2000. It offers a wide range of domain extensions and has competitive prices. But what about web hosting? Are Namecheap’s hosting services as good as its domain services?

We wanted to find out. So, we carefully looked at every part of what they offer, using data to help you decide. In this detailed review of Namecheap, you’ll learn about the good points, the not-so-good points, and everything else you need to know about their web hosting services.

Namecheap: A Quick Overview

Since its launch in 2000, Namecheap has managed over 17 million domains. Starting small with a vision to offer top-notch domain registration at pocket-friendly prices, Namecheap has grown to offer a variety of services catering to businesses and website owners.

Today, they provide a wide array of services such as web hosting, security features, WordPress management, and more. Unlike many competitors who rely on upselling additional services, Namecheap remains committed to offering genuinely affordable solutions without resorting to aggressive sales tactics.

It’s a common story in the business world: a company excels in one area and then decides to use its reputation to branch out into new markets.

It’s true, branching out doesn’t guarantee the same level of success in new areas. With Namecheap, we’re curious if their web hosting matches up to their renowned domain services. We’ve put Namecheap’s hosting through rigorous tests similar to those we use for top hosting services. Stay tuned to find out how it fared!

Our Review:

Speed	Rather slow but has improved in recent yearsAverage of 328 ms response time in 2022 (down from 865 ms in 2018)
Uptime	99.91% average in 2022
Customer Support	Excellent customer support 4.4 / 5 from 12,824 reviews on Trustpilot4.7 / 5 from 2,249,575 reviews on Shopper Approved[1]24/7 Phone Support, Live Chat, Ticketing & Knowledge Base available
Features	30-day money-back guaranteeFree domain registration included with web hostingUnlimited websites & SSD storage available with basic shared web hosting plansFree privacy protectionFree website migrations in under 24 hoursPlus more!
Web Hosting Plans Available	Shared, Managed WordPress, Reseller, VPS & Dedicated Server Plans
Best Suited To	Hosting: Small businesses, DIY website creators, beginners Domains: Everyone
Pricing	Starts at $1.48/month for shared hosting. Renews at $4.48/mo

Before delving into Namecheap’s plans, let’s examine its advantages and disadvantages so you can determine if its benefits align with your requirements and if its drawbacks are manageable.

Pros And Cons Namecheap

1. Initial & Long-Term Affordability

Namecheap lives up to its name: affordability has been a cornerstone since its launch in 2000. What sets Namecheap apart is its genuine commitment to affordability, not just a marketing gimmick.

Many domain name and web hosting providers lure in new customers with hefty discounts, only to charge steep renewal prices later on. Even major players like GoDaddy are known for this practice. However, Namecheap breaks this trend.

In our search for the cheapest domain name providers, Namecheap consistently emerged as one of the most budget-friendly options. Both its initial promotional prices and renewal rates are well below average. This affordability extends to most of its web hosting plans as well.

2. Free Domains, Privacy Protection & Migrations

Namecheap truly shines when it comes to domain names. Like many shared hosting providers, Namecheap often includes a free domain name for the first year to sweeten the deal. However, what sets Namecheap apart is the range of additional perks it offers with every domain purchase.

For example, while other hosting providers may charge extra for privacy protection services, Namecheap includes it for free with every domain. Additionally, Namecheap guarantees a seamless website and domain migration within 24 hours, minimizing any disruptions if you choose to switch from another hosting provider.

3. Decent Loading Time

While Namecheap’s loading speeds haven’t always been stellar, they’ve made significant strides in this area. In 2022, their average response time was 328 milliseconds, which falls within industry benchmarks.

While our test results didn’t wow us compared to some other hosts we’ve tried before, it’s important to consider Namecheap’s progress over time. They’ve shown considerable improvement compared to their past performance.

4. Money-Back Guarantee

Namecheap, like many other hosting providers, offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

You have a full month to test Namecheap’s service and determine if it suits your needs. If it’s not the right fit, you can still switch to another option without any hassle.

5. Decent Unlimited Hosting Plans Available

In our reviews of numerous hosts, we’ve encountered some shady practices when it comes to unlimited hosting. However, we were impressed with Namecheap’s unlimited plans. We consider them one of the most budget-friendly options for purchasing domain names in today’s market.

