Find the Facts in a NameCheap Hosting Review

Based in Los Angeles, NameCheap was established way back in 2000 as a domain name registration company. In 2006 they branched out into web hosting and, as a relative newcomer to the market, they are still a small provider lacking some of the features of the major contenders. NameCheap do offer a choice of hosting packages, although their scope is somewhat more limited than other suppliers. There are some advantages to choosing this company, however there are also some drawbacks with going with this lesser known provider, not the least of which being that they only offer a very limited 14 day money back guarantee should you discover that the package that you have chosen does not meet your needs. The majority of competitors offer at least 30 days in their guarantee, so 14 seems rather stingy. Find out the facts about choosing this company in order to make an informed decision in this NameCheap review.

Learn About NameCheap Shared Hosting Packages

One of the advantages of choosing NameCheap shared hosting is that it is one of the cheapest choices on the market. Unfortunately, there is no option to opt into any initial contract that is longer than one year, so you can only benefit from discounted monthly fees for the first 12 months after which time, should you wish to renew you will have to pay the full amount.

NameCheap offer three shared hosting packages which all feature unlimited bandwidth as standard. All three plans are Cloud hosted and use the Linux operating system. In the first year following initial sign up the yearly rate for the Value basic package is extremely low at just under $10, however this increases to $38.88 on renewal. This plan allows users up to 3 domains and offers 20 GB of disk storage space. Up to 50 email accounts are also permitted. The mid-level Professional package is just under $20 for the first year, jumping to around $80 on renewal, and offers 50 GB of disk space together with up to 10 domains and 100 emails accounts. The top level Ultimate plan is around $30 a year initially rising to about $130 annually after the first 12 months. This package permits up to 50 domains as well as unlimited disk space and unlimited emails.There is also a Business level shared hosting plan which offers fewer customers per server and also benefits from priority support. There are no Windows operating system servers available to choose, which could be an issue should you be running essential applications which are incompatible with the Linux operating system. NameCheap also have VPS servers should shared hosting not meet your website’s requirements.

Features of NameCheap Web Hosting

Customers of NameCheap web hosting should expect 99.9% uptime, however there are no guarantees as to this figure. Although the company do offer backups of data, this only occurs once every 3 to 7 days, which is a long way behind some other competitors who perform regular backups every night.

As NameCheap web hosting is a fairly small provider they do not offer a telephone support service. This could be a big drawback if you require urgent assistance which requires you to speak to a technician. Although they do have a social media presence via Twitter and Facebook, these are one way only feeds and to access support you have to use the ticketing system or 24 hour live chat facility and their response times are pretty rapid. They do provide an online knowledgebase with helpful videos and tutorials to answer the main questions that are raised. Business customers are given priority support over other shared hosting customers, so this is a factor to bear in mind when choosing NameCheap as your web hosting provider.

NameCheap shared hosting offers the latest version of the cPanel control panel with all their plans. cPanel is a popular choice because of its user friendly interface which is accessible by both novices and experienced users alike. Customers can also access Softaculous to obtain 1 click installations of top applications, and their hosting packages are e-commerce ready.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Choosing NameCheap Shared Hosting?

NameCheap web hosting is one of the most inexpensive options available and is a good choice for anyone wanting to operate a website on a budget. There is a reasonable range of packages available that should meet the needs of most private individuals or small businesses. Their uptime is good which means that your website should be reliable and suffer from minimal downtime. One of NameCheap’s best features is the unlimited bandwidth which comes as standard with all packages, even the starter level plan. This is an improvement over some other competitors which restrict bandwidth on the basic level plans.

There are some negatives to choosing NameCheap as your web hosting provider, one of which being that there is a very short period offered for a money back guarantee, much less than that offered by other suppliers. Their lack of a telephone helpline may also be off-putting for some who would prefer to speak directly to a technician to sort out any issues they may be experiencing. NameCheap also have no option to buy into a longer contract period in order to benefit from discounted prices, which means that there will be a large jump in prices following renewal after the first 12 months.