Namecheap is a company that lives up to its name by offering cheap domain and hosting services. It is ideal for beginners as it requires little investment to get your website up and running.
Since its inception in 2000, it has hosted more than 17 million domains, making it one of the leading companies in the sector.
But why is it so popular? Does it offer competitive features at its price? If so, how does it stack up against its competitors?
After testing it, let’s discuss in this article what makes Namecheap stand out and what aspects we think it could improve.
Here is an index to help you navigate the post:
- Overview
- What does Namecheap offer?
- Assistance and documentation
- Prices
- Alternatives to Namecheap
- Final verdict
General information: Namecheap
Namecheap is a company that primarily deals with domain and hosting services. However, over the years, they have expanded their services to become one of the most dominant players in the market.
Now, Namecheap offers WordPress hosting, VPN hosting, shared hosting, email hosting, and dedicated hosting. They also offer website building, marketing tools, and advanced security features, to name just a few.
Pros:
- Cheap domains and hosting plans
- Free domain in the first year of the hosting plan
- 24/7 Support
- Low cost renovation jump
- Free SSL Certificate
- Great uptime
- 30-day money back guarantee
Cons:
- No telephone assistance
- Basic plan includes limited features
- The interface can be complex for beginners
Now that we know Namecheap, let’s get into the details.
What does Namecheap offer?
This is what we will cover in this section:
- Domain registration
- Web hosting
- Website migration
- Site Builder
- Marketing
Domain registration
When you sign up for a hosting plan with Namecheap, you’ll automatically get a free domain. But there’s a catch: you won’t get a level 1 domain like a “.com.” Instead, you’ll get domain names like “.fun,” “.site,” or “.online.”
The type of free domain you get will depend on the type of hosting you subscribe to.
However, if you don’t want to use the free domain provided, you can purchase a .com domain or any other domain from Namecheap at very low prices. For example, the price of a .com domain starts at $5.98, which is still affordable.
Plus, you’ll get 2 months of free professional email hosting and lifetime WhoIs protection .
However, you will have to renew the domain at the end of the billing cycle, china phone number library which can increase your total costs in the long run.
Web hosting
Web hosting with Namecheap is one of the cheapest on the market.
Shared hosting, for example, optinMonster review: how to increase leads, conversion, and brand awareness? tarts at $1.98 per month with the Stellar plan. That’s less than $50 for a two-year term. To put that into perspective, that’s almost the same amount of money you’ll spend with other popular hosting providers in 1 year.
To sweeten the deal, you can host up to 3 domains on this plan, which is great since most hosting providers only allow you to host 1 domain on their lowest shared hosting plan.
Additionally, all shared hosting plans come with SSD storage, which offers faster data processing speeds, better performance, and data security.
In addition to shared hosting, Namecheap also offers other types virgin islands send of hosting plans. Here are 2 of the most popular ones.
- EasyWP Hosting (WordPress Hosting): Namecheap offers a no-obligation 30-day free trial for any EasyWP WordPress hosting plan. These packages include cloud storage, automatic backups, and 1-click backups.
- Dedicated Hosting: This is usually one of the more expensive plans for most hosting providers, and it’s no different with Namecheap. But once again, we see that Namecheap dedicated hosting is still cheaper while offering great features. Some features you can expect with their basic dedicated hosting plan are 8GB DDR3, two 1TB HDDs, and 100TB of bandwidth per month.
Website migration
Namecheap can help you migrate your hosting, domain or site to their platform easily and efficiently, ensuring a smooth transition.
- Hosting Transfer: The process ensures that you remain online throughout the entire setup, experiencing very little downtime for your website. The remaining time of your domain registration is added to your 1-year renewal, so you don’t lose any time you’ve already paid for.
- Domain Transfer: All you need to do is enter your domain name in the search bar provided to check your transfer eligibility. Then, make sure you meet the transfer requirements and get your authorization code if needed. Domain transfer pricing starts at $10.48 for .com domains and $17.98 for .info domains.
- Website Transfer: They guarantee to migrate your website within 24 hours without more than 15 minutes of downtime. If this is not met, the first year is free. For a site transfer, you will need to ask their team for help by opening a support ticket and providing them with details, credentials, and hosting requirements.
However, regardless of how effectively a hosting company transfers a site to its platform, it is important to protect the data. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a backup, either locally or in a cloud solution.
We recommend using Duplicator for your local and cloud backup needs . It can help you create scheduled backups and implement full site migrations without even installing WordPress on the new destination. Follow our tutorial: How to Easily Backup Your WordPress Site (Step-by-Step) .
Site Builder
Another area worth checking out is Namecheap’s site builder. Much like its default dashboard, its default site builder feels a bit dated. Even though it offers a drag-and-drop site builder , it still feels a bit static.
One thing to note is that the site’s templates are limited. Some look dated and are not mobile-responsive.
Third-party integration with tools outside the Namecheap ecosystem can also be challenging.
However, Namecheap also offers a more advanced site builder called Visual. It requires no coding experience and provides step-by-step guides to ensure you are online in no time.
Plus, it can help you create visually stunning, mobile-friendly websites with a drag-and-drop format.
Namecheap Visual also comes with a free SSL certificate , analytics, and unlimited visitors. While Visual offers a 14-day free trial, you will have to pay $3.88/month for the Personal plan and $8.88/month for the Business plan.
Marketing
Like most hosting providers, Namecheap also offers basic marketing tools. Here are a few you can take advantage of:
- RelateSocial: Helps you manage social media by offering AI-generated social posts, custom AI images, and a free media library. Plus, you can schedule your posts via a social media calendar. Namecheap also offers basic social media keyword tracking.
- RelateReviews: This helps you manage and monitor your reviews, respond to reviews with templates, monitor mentions, request reviews, and track reviews using AI insights.
- RelateSEO: Get a personalized SEO checklist with step-by-step implementation guides. Help with basic competitor analysis and finding the right keywords.
- Free Logo Design: Browse through hundreds of high-quality logo templates. These templates are fully customizable through Namecheap’s designer tool and are easy to import into the site builder.
However, since Namecheap’s marketing features can be limited, it’s always important to explore other options to add to what you have at your disposal in your Namecheap dashboard.
Check out AIOSEO , the best SEO plugin for WordPress. It can help you improve your Google rankings so that you get more traffic. At the same time, this SEO plugin can help you improve the structure of your content so that visitors enjoy reading your site’s posts.
Additional Features
Control Panel: You can access your Account, Domain List, Hosting List, Email Services, Renewal Management, and Support in the Namecheap control panel.
However, the dashboard is one area where Namecheap could improve its user-friendliness. Their dashboard feels a bit dated and complicated, which comes with a learning curve.
For example, to install WordPress on your website with Namecheap, you will need to use Softaculous. Installing WordPress with Softaculous can be complicated as it requires additional steps to complete the task.
Although this script installer was popular in the past, most hosting providers have since abandoned it. They now incorporate simple custom WordPress installation processes .
Although Namecheap’s default dashboard may look dated, their EasyWP dashboard is one of the best and is considered a good cPanel replacement tool.