Namecheap offers genuine unlimited hosting, including unlimited websites, unmetered storage, and bandwidth, all at incredibly affordable prices. You can begin for as low as $2.18 per month!

6. Thousands Of Raving Reviews

It’s always a positive sign when a company has enthusiastic fans, and Namecheap certainly does. 

With an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars from over 2 million reviews, it’s evident that people adore Namecheap. It’s no surprise that it boasts such a dedicated user base!

7. Trusted Brand

Finally, Namecheap is a highly respected and trusted brand. Such a reputation isn’t earned overnight; it reflects the company’s steadfast commitment to delivering excellence across all its products and services.

With decades of experience, Namecheap has earned its status as one of the reliable and reputable providers in the industry.

8. Very Few Global Data Center Locations

Namecheap operates three primary data center locations: the US, UK, and Europe. However, it’s important to note that not all services are accessible in each location. Additionally, utilizing the data centers in the UK and Europe may incur extra fees.

	Phoenix, US	Nottingham, UK	Amsterdam, Europe
Shared hosting	Yes	Yes (extra $1/mo)	Yes (extra $1/mo)
Private email servers	Yes	No	No
VPS hosting	Yes	No	No
Dedicated servers	Yes	No	No
Reseller hosting	Yes	Yes (extra $1/mo)	Yes (extra $1/mo)

Regrettably, Namecheap falls short in terms of its global reach due to limitations in its data center locations. However, Namecheap does offer a feature called “Supersonic CDN.”

A CDN, or content delivery network, is a system designed to distribute your content geographically. This ensures that your content loads quickly for users all around the world.

Namecheap’s free CDN network can assist you in reaching global audiences, regardless of your server’s location.

9. Mediocre Uptime — 99.91%

The industry standard for uptime is 99.90%. However, in our tests, Namecheap achieved an average uptime of 99.91% in 2022. While Namecheap is just meeting the benchmark, it’s worth noting that there has been a slight decline in performance over recent years.

If your website demands high performance or relies heavily on resources, Namecheap may not be the ideal choice. With its relatively low uptime score, you might experience frequent outages and downtime.

For those seeking top-notch server reliability and are willing to invest more, we recommend considering Hostwinds.

Namecheap Hosting Plans

Have you decided that Namecheap is the right choice for you? Fantastic! Here are the details of Namecheap’s web hosting packages and pricing. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling a high-traffic website, there are plenty of services to choose from.

1. Shared Hosting

As the name suggests, Namecheap’s shared plans are indeed affordable, starting as low as $1.48 per month. The discounted prices may vary over time, so you might see a different amount on Namecheap’s website. 

Nevertheless, the affordability of these plans is hard to overlook! Plus, you’ll receive a free SSL certificate included with your plan.

Plan	Promotional Pricing	Renewal Pricing	Features
Stellar	$1.48/mo	$$4.48/mo	Free domain, 3 websites, 20GB SSD storage
Stellar Plus	$2.18/mo	$6.48/month	Free domain plus unlimited websites, storage and emails
Stellar Business	$4.98/mo	$9.48/month	Free domain, unlimited websites, 50GB SSD storage, unmetered bandwidth and 100% uptime guarantee.

All of the above packages also come with:

• Free website builder
• Free domain privacy
• Free automatic SSL installation
• Free Supersonic CDN
• Automated backups
• Free SSL certificate

2. WordPress Hosting 

If you have or are building a WordPress site and prefer not to manage hosting and updates yourself, Namecheap offers decent managed WordPress hosting plans along with a free website builder. Transitioning from shared hosting to managed WordPress hosting for the first time can be daunting, but Namecheap has made its services beginner-friendly.

You can start with EasyWP Starter, which is designed for beginners. However, it’s important to note that it comes with limited resources, offering only 10GB of space and accommodating up to 50,000 visitors per month. Therefore, it may not be suitable for high-traffic websites or sites with extensive resources.

On the other hand, the Turbo and Supersonic WordPress hosting plans elevate your website’s performance with a range of optimized features, including:

• More SSD storage
• Up to 2 CPS cores
• 99.99% uptime guarantee
• Free CDN access
• Free SSL

3. VPS Hosting 

For those seeking more control and flexibility with their website, Virtual Private Server (VPS) plans are an excellent option. While VPS hosting plans may not advertise “unlimited” features like Namecheap’s shared plans, they are still worth considering.

Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans offer up to 8 CPU cores, 12GB of memory, and 240GB of storage, making them an attractive choice for those transitioning from shared hosting to VPS hosting.

However, if you require even greater control over your server’s setup or more robust features to support a high-performance website, you may find Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans lacking.

4. Dedicated Hosting 

We must admit, Namecheap’s dedicated hosting exceeded our expectations. With over 60 server configurations available, you have plenty of options to choose from for your dedicated server hosting needs.

From entry-level dedicated servers to high-performance ones, Namecheap’s dedicated plans offer a wide range of choices that are worth considering. Additionally, all dedicated servers come with same-day setup, free website migration, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

Plus, the generous allocation of resources adds to the appeal of Namecheap’s dedicated hosting offerings.

5. Reseller Hosting 

Namecheap’s reseller hosting is an excellent choice for web design freelancers and agencies looking to generate additional passive income. With a reseller account from Namecheap, you can offer hosting plans to your clients.

The cheapest reseller hosting plan starts at just $0.79 per month for each account. As you manage more accounts, the cost decreases, with the Universe Pro account costing only $0.39 per month if you have 150 websites in your account.

You have full control over the pricing you offer to your clients, but even doubling your costs allows you to provide competitively priced services.

Additionally, each reseller plan includes the following features:

• Ability to manage from cPanel
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Unlimited domains/subdomains
• WMH control
• Account management tools
• High-powered reseller servers

Features

1. Ease of Use

From the start, Namecheap presents its services clearly, with all the necessary details readily available. Each package is easy to understand, and signing up for the one you need for your website is a breeze! Simply click on one of the orange “Get Started” buttons, and Namecheap’s setup wizard will walk you through each step.

Thankfully, Namecheap’s user-friendly experience doesn’t stop there. Once you’ve signed up, the dashboard is intuitive and logically laid out. You won’t find an overwhelming number of widgets crowding the space, and basic functions like setting up SSL certificates are easy to find.

In the rare event that you encounter difficulties, Namecheap provides a range of helpful knowledge base articles covering common problems faced by new customers.

And if you still need assistance, the customer support team is friendly and helpful. In our experience, we’ve never received overly technical or unhelpful responses from Namecheap’s customer support.

Customer support is a crucial aspect of any domain or hosting service, and it greatly contributes to how easy a service is to use. Overall, we find Namecheap to be exceptionally well-rounded and highly suitable for beginners, small business owners, or DIY website designers.

2. Disk Space

Namecheap’s lowest-tier plans often provide below-average storage amounts, with the cheapest shared hosting plan offering just 20GB of disk space. This is likely sufficient for small websites, but if your site contains many images or pages, or if it’s resource-intensive like an eCommerce store, you’ll need more storage than Namecheap typically offers on its affordable plans.

However, if you’re willing to invest a bit more, you can access unmetered storage, allowing your website to utilize as much space as needed without Namecheap tracking your usage or penalizing you for exceeding a threshold.

On hosting plans without an unmetered storage option, Namecheap’s mid-tier plans generally offer storage closest to the industry average, albeit slightly lower.

While Namecheap’s hosting plans provide significantly more storage compared to others, if you require a storage-optimized hosting plan, dedicated hosting may not be the best option. You might find better solutions offering up to 16TB of storage elsewhere.

3. Backups

When it comes to hosting, backups are crucial for safeguarding your website. In case of accidents like accidental site crashes or hacking incidents, having updated backups can be a lifesaver.

Unfortunately, Namecheap’s backup policy doesn’t quite meet our typical recommendation standards. While many shared hosts offer free, automated daily backups with even their cheapest hosting plans, Namecheap falls short in this aspect.

They back up each server once every 3 to 7 days, and these backups are solely for server restoration purposes. It’s up to you to arrange your own backups of your data, and Namecheap charges a fee if you need to retrieve data from their most recent archives in case of data loss.

Overall, Namecheap’s approach to backups leaves much to be desired in our opinion.

4. Security

Security is indeed a critical consideration when selecting a hosting provider. While Namecheap includes several essential security features with all plans, such as free SSL certificates and firewalls, we found its security offerings to be somewhat limited and basic compared to some competitors like SiteGround.

Namecheap lacks more advanced security features that other providers offer as standard, such as daily backups and a redundant network. Additionally, we found that Namecheap’s security features lack transparency in terms of what is provided.

