Wondering if Namecheap is the best domain registration service or not? Don’t worry, this Namecheap review article is just what you’ve been searching for.
As you might’ve heard, Namecheap is one of the most popular domain name registrars. Along with providing domain names at the cheapest price, it also provides amazing hosting plans, one of the greatest security, awesome support, and much more.
That’s why we’ve reviewed Namecheap to help you decide whether it is the best domain registration service or not. So, let’s jump right into it!
Namecheap Review – Introduction
First of all, let’s discuss what a domain name is. Simply put, a domain name is an address that gives your website a unique identity. People can search for your site with the help of your domain name.
However, you’ll first need to register these domain names officially to use them. This is where the domain name registration services come into play.
And among those, Namecheap is one of the most popular domain registrars out in the market right now.
History of Namecheap
Namecheap was launched in 2000 by the company’s current CEO, Richard Kirkendall. It is an ICANN ( The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) authorized domain registrar and technology company.
The company is based in Phoenix, Arizona. According to the 2018 Inc. 5000, Namecheap is one of the fastest-growing domain registrar companies. And today it has over 10 million domain names under management and 1.5+ million happy customers.
Namecheap Review – Domain Registration Service
Namecheap, as its name suggests, offers you a domain name at the cheapest price. Here, we’ve discussed all the services it provides to register a domain name.
TLD (Top-Level Domain)
When you search for a certain website on the browser for example ‘www.google.com’, it sends a request to a database known as Domain Name System (DNS).
The domain names are ranked according to the level in the DNS. And, as the name suggests TLD ranks top in the hierarchy.
The domain registration service, Namecheap offers 14 different TLDs at different prices. $8.88 per year for a ‘.com’ domain, is the cheapest plan. Similarly, $2098 per year for ‘.inc’ is the most expensive plan.
Whois Lookup
You can easily search for a unique domain name in Namecheap with the help of the ‘Whois lookup tool’.
According to the ICANN regulations, you must provide the registrar with up-to-date contact information, every time a domain is registered. All this information is kept in the Whois database. The great news is that it’s displayed to the public.
Hence, when you decide to register a name, you can see all the registered domain names in the Whois database. This eliminates the chances of two domain names being the same.
Domain Transfer
Already have a domain name and want to transfer it to Namecheap? Lucky for you, it offers the easiest way to transfer your existing domain name.
Simply click on the search bar of Easy Domain Transfer, and check if it’s eligible for transfer or not.
After that, consult the ‘domain type requirements’ and get your authorization code ready. Then, add your domain to the cart, checkout, and do the necessary payments. Your domain transfer will be completed automatically in 30 mins to 6 days.
Namecheap Domain Marketplace
Namecheap domain marketplace is a great place for you to list domain names for sale. Imagine this, you come up with the most unique domain name. But you don’t want to use it for yourself. So, what do you do?
It’s simple, register that unique domain name and place it on the Namecheap domain marketplace at a premium price. Then, interested buyers can buy your domain name and you can earn money. It’s a great place for buyers as well as sellers.
Premium DNS and Free DNS
The good thing about a premium DNS is that it offers deep-layer security, prevention from DDoS attacks, and 100% uptime. It always keeps your website running, even when your site is flooded with heavy traffic. And Namecheap provides the cheapest DNS in the market at the price of $3.88 per year.
If you’re short on budget however, Namecheap also offers a free DNS hosting service. If your domain registrar doesn’t provide DNS, don’t worry Namecheap has got your back. They provide free DNS service and if you like their service then, you can upgrade it to premium DNS.
Other Features
Other than this, Namecheap also offers ‘Bulk Domain Search’ and ‘Personal Domain’. Bulk domain search allows you to enter up to 5000 terms and search them all in one go. It’s a pretty handy tool if you need to purchase multiple domain names at once.
The personal domain feature allows you to create your personalized domain name and email. You can add ‘.com’, ‘.me’, or ‘.biz’ after your name. Moreover, you can send and receive emails to your personalized email. A great way to brand yourself as a professional, if you ask us.
Namecheap Review – Features
Next up, let’s look at some of the key Namecheap features:
1. Hosting Plans
Namecheap not only provides domain names but also hosting plans. After all, domain name and hosting always go hand in hand.
In short, hosting is renting a web-space on the internet for your website so that users on the World Wide Web (WWW) can access and view said site.
Web hosting providers offer multiple types of hosting plans to cater to their clients’ needs. Similarly, you can enjoy the following hosting plans with Namecheap:
Shared Hosting
The lowest cost for shared hosting is $1.98 per month and the highest cost is $4.98 per month, which is pretty cheap.
WordPress Hosting
Namecheap’s EasyWP is one of the fastest managed WordPress hosting out there. For the cheapest plan, you need to pay $2.91 per month. While for the most expensive WordPress hosting, you need to pay $5.74 per month.
Reseller Hosting
In reseller hosting, you can purchase a hosting provider’s resources wholesale and resell them to your clients for profit. It also allows you to create your own hosting service and pricing structure as well.
The cheapest reseller hosting plan costs you $19.88 per month. On the other hand, the most expensive plan costs $58.88 per month.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Virtual private servers use a special technology known as virtualization, which divides a single server into multiple virtual servers.
