HostGator vs. Namecheap

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HostGator
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
HostGator, from Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance), is a web hosting service with WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting capabilities.
$2.75
per month
Namecheap
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Namecheap is a website domain name service offering providing easy domain name registration, and affordable hosting plans.
$5.98
per year
Pricing
HostGatorNamecheap
Editions & Modules
Hatchling
$2.75
per month
Baby
$3.50
per month
Business
$5.25
per month
domain - .com
$5.98
per year
domain - .org
$8.98
per year
Business Email - Starter
$10.88
per year
domain - .net
$10.98
per year
Business Email - Pro
$25.88
per year
Shared Hosting - Stellar Business
$58.88
1st year Renews at $118.88/year
VPS Hosting - Pulsar
$118.56
per year
VPS Hosting - Quasar
$214.56
per year
Dedicated Server Hosting - Xeon E-2234
$915.88
per year
Dedicated Server Hosting - Xeon E-2236
$1175.88
per year
Dedicated Server Hosting - Dual Xeon Silver 4208
$2171.88
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HostGatorNamecheap
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HostGatorNamecheap
Considered Both Products
HostGator

No answer on this topic

Namecheap
Chose Namecheap
Namecheap is the best. Best price. Best service. Best UI. Best documentation. Best customer services. What impresses me the most about Namecheap is that they are there to do one thing really well. And they do it excellently. Unless something drastically changes, I will be a …
Chose Namecheap
Namecheap is cheaper, easier to manage and avoids shady marketing gimmicks that other domain registrars rely on. And while I can't attest to the security practices of Namecheap, I've heard from reliable sources that NameCheap has much better security measures compared to other …
Chose Namecheap
I switched from Name.com. While Name also makes it easy to checkout, their domain prices and renewal prices are much more expensive, in the long run. The cost to renew a domain at name.com made me want to transfer to NameCheap. I have since transferred all domains from Name to …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
HostGatorNamecheap
Small Businesses
Cloudways
Cloudways
Score 9.5 out of 10
Shopify
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 9.2 out of 10
Shopify
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Pantheon
Pantheon
Score 8.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HostGatorNamecheap
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(19 ratings)
10.0
(12 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HostGatorNamecheap
Likelihood to Recommend
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
HostGator for email, domain and website hosting--delightful, 100% satisfied! Have always had ample capacity for company email needs, features work well. I have used it off and on for several organizations since 2011. HostGator website building is fairly straightforward, although I wouldn't recommend it for first-time web designing. The pluses on the HostGator website builder: great-looking themes, adequate webpage capacity, really cool scrolling capabilities, which trends well now. Easier than building a WordPress website from scratch, which can also be done for free in HostGator. I'd say it's limited compared to feature-rich WP, but it designs as nicely as Wix.
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Namecheap
Namecheap is the absolute best domain registrar that I have used, and I have used just about all of the big names. They are priced right; they offer excellent customer service, their FAQs and documentation are excellent. They don’t spam you with offers for things you don’t want, and they don’t have misleading practices like hiding that the first-year fee is 1/10 of the regular annual cost. They don’t try to sneak in a change to your bill and charge you for multiple years when you’ve already set it to a one-year renewal. The only negative of Namecheap is its brand name. I have had a few raised eyebrows when I have told executives that we are using Namecheap. It doesn’t sound like a professional service. It sounds like a consumer service. This is terrible because they are the MOST professional service and reliable service of all the services I work with on a daily basis.
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Pros
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • The pricing is a big feature for this hosting company
  • Every three years when the hosting contract is coming to an end, they offer a reduced fee to upgrade your server plan