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I may be flouting Betteridge's law of headlines here because I think the answer is still yes but I could be wrong. I'm updating my best web hosting guide and reviewing the recommendation for best cheap web hosting. So, I'm asking myself, is Namecheap still cheap and I thought I'd let you in on my process of deciding whether Namecheap will retain this accolade.
Straight in: how much is Namecheap?
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Sorry. There are lots of tables under here.
Plan | Price | Features |
Stellar | $1.99/mo for one year. Then, $4.88/mo | - Free domain (for one year) |
Stellar Plus | $2.98/mo for one year. Then, $6.88/mo | - Free domain (for one year) |
Stellar Business | $4.98/mo for one year. Then, $9.88/mo | - Free domain (for one year) |
On the face of it these plans look cheap and come with all the necessary features.
Plan | Price | Features |
EasyWP Starter | $3.57/mo for two years. Then, $5.24/mo | - 1 website |
EasyWP Turbo | $4.79/mo for two years. Then, $8.62/mo | - 1 website |
EasyWP Supersonic | $5.85/mo for two years. Then, $10.22/mo | - 1 website |
Once again, this all looks cheap without sacrificing anything important
Plan | Price | Features |
Pulsar | $6.88/mo for one year. Then, $9.88/mo | - 2 CPU cores |
Quasar | $12.88/mo for one year. Then, $15.88/mo | - 4 CPU cores |
Magnetar | $24.88/mo for one year. Then, $28.88/mo | - 8 CPU cores |
Again. Cheap!
Price comparison
So, this looks pretty cheap on the face of it but lets compare with other hosting providers to see how cheap it really is and whether there are other hosting providers that are cheaper for similar plans.
Host | Plan | Price | Features | Namecheap's price (for similar plan) |
Hostinger | Premium | $2.99/mo for four years. Then, $10.99/mo | -3 websites | $1.99/mo for one year. Then, $4.88/mo |
Bluehost | Starter | $3.99/mo for three years. Then, $9.99/mo | -10 websites | $3.57/mo for two years. Then, $5.24/mo |
Kinsta | Single 20 GB | $30/mo | - 1 website | $3.57/mo for two years. Then, $5.24/mo |
InMotion Hosting | Power | $18.99/mo | - 10 websites | $4.79/mo for two years. Then, $8.62/mo |
Liquid Web | CPU focused VPS | $22/mo | - 3 vCPU | $6.88/mo for one year. Then, $9.88/mo |
I've done a wider search than this but I don't want to present information overload. Looking at the numbers, Namecheap is still clearly a lot cheaper than other hosting providers when compared against similar plans.
How can Namecheap be so cheap?
Performance
There's always a catch... For Namecheap performance is just one of them. The performance statistics don't show Namecheap in a bad light. Namecheap handled all the requests, just not so quickly. So, a site hosted on Namecheap's cheapest plan should be fine but it won't be fast. That's not a big deal if you're just hosting a non-business critical site but if you are, it's going to suffer.
I also tested EasyWP against other managed WordPress plans and the story is the same: reliable but slow.
Features
Namecheap doesn't provide the same caliber webpage editing and creation tools like Bluehost and Hostinger. Both of these hosts have a lot of tools to help you build and manage websites. I spent 60 minutes page building with Hostinger, and 60 minutes with Bluehost and the experience was great with both. Spending 60 minutes with Namecheap felt a lot less streamlined and rough around the edges.
But! You still get everything you need to build and host a website for $4.88/mo after renewal and that is just incredible.
Conclusion: Is Namecheap still cheap?
Yes! Mega cheap considering everything you get included.
Namecheap will remain my best cheap web hosting recommendation.
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