Hello and welcome to my NameCheap WordPress Shared Hosting Review.
We are here today to see if the hosting is any good for WordPress hosting, and hosting in general.
Now with that said, I want to let you know that I do have an alternative located at the end of this review to share with you my #1 recommended website hosting company to get started with.
In this review, I am going to share with you information about the NameCheap company, the pros, and cons of the various hosting packages that NameCheap offers, and the prices that they offer them for.
I will go into the limits the hosting packages have and any “gotchas” that you might run into.
My NameCheap WordPress Hosting Review
Is NameCheap as great a web hosting company as it is a domain registrar?
In this review, I will give an overall view of the cons and pros of the NameCheap hosting that will be the for a WordPress site specifically.
Before I continue, you probably have seen a ton of ads about WIX and thought to yourself if WIX would be good for hosting.
WIX is not a hosting company it’s actually a page builder that you can create websites.
Not recommended when seriously wanting to start a business online through affiliate marketing, or build a big site.
I wanted to mention it because I get that question asked a lot.
You can read more about WIX in my is WIX good for blogging review.
Let’s continue…
How does its web hosting performance compare with those of other well-known web hosting service providers?
Is there a secret you can take advantage of to leverage NameCheap’s inexpensive hosting plans and get the same high-quality hosting other more expensive service providers are offering, or are NameCheap’s hosting plans cheap because of their poor quality?
You’ll find this extensive and objective NameCheap review very revealing as it addresses your concerns and compares NameCheap’s web hosting to others.
A Brief History of NameCheap
NameCheap, unlike other hosting companies, is independent (it’s not an operating subsidiary under a big holding company).
It was founded as a domain name registrar in 2000 and is accredited by the International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
NameCheap offers a range of other services, apart from domain name registration, including web hosting (which WordPress is compatible with), website builder, email, SSLs, and features a 24-hour support team.
This review is on NameCheap’s capacity as a web hosting service provider and not as a domain name registrar because a lot of experienced and aspiring internet entrepreneurs have shown curiosity about the quality of its hosting services.
This level of curiosity is mostly because of NameCheap’s out-of-this-world cheap hosting plans.
Although, in my opinion, the domain name and hosting registration of an internet-based business should ideally be kept separate, I decided to test-drive NameCheap with a small project I launched (with both domain and hosting on NameCheap), just to see how it works.
Therefore, this review is born of the experiential observations of an actual NameCheap user.
Now, let’s dig in for the pros and cons.
My review is based on a different approach from the rest of the other NameCheap reviews on the internet.
First off, there’s no such thing as the best web host because what’s best for a given internet business model might not necessarily be good for another.
You simply might need hosting for a simple WordPress site that has less than 20 pages, in which case NameCheap hosting would be a perfect solution.
If you are looking to have several WordPress websites because you are doing Internet Marketing, then it’s in your best interest to look at a different solution that I will mention below.
Therefore, what’s best should be determined based on your business model, budget, goals, experience, etc.
NameCheap Hosting Prices
The major advantage NameCheap has over others is their pricing, which is so cheap it seems too good to be true.
However, low cost isn’t necessarily an indication of high quality.
In order to evaluate that properly, we have to look at the structure of hosting prices.
All hosting companies are basically offering the same thing – a place for your website in cyberspace.
However, they each have different hosting plans, benefits, bonuses, limits, and renewal prices, some of which need to be examined to uncover the value of their services.
We’ll do so by concentrating on core hosting benefits (the three Ds – domain, disk space, and database) and not bonus hosting benefits.
The major function of a hosting server is to serve internet users with files from your website when they type in your domain name.
- Domains: These are how many website addresses (or website names) your hosting account can be pointed to. If you need to own multiple websites, you’ll need a hosting account that allows multiple domains. You’ll also consider the number of email addresses for each domain.
- Disk space: This is the capacity of your hosting account to hold information such as texts and other files like graphics, audio files, video files, and so on.
- Databases: This is the number of web applications you can run on your hosting account. A WordPress installation, for instance, requires one database. An autoresponder service also requires one database. The more the number of web apps, the more the number of databases you’ll need.
