NameCheap Review

Detailed NameCheap Review

Better Business Bureau Rating: F
Date Established: August 2000

Reliability: C
Server Speed: C
Customer Service: D-
Cost: A

This hosting service has recieved

NameCheap

NameCheap Review NameCheap.com was established in Los Angeles by Richard Kirkendall in 2000. It is basically an ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accredited domain registrar (kind of Like GoDaddy). Like most companies which started as purely domain registrars, NameCheap deemed incorporating its domain name/registration business with web hosting service in due course could pave the way to serve its clientele better. So NameCheap finally took the plunge and started to offer web hosting service in 2007. In terms of infrastructure, NameCheap has indeed a lot to offer their clients. It boasts of the latest technology gadgets and equipment. When you’re reading the printed words, NameCheap sure carries quite a feature-packed offer that could be quite alluring to many. But what about performance; does NameCheap ever deliver?

We have all heard of various hosting providers that are unreliable and have the lowest quality of customer support and hardly attend to their clients’ needs. It’s not new to read about how bad a web hosting company is, regardless of its top-of-the-line infrastructure. It’s unfortunate that NameCheap belongs to this group of web hosting providers; so, surprising though it may be to some, I am adding another company to be avoided – NameCheap.com – to the list. And this review will show you exactly why I cannot recommend this company as a good web hosting provider.

NameCheap Features

NameCheap offers almost all types of hosting services you can find on the planet – from Email-only hosting to Shared hosting to Reseller to Business hosting, VPS and even SSL certificates; you name it, the company has it. Trying to live up to its name, it also offers relatively cheap hosting packages and plans in the industry, starting at $2.91 (they’re not really the cheapest). All hosting packages run on Linux platform and uses cPanel. Packages also include all standard features and some extras that hosting companies typically offer: along with Web-based Control Panel you get Web-based File Manager, Webmail, Fantastico scripts set, PHP CGI, Perl Support and many more features necessary for shared hosting. Everything you could expect from Hostgator would come with their service.

It’s just too bad that with all these features, NameCheap couldn’t even do a simple domain transfer without encountering too many problems. The promised easy transfer seems to be fraught with so many issues – from a verification email that goes astray and takes more than 12 hours to arrive; to waiting for a couple of days before your site gets activated, NameCheap seems to be beset with all sorts of technical difficulties.

It’s either the billing system or the billing practices – but customers have been known to be charged twice for the same domain and as though to add insult to the injury; if you ask for a refund, they will charge you a certain fee! Try to purchase an SSL certificate; you’d be dismayed to get an error message that says it’s not valid, when you’re ready to use it. The mail foundry scanner, which is the company’ pride and joy with their e-mail only hosting, doesn’t work either; in fact, you’d win hands down for having the highest number of spam on your email. Talk about dysfunctional service!

Uptime and Reliability

When it comes to loading time, NameCheap is among the most excruciatingly slow in the whole hosting industry; but that’s not even the worst problem. How about daily downtime of up to 20 times in some cases? …Or the site being down for 2 straight days? No, it’s not a temporary or isolated problem; more like regular occurrence. And did you know they have this email restriction? That’s right; you can only send 200 emails per hour and if you go beyond that, your site just disappears from the worldwide web. Guess what…you got suspended! And this all happens without your knowledge; because it is nowhere to be found in the TOS and they don’t even bother to tell you when you sign up. Your domain can even get locked for months – without notification – but NameCheap continues to bill you like nothing happened.

As for customer support, there is no way you can rely on their technical staff. Filing a ticket is a thorny issue because nothing gets resolved. And the same is true with the company’s joke of a live chat. Now, if you send emails to technical support, you have to wait three days before getting any form of response. But the real pain is not just in the waiting. Most people can handle that (maybe) but it’s when you get to talk to a bunch of incompetent so-called “technical” people who don’t know squat about anything technical – that’s what rankles most.

Bottom Line

As a client, you deserve the most reliable and dependable services; after all, you are one of the reasons those web hosting providers exist. NameCheap doesn’t realize that (and probably never would). There are too many unacceptable practices that NameCheap does and their customers don’t seem to be their top priority; unlike Inmotion or Fatcow which put customer satisfaction on top of everything, as you can glean from the reviews I have of these worthy hosting companies. NameCheap is probably an apt name – they do cheap alright…cheap services. If you want to get the best web hosting service go with Hostmonster. You will absolutely feel important with them.