Namecheap offers VPS hosting at the lowest cost price of $6.88 per month and the highest cost price of $24.88 per month.
Dedicated Hosting
With dedicated hosting, you get an entire web server to yourself. Since you don’t have to share resources with other sites, your website is bound to perform better. That’s why dedicated hosting is relatively more expensive than other hosting plans.
You can get Namecheap’s dedicated hosting at the lowest price of $41.88 per month and the most expensive plan costs you $229.88 per month.
Control Panel
The Namecheap hosting plans we discussed above, all use cPanel. The control panel of Namecheap includes the following features.
- Beginner-friendly, easy-to-use graphical interface.
- Email setup and usage.
- File and database management.
- Backup access.
- Softaculous application manager.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate
SSL is a standard technology that safeguards your sensitive data that is sent between two systems. This also prevents any hackers from reading and modifying your data.
The SSL certificates act as a third-party verification for a website’s security, which is a must to any business dealing with sensitive user information.
Different SSL certificates offer a different level of security to your website. It depends upon the level of protection, and security features your site and its users require.
Namecheap offers 13 different SSL certificate plans you can choose from according to your needs. The cheapest plan starts at $11.00 per year, for a single domain. Whereas, the most expensive plan costs you $185.99 per year, for multiple domain names.
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A CDN is a network of servers that are distributed across the globe. The purpose of these CDN services is to optimize the speed of your site.
When users from different parts of the world search for certain content online, it delivers the requested content from the nearest data center. This way it takes less time to serve content to users regardless of their location and hence, increasing your site’s performance.
Namecheap provides Supersonic CDN service. According to Namecheap, it can boost your site’s speed by over 68%.
Additionally, Supersonic CDN uses multiple servers around the world to deliver your content to users as soon as possible. The service is so fast that your user can even play high-quality videos without any interruptions.
Not to mention, it also offers security to all the contents you deliver with the Web Application Firewall (WAF) feature. Besides, you also get an SSL certificate for a fool-proof protection of your site data.
Data Centers
Namecheap’s data centers are located in the US (Phoenix) and the UK (Nottingham).
When you buy shared hosting, you can choose between these data centers depending on the location of your majority audience. However, note that the price might differ if you choose a UK data center.
Backups
Namecheap provides auto backup every three to seven days for server restoration purposes. Furthermore, you can also backup and restore your data through cPanel to locally backup your site’s data.
Also, in any case you lose your data, then Namecheap offers free restoration on every hosting plan.
WordPress
Namecheap offers managed WordPress hosting. On top of that, it provides the option to migrate your WordPress site to Namecheap for FREE.
Besides that, you can manually migrate your WordPress website with the help of the All-in-one WP Migration plugin.
Another great feature Namecheap offers is the email hosting system. It’s specially designed for all your personal and professional needs. You can choose your plan, then use private email’s built-in features and office tools to manage your emails, contact, calendar, and entire business with ease.
The email hosting system is compatible with Windows, Apple, and Android devices. Furthermore, you get a unified inbox to manage all your email accounts.
The cheapest email plan costs you $0.99 per month and the most expensive costs you $4.00 per month.
Namecheap Review – Customer Service & Knowledge Base
Namecheap offers fast and reliable customer service. They have a live chat feature that’s available 24/7. They also have how-to videos to make the setup process easier for you.
Moreover, Namecheap provides blogs on topics like business, tech, and many more. Similarly, you get a deeper-level of expertise from Namecheap’s in-house professionals with guru guides.
Best of all, you can also get status updates. In this section you can see all the current status of services provided by Namecheap.
he knowledge base of Namecheap is quite robust. They provide the articles related to your question within seconds, which is quite impressive.
Namecheap Review – Pros and Cons
Like every other domain registration service, Namecheap has its pros and cons as well. We’ve discussed some of them down below.
Pros of Namecheap
- The first and foremost advantage of Namecheap is its most affordable pricing plans.
- You can easily migrate your WordPress site.
- It offers strong backups and security.
- You get great customer service.
- It provides free domain name and migration.
Cons of Namecheap
- It provides below average uptime and response time. It claims to provide 100% uptime however, that’s not true.
- No free SSL certificate on hosting plans.
- No phone service. This could be a problem for some customers.
Customer Review
Now, let us look at the customer review for Namecheap. It has 4.7 overall satisfaction ratings. And it’s based on over 1,000,000 ratings by happy customers. In addition, it has a 1M+ 5 stars rating.
Wrapping It Up!
Here’s a quick rewind of what Namecheap offers – domain, hosting, option to migrate WordPress, email hosting system, excellent security, amazing support, and knowledge base.
Not to mention, you get all these awesome features at the most reasonable price. So, we hope you got the answer to your question and cleared your doubt.
However, domain name registration is just the start. You might also want to get started on searching for the best WordPress themes and templates for your site.
With that said, it’s time to wrap this article up. If you enjoyed reading this Namecheap review then, don’t forget to share it with your friends on social media.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post may be affiliate links. So if you purchase anything using the link, we will earn affiliate commission