NameCheap has four hosting plans as listed below:
- Value – Value starts at $9.88 per year and renews at $38.88 per year.
- Professional – Professional starts at $19.88 per year and renews at $78.88 per year.
- Ultimate – Ultimate starts at $29.88 per year and renews at $129.88 per year.
- Business Pro – Business Pro starts at $19.88 per month and renews at $17.98 per month.
Every one of them has an unbelievably low entry price, and everyone can host a WordPress site seamlessly..
The catch is that there are limits on one or two of the three Ds on all of them, in addition to other limits.
More on the limits when we get to the cons.
The Data Limits on these Hosting Plans
- The Value plan is limited to only three domains, 50 databases, 50 email accounts, and 20 gigabytes of disk space.
- The Professional plan is limited to 10 domains, 100 databases, 100 email accounts, and 50 gigabytes of disk space.
- The Ultimate plan offers only 50 domains.
- The Business Pro plan offers only 20 gigabytes of disk space and 5,000 gigabytes of bandwidth.
So, if your internet-based business model fits under these limits, NameCheap offers you the best prices you could ever hope for.
NameCheap has 4 pricing tiers.
Here is the NameCheap hosting pricing table:
If this looks like something that you are looking for then click here to get started.
If not, you’ll need a hosting company with fewer limits.
Some examples are InMotion, Bluehost, Web Hosting Hub, and even SiteGround.
NameCheap Business Culture
Being an independent company isn’t necessarily good, and being a subsidiary of a big company isn’t necessarily bad.
But NameCheap operates excellently as an independent organization in its brand value definition and full disclosure in an industry that’s known for its vagueness and confusion.
In addition, NameCheap, in partnership with FightForTheFuture.org and Electronic Frontier, has donated resources to ensure the freedom and security of the internet.
NameCheap’s transparency about services and pricing is impressive.
Their expandable list of hosting plans and their display of renewal rates are commendable. Overall, they can be trusted with strong business culture.
Does NameCheap Have Onboarding?
As it is with anything new, getting started with a new web host can be scary and exciting at the same time.
So, helping to set up a new customer’s web presence is crucial to taking away the scary part and making the exciting part worthwhile.
In business terminology, the setup or entry process is called “onboarding.”
Nothing causes more pain and regret than a problematic onboarding experience.
Ideally, you should get your login details and be able to easily login successfully or be able to get some tutorial in text format or audiovisual format to walk you through the entire process right after signing up.
NameCheap does all that for its new subscribers that sign up for hosting.
They send you a welcome email with login provisions and pointers to helpful resources.
NameCheap Hosting Back Office
The NameCheap user back office is neat and simple.
You won’t find high-pressure upsells or distracting banners.
The NameCheap WordPress quick install provision installs a version of WordPress without plugins or fancy themes.
It was designed to support beginners and Do-It-Yourself subscribers who are looking for a very inexpensive and straightforward hosting service.
NameCheap Hosting Data Centers
When you sign up, you’ll be prompted to choose between their U.S. and U.K. data centers.
This makes NameCheap a good choice for users outside the U.S. whose target audience is closer to the U.K.
NameCheap Hosting Backup Service
While it’s good practice to do backups yourself, NameCheap does backups for their web host users twice a week, which is a useful data safety service to have.
Plus, NameCheap’s backup services are free.
Backup services are usually limited bonuses or paid features with other hosting companies such as Siteground, Dreamhost, and Web Hosting Hub.
NameCheap Hosting Cons
NameCheap shared hosting and business hosting service has its downsides, like any other host.
The following are the disadvantages I found during my use of NameCheap for web hosting.
NameCheap Hosting Limits
As I said earlier within the budget subsection under the pros section, NameCheap’s hosting plans come with a lot of limits on domains, email addresses, disk space, and databases.
If you plan on having just a few sites, maybe one or two, which you intend to keep small, then, NameCheap is the way to go!
But for a lot of site owners and aspiring site owners who intend to have several sophisticated websites down the road, the limits themselves aren’t the major problem.
It’s the number of overlapping limits that’s a serious source of worry.
