Namecheap Review 2020: Is It The Best Affordable Hosting?
Namecheap is one of the best shared hosting and is recommended as a reliable, fast, secured and affordable hosting.
This digital world is so confusing, isn’t it?
Just go to any Facebook group and ask about the best affordable hosting. People would spam the shit out of that comment box. The comment section would have almost every hosting named that is present on this planet.
It confuses beginners and they might get into a trap by purchasing something that is not worth the money.
I myself have wasted enough money on hosting plans that were useless. But, after trying with a lot of hosting providers I finally settled with Namecheap hosting.
Whenever someone asks me about an affordable hosting that provides quality services, I mention Namecheap. Let me first share the things that we as website owners often look in the hosting providers:
- It should be fast enough to load the website on time.
- The hosting company should provide enough support to help you out at any time.
- It should be affordable enough for beginners to start their blogs or websites
- Affordable plans should not impact the quality of the hosting service
- It should have more than enough uptime to keep your website always online.
Before starting with the review of Namecheap hosting, you should know that I myself use this hosting for most of my websites.
Many people recommend hosting plans just for the sake of affiliate commissions. But, for me, I recommend it mainly because I myself have used it and am fully satisfied with the service provided.
Now, we should start with our Namecheap hosting review and see what all things set it apart from other hosting providers.
Namecheap Review: Why Do We Choose It?
So, Namecheap isn’t a new company.
Many beginners feel that it is a new company and is started just a few years back. The reason for this is that only a few influencers really talk about it as they get enough affiliate commission from other hosting companies.
Namecheap was started in the year 2000 by its CEO Richard Kirkendall. It is one of the fastest-growing American companies according to the 2018 inc. 5000.
They are one of the most popular domain registrars with over 10 million domains under their management. That makes them a big player in the domain and hosting market.
After being a market leader with domains they started with their hosting plans. The hosting plans were both affordable and promising on the features that they provide.
I currently have four of their hosting plans including Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. On all of the plans, multiple websites are being run including some active traffic based portals.
Even, The Ranking Machine is hosted on Namecheap without any issues to date.
But, your website is considered as a digital house and you need to be confident enough before buying the land for it. So, let us dive deep into some other reasons for going with Namecheap hosting in 2020.
Important Reasons for Choosing Namecheap Hosting
1. Great Hosting Speed at Affordable Price
I know the image that shared hostings in general have. People don’t trust shared hosting services easily for their slow loading speed.
But, Namecheap is one of the fastest shared hostings in the market. I have used almost all the major providers and faced the issue of server response time.
Some of the hosting have close to 3 seconds of server response time and that makes them the worst. As per hosting tribunal’s test on Namecheap, the server response time was around 0.36 seconds.
You can’t obviously compare it with other big players and their managed hosting plans but at the price that you are paying, it is one of the best.
2. Don’t Worry About the Downtime
The main issue that people face with cheap hosting providers is their downtime. If your website is going down for long then it would affect both your SEO and user experience.
I started my blogging career with a cheap hosting recommended by one of my friends. That particular hosting went down at least once, daily. All my friends with whom I Shared my posts were messaging me about the website being down.
And, there was no one to help.
Unlike other hosting providers, Namecheap provides a 100% Uptime guarantee. Now, I would not tell you to believe it as it is impossible to provide 100% uptime.
But, being a user of the hosting, I myself have never faced any difficulties with the hosting on the Stellar Plus plan. The basic Stellar plan faced a few issues recently but that was due to a major DDOS attack.
There are some months in which they fulfill the promise by keeping the uptime at 100%. Here are some stats from tests done on their hosting plans:
- October 2019 – 100% Uptime
- November 2019 – 99.95% Uptime
- December 2019 – 100% Uptime
- January 2020 – 99.99% Uptime
3. Customer Support is Important
Never go with a hosting company with a bad customer support system.
You always need to have someone on your side whenever you face some issues with the service. Namecheap has quite a good customer support with 24/7 live chat system.