Here’s what Namecheap offers in terms of security features:

• Free SSL certificate: one-click installation for a free SSL certificate is available.
• Domain privacy: Free WHOIS privacy protection is included on all domain purchases.
• Domain lock: Free with every domain name sold and prevents unauthorized transfers of your domain name.
• DDoS protection: prevent bots from sending millions of requests to your website servers and crashing your website.
• TOTP two-factor authentication: Add an extra layer of security to prevent hackers from accessing your account.

In summary, Namecheap provides basic website security measures to protect against common threats. However, if your website requires more advanced security features, we recommend exploring options like SiteGround. SiteGround offers next-level security features on every plan, developed by its team of in-house security experts.

Namecheap Performance

1. Speed

Unlike some other hosting providers, Namecheap doesn’t boast about its server speed or make extravagant claims. Our test data shows that Namecheap’s speed falls within the recommended industry benchmarks, with an average response time of 328ms in 2022. While it may not be enough to completely blow us away, it certainly earns a solid approval from us.

It’s important to acknowledge that Namecheap hasn’t always had a stellar track record with speed performance in recent years. However, despite a slightly lower average response time in 2022 compared to industry benchmarks, we appreciate that Namecheap has been consistently improving the speed of their servers year after year.

2. Uptime

Unfortunately, Namecheap’s uptime record has been among the lowest we’ve encountered. 

According to Pingdom’s uptime data since 2017, Namecheap has had a challenging time maintaining server reliability.

The industry benchmark for uptime is typically set at 99.90%. While many hosting companies offer higher uptime guarantees, Namecheap’s performance falls significantly below this standard. This level of uptime and server reliability is too far below acceptable standards for us to recommend it for anyone requiring high-performance hosting.

Namecheap Domains

The one thing Namecheap does exceptionally well is domains.

Namecheap offers not only hundreds of available domain name extensions but also stands out as one of the most affordable domain registrars in the market. Additionally, they provide a ton of added value for free with every domain name registered, including:

• Free privacy protection for life: Hide your personal details from WHOIS.
• Free DNSSEC security: Protect your website visitors from fraudulent activity.
• Free domain lock: prevent unauthorized transfer of your domain names from the domain registrar

Pricing

In our assessment of the most budget-friendly places to purchase domain names, Namecheap consistently emerged as the top choice. It offers highly competitive prices for all popular domain names, with both initial and renewal prices consistently below the industry average.

While Namecheap may not always offer the absolute cheapest deals for the initial purchase of a domain, it stands out as one of the most affordable providers in the long run, thanks to its fair renewal pricing.

Furthermore, Namecheap often runs frequent discount promotions, providing opportunities to acquire domains at even lower prices during these sale periods.

Namecheap Support

Namecheap’s customer support stands out as quite commendable compared to many companies in the industry. The quality of customer support often plays a significant role in shaping a company’s ratings and reputation.

With over 2 million reviews averaging a rating of 4.7 out of 5, it’s evident that customers hold Namecheap in high regard, and its support services are a key factor in this positive sentiment.

In particular, Namecheap’s knowledge base provides easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions, and its ticketing system offers efficient assistance. In our own tests, we found Namecheap’s support team to be very helpful, providing excellent guidance even for beginners.

While Namecheap’s customer support generally receives positive feedback, we did encounter instances where support responses were somewhat slow in helping us resolve specific issues.

Although phone support isn’t available, Namecheap compensates with an extensive knowledge base containing hundreds of easy-to-follow guides to help resolve most issues. While the lack of phone support may be a drawback for some, we don’t see it as a deal breaker. Overall, Namecheap’s support, which we consider to be above average in the industry, makes up for this limitation.

Do We Recommend Using Namecheap in 2024?

We’re impressed with Namecheap’s domain services, but when it comes to hosting, we primarily recommend them for beginners and individuals with smaller websites due to their poor uptime performance. Additionally, we would have preferred to see more data center locations available.

However, Namecheap shines in its beginner-friendly approach, offering many step-by-step knowledge base articles to help beginners resolve common problems. Customers also hold Namecheap’s services in high regard and rate it very highly.

Overall, while we don’t rate Namecheap as one of the top web hosting providers in the current market, it’s worth considering if you have a small website and don’t require high-performance hosting.