Several hosting companies categorize their plans by using one or two limits to separate them.
For instance, Siteground’s StartUp plan permits one domain while its GrowBig plan allows multiple domains.
The difference is very clear.
When there’s a need to add another website, all you have to do is upgrade from Hatchling to Baby.
But with NameCheap, there are several upgrade triggers.
If you have one site with a lot of graphics pages, and video files, chances are you’ll hit an upgraded trigger.
Again, if you have many WordPress sites in several domains, you could trigger an upgrade.
At best, even if you upgrade to NameCheap’s topmost plan, you could still run into a limited disk space.
I can go on, but the bottom line is that NameCheap’s limits are a pain in the neck!
Kinda like a gotcha after you already paid, been with them for a little while, and started to grow a site…
…then, GOTCHA!
NameCheap will notify you that you will have to upgrade to a bigger package to keep these higher limits.
NameCheap Hosting Speed
As I stated earlier, the major function of a web host is to serve internet users with files from your website when they type in your domain name.
But you’ll agree that an adverb is missing.
It should be better stated as “to quickly serve internet users with files from your website.”
Server speed isn’t the only factor that determines overall website speed, but it’s a crucial factor.
No matter whatever else you do to speed up your website, your website can only be as fast as its server’s response.
It’s not a simple thing to measure server response time and speed.
We’ll leave it to the network engineers at NameCheap to explain what’s going on with their server response time, even though they claim their shared hosting plans are 50 percent faster than their competitors.
However, even everyday people like us can measure a ballpark metric of server effectiveness.
The “Time To First Byte (TTFB)” test shows how fast a server sends the first byte of data after it gets a request.
This was how NameCheap did when I gave it a TTFB test with my site.
This is the result of another test a few days after.
This is how Web Hosting Hub, a competitor, performed.
As shown, NameCheap isn’t too bad, except for the F on the second test.
However, it isn’t 50 percent better than its competitors either.
For the record, TTFB measurements are best applied as a trend.
But by just looking at the information of NameCheap’s server performance, you’ll find indications that NameCheap doesn’t only limit its plans but also limits the actual servers on which websites run.
As the limits on the plans, limited servers aren’t necessarily a bad thing.
If your site is small with little or no images, videos, and audios, you may never observe the difference.
With that said, I’ll never purchase a NameCheap plan for NameCheap’s performance or speed.
Money-Back Guarantee
Again, their money-back guarantee is only 14 days.
But their competitors offer longer money-back guarantee periods.
For instance, SiteGround offers 30 days, DreamHost offers 90 days, and Web Hosting Hub also offers 90 days.
NameCheap Customer Support
It’s hard to tell from the get-go whether or not a company’s customer support services are effectively helpful.
So, the trick is to look out for signs of whether a company approaches their customer support obligation as a liability, which needs to be minimized to maximize short-term profit, or as an investment, which is geared towards creating happy, satisfied, long-term customers?
Availability and investment in Do-It-Yourself customer support systems are the two best indicators to look out for in a company with great customer support service.
NameCheap’s performance is average on both.
They’re available via live chat and helpdesk services.
The chat wait time and the help I get, in my experience, are usually good.
But the text-based support can be unhelpful if your case is complex.
There’s a decent knowledge base to help with DIY customer support.
However, the knowledge base is mostly on domains, not hosting.
NameCheap Hosting Is Not Its Main Product
Most of you know this but Namecheap’s various hosting plans like its shared hosting that would host sites like a WordPress blog are not its main product.
NameCheap specializes in registering domains.
They make domain name purchases easy and also make it easy to point domain names to hosting servers or email servers elsewhere, which is why their domain name services are great.
But they’re not web hosting specialists.
My NameCheap Hosting Review Conclusion
Overall, NameCheap as a host is a good option if you’re more concerned about prices, you don’t mind limits, you intend to start a small site without a lot of pages, images, videos, audios, etc., and you don’t intend to create more websites down the road.
So, on a scale of 5 stars, NameCheap gets a 3.5.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article about Namecheap’s shared hosting and seeing if it would be an ideal fit for a WordPress site.
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