As I shared earlier that I faced a few issues on my Stellar basic plan recently. I got connected with the support team through chat and explained the issues. My website hosted on that plan was loading a bit slow and sometimes it was facing a downtime.
They explained to me about the hosting server facing a DDOS attack on one of the websites hosted on same server. They also assured me about that being worked upon and it would be fixed in the coming hours.
And, due to the downtime that I faced they extended my hosting plan for 2 more weeks.
I also faced some issues while starting with Namecheap about setting up the SSL certificate. The chat support was active enough to help me within 5-10 minutes and the team set up that quickly for me.
Though, it would be much better if they had phone support it is still good to have live chat support that solves your issues.
4. 30-Days Money Back Guarantee
It is not easy for a beginner to make decisions that fast.
I have been there and felt bad after purchasing that cheap hosting. There was no way for me to get my money back and thus I had to leave that without using it more.
But, with Namecheap you should not worry about:
- What if it is not a good fit for my use?
- Would I be able to use that easily?
- What if I face an issue and there is no solution for that?
You can always ask for a refund from Namecheap within 30-days of your purchase. You can read more about their refund policy from here.
5. Customer Feedback Matters a Lot
Don’t just believe the testimonial posted on a hosting platform’s own website.
Always look for some genuine platform where people review the products and services in most genuine way possible. You can also choose to go through multiple ones to make sure accuracy.
Namecheap has 4.7-star ratings based on more than 1.7 million users at Shopper Approved. This makes it more than enough to trust the company for its services and reliability.
Here are some of the positive reviews from that website:
These were some of the major reasons to choose Namecheap over any other competitor in the same range. Now, we would be looking at the Hosting plans that Namecheap provides in the shared packages.
Namecheap Shared Hosting Plans
Here is the picture showing the recent plan pricing for shared hosting. They have got three packages here named as Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business.
The first year price is available at a 50% discount on all the packages. If you will compare with other hosting providers with the quality and reliability then this is the best affordable hosting at this price.
Let us see the features that they provide on each of this package:
1. Stellar Plan
This is the most basic plan and is available at around 107 Rupees/Month or you can say around 1.5$/month. The plan would be renewed at the original price of around 215 Rupees/Month or 2.88$/Month.
Here are the features:
- 20 GB SSD
- You Can Host 3 Websites
- Free CDN (Under Beta Testing)
- Free SSL Certificates (For First Year)
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- cPanel With Python, Ruby and Other Application Allowance
2. Stellar Plus Plan
This plan comes with unlimited website hosting capability and is available at around 182 Rupees/Month or 2.44$/Month. It will also renew at the original price after your first year.
Here are the features:
- Unmetered SSD
- Unlimited Websites
- Free CDN (Under Beta Testing)
- Free SSL Certificates (For First Year)
- Autobackup
- CPanel With Multiple Application Allowance
3. Stellar Business Plan
And, this one is the most advanced shared hosting plan that Namecheap offers. It is available at Rupees 332/Month or 4.44$/Month.
Here are the features:
- 50 GB SSD
- Unlimited Websites
- Cloud Storage
- Free CDN (Under Beta Testing)
- Free SSL Certificates (For First Year)
- Autobackup
- CPanel With Multiple Application Allowance
- Free Domain Name With Limited LTDs
Let us now sum everything up and create a list or pros and cons of buying hosting through Namecheap.
Pros of Using Namecheap
- SSD Storage
- Better Pricing Policy
- Free SSL Certificates
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- 24/7 Live Chat Support
- cPanel Support
- Free CDN
Cons of Using Namecheap
- No Phone Support
- Only US as Free Data Center
- Basic Plans Doesn't Offer a Free Domain Name
Should You Go For Namecheap Hosting?
According to me, you should definitely go for the hosting if you have a limited number of websites that require limited resources.
People have tested the hosting for around 2 to 3 lac monthly visitors and that is good enough for any growing blog or website.
And, if you are a beginner then look nowhere else and purchase Namecheap hosting as it s one of the best choices for beginners having a few websites to manage. You can go through the link below to purchase the hosting.