DOMAIN SELLER
Namecheap Review: Why It’s Worth It To Purchase A Domain Name And More
Namecheap Review: Why It’s Worth It To Purchase A Domain Name And More
Table of Contents
Let’s start with the definition of a Domain name. A domain name is the website’s equivalent of a street address. A domain name is required for a web browser to guide you to a website in the same manner as a GPS needs a street address or a zipcode to provide directions. The company in charge of domain name registrations is known as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) determines which domain name extensions are available and maintains a consolidated archive on where domain names point.
A registrar is like a domain name dealership, and the registry akin to the manufacturer. The registrar facilitates transfers and delivers support services, while the registry is responsible for manufacturing and distributing.
Namecheap is an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona that offers domain name registration and web hosting. We’ll discuss the pros and cons along with key features, app integrations, and alternatives in this Namecheap review.
Why Should You Buy Your Own Domain Name?
Owning your own domain name is a good first step to take that puts you in charge of your brand and the content you make on the internet, whether you’re launching a personal blog or creating a company. If you’ve ever wondered, “Why do I need a domain name?” read on to find out why and how. As for where, Namecheap provides a price-friendly way of owning a domain name with lots of features included – let’s dive in on this Namecheap review.
Features Of Namecheap
Domains
You can choose from the traditional or new top-level domains (TLD) with hundreds of options and prices to choose from. After purchasing your domain name, you’ll have free privacy protection and free DNSSEC security. It also includes a free email for managing your domain. But, if you already have an existing domain, you can also quickly transfer your URL to Namecheap without issues on certificates or any downtime. They also provide a Whois Lookup, which helps many domain owners clarify ownership for a trademark dispute.
Hosting
Hosting your domain means you need to be responsible for your server management and maintenance, keeping your software and hardware updated, and do all the troubleshooting. Owning your domain with Namecheap goes hand-in-hand with hosting services. There are options for Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Reseller Hosting and more. On the other hand, users with existing domains can migrate easily to Namecheap. The benefits of hosting in Namecheap is it’s relatively cheaper than its competitors. Also, you don’t need to pay for your hosting migration.
EasyWP: WordPress Tools and Services
Working with EasyWP allows you to customise your themes, add specific plugins, and consolidate everything into a single dashboard for your accounts. You can use your domain with a personalised email and 10 GB that allows up to 50K/mo visitors on their EasyWP pricing plan. Namecheap Cloud hosts your EasyWP with safe and secure backups, restores, SFTP and database access.
Domain and Hosting Security
Namecheap is a safe hosting site that provides a free site seal when you buy their SSL Certificates. From basic to business budget, everyone can enjoy their top-notch protection using features like two-factor authentication, VPN, Whois Guard, and ID validation. You can also choose from Premium DNS and Free DNS to keep your website from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Considerations Before Buying Namecheap
With Namecheap’s friendly price and outstanding services, there are still considerations that you must know before buying or migrating to this domain registrar and hosting platform. Despite its offer of having a free domain, it is only for specific TLDs. But we love the features that Namecheap offers for consistently low prices.
How Much Does Namecheap Cost?
It all depends on the TLD you choose and whether you are transferring a domain or buying one brand new. Prices for Namecheap are very affordable even for smaller budgets. Take a look at the pricing table below for further detail.
Domain registration pricing:
For Hosting
There are tons of offers are available if you want to purchase Namecheap hosting services. If you’re an online beginner, you can start with Stellar ($1.58 /mo on the first year), allowing you to host three websites with the CMS of your liking. Stellar Business is only $ 4.80 /mo on your first year for small businesses, which features free automatic backups and can be used to host your e-Commerce brand. Namecheap’s prices for large businesses are super cheap and you can start your EasyWP hosting for only $3/month in your first year.
Take note that these prices may vary if you choose to have WordPress Hosting, VPS Hosting or Dedicated Hosting. All plans include a free website builder and your business email.
You can read more about Namecheap prices which will help you decide to buy a domain for your business.
App Integrations With Namecheap
Most of their app integrations are free, but some are only included with other pricing plans or as a separate add-on. Nevertheless, the apps you love are available with a single login, and it’s easy to install using their automatic setup tool. Here are a few of the apps from our Namecheap review that you can use after subscribing to Namecheap’s domain management and hosting services.
Canvas
Weebly
Strikingly
Supersonic CDN
Tons of other apps are available to enhance your domain and hosting experience. If you want to know more about Namecheap’s app integrations, check the rest of the apps here.
Alternatives For Namecheap
There are hundreds of Namecheap hosting provider competitors out there, some have features you can’t get with Namecheap but it is unlikely you will find one as cheap. Nevertheless, here are top alternatives that our Namecheap review can recommend to start hosting your website:
GoDaddy
GoDaddy is by far the biggest Namecheap competitor by a long way. They have been around for decades and are one of the longest-running domain registrar/seller service out there. GoDaddy offers various app integrations, hosting, and email services that parallel what Namecheap can do. Additionally, they promise a 99.99% uptime, and you can even ask for a credit of 5% for your monthly hosting fee if you experience downtime. The best news is that you can buy a .com domain name for $11.99 in your first year with GoDaddy.
BlueHost
For people with zero knowledge of domain and hosting, Bluehost does a great job of getting you up and running on a website in no time. Their hosting servers are fast and feature plenty of security tools like Codeguard Basic, SpamExperts, and Sitelock. You can also expect tons of unlimited services when subscribing to their plans. Among which are unlimited websites, parked domains, subdomains, SSD storage and bandwidth. Furthermore, their .com domain registration starts at $12.99/year to create a fully customisable website.
NameSilo
NameSilo is the only domain registration service that offers enormous discounted domains for bulk registration and is cheaper on domain registration renewals. Moreover, they have lots of free services like WHOis Privacy, email forwarding, domain defender protection, Custom WHOis Records, and DNS management. NameSilo has 400+ domain extensions with prices that start at $8.99, making it a worthy contender to Namecheap.
Final Thoughts
While it might be tempting to combine domain registration and web hosting, if you want to purchase more than one domain in the future, you should keep them apart. If you’re doing something easy, like starting a portfolio site or a little personal blog, it’s not a big deal to buy them all together. However, domain names and web hosting are two distinct services, and it is better to use specialised services for both. Namecheap is an excellent domain registration service that you should try using today with its low price and vast database for domain names.