Namecheap Review 2023

Google recommends a response time of under 200ms, and Namecheap’s is surely under recommendation. 

This fact highly decreases the chances of visitors leaving before the website starts loading, i.e., eventually, it has a positive impact on the bottom line.

However, what Namecheap does here isn’t something unique — providers like Hostinger (~150 ms response time) or any other from our top recommended does it excellently.

Anyway, this doesn’t dilute the truth that Namecheap’s server response time is excellent.

2. More than one domains allowed

If you want to host multiple websites and are tight on budget, Namecheap is perhaps your best option. Namecheap allows up to three sites on their base web hosting plan.

In our experience, most hosting providers (even the ones we recommend) only allow a single domain on the base plan. Therefore, credit where it’s due: Namecheap allowing to host multiple websites on a $1.44/month plan makes for a solid point in their favor.

If you don’t need more than one website, of course, there’s no value for you. 

However, if you do and can stretch a budget a bit, we would recommend going with Hostinger’s ₹179/month Premium Shared plan. For the extra dollar or so you pay, you can host unlimited domains. Plus, the extraordinary value you receive in the form of other elements make for a bigger value gap between Namecheap & Hostinger. 

All in all, Namecheap’s base plan is an excellent value if you want to host multiple domains as cheaply as possible. But, we would recommend stretching your budget a bit and going with Hostinger.

4. Free email accounts

Like with their disk space, Namecheap offers more than needed email accounts. The number of email accounts being ‘30’ with their Stellar plan and ‘Unlimited’ with other plans.

These email accounts are professional emails, i.e., the ones with ‘@yourdomain.com’ postfix.

Having such 30 accounts means you can have a different account for every purpose. For example, “yourname@yourdomain.com” for personal-professional use, “support@yourdomain.com” to reply to support queries, sales@yourdomain.com for promotional emails, etc.

In short, having many such free email accounts is a pro of choosing a Namecheap plan. However, many other providers like A2 Hosting provide unlimited emails, so it doesn’t make that unique of an advantage.

5. Free site migration

If you have a website and want to transfer it to Namecheap, they will help you do it for free.

Again, it’s not an unique edge that Namecheap brings to the table. Still, it’s better than a few hosting providers that charge for this service. Our recommendation, Hostinger - the best cheap web hosting, also helps import the sites free of charge.

Regardless, free site migration is an attractive add-on by Namecheap.

6. 30-day money-back guarantee

Another fairly common tactic used in the hosting industry is a money-back guarantee. This is to comfort the doubtful users. 

Namecheap offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with all plans. If we were to compare it to our recommendations, 30-day would look tiny compared to something like A2 Hosting’s lifetime money-back guarantee. 

Overall, Namecheap’s 30-day money-back guarantee is better than Hosting Raja’s none but less than A2 Hosting’s lifetime. As far as our experience goes,  30-day is a good enough period to judge a hosting. Therefore, that’s another positive about Namecheap.

2. Not the best response time in India

This Namecheap review is a part of our “India” category, so chances are your focus is primarily on the Indian demographic. If that’s the case, we have bad news for you.

Scroll back to the first positive point in the review. We mentioned the Namecheap server’s average response time to be 160 ms. If you check the report-screenshot carefully, the server response time from Bangalore location is approx. 250 ms, which is over Google’s recommended 200.

However, it’s still a good response time, but the fact that other providers such as Hostinger (~100 ms) and HostGator (~3 ms) have a better response time in India makes Namecheap a dull choice.

One of the primary reasons why our recommended providers excel at speed and response time is they have multiple data centers across continents and/or they offer free CDN.

Namecheap doesn’t offer either— they only have two data centers: US & UK. Therefore, Namecheap’s server response time is bad in India.

3. Decent yet slow customer support

We know a thing or two about setting up & managing websites and servers. But, when we test an individual hosting for reviews—in this case, Namecheap—good customer support is a priority because most readers aren’t tech-savvy and can’t solve all problems by themselves.

Firstly, let’s talk about the ways to find assistance. With Namecheap, you can either look through their Knowledge Base or communicate via live chat or email. Sadly, there’s no phone support.

We started a live chat with their support team multiple times for giving an accurate representation of their support team. In our experience, it took a few minutes to connect to a live chat representative. Each time, they had to pass the chat to another person for a solution. Combined, we lost about 20-30 minutes for each query to be solved. That’s slow!

Compare that to something like H’s quick response time and solution within the first interaction, and you will see how ordinary/bad Namecheap’s customer support is.

4. Barely 99.9% Uptime

Namecheap’s uptime is quite ironic. They give a 100% uptime guarantee, but in our experiment, it measured ~99.90%.

In contrast, our recommended hosting providers promise 99.9% uptime and deliver almost 100%.

Namecheap’s 99.9% uptime is theoretically blocking 0.1% of your revenue. Therefore, you should choose a hosting with an uptime nearest to 100%. In our experience, Hostinger (~99.99%) and Bluehost(~99.99%) are the ideal selections.

Overall, Namecheap’s uptime is not good. Combined with it’s slower speed and mediocre support, Namecheap makes for an average web hosting and not worth recommending.

Namecheap Hosting Plans and Features

Till now, we looked at Namecheap’s web hosting plans subjectively. Now, let’s look at it’s shared as well as other plans objectively. 

The prices for each plan we mention will be for their US datacenter. They have added another data center in the UK recently, and you can choose that by paying an extra $1/month.

Shared Hosting

Namecheap’s shared plans are their cheapest ones. These packages are meant for small to mid-sized businesses. Depending on the size of the site, the number of domains you wish to host, and traffic, you can choose one of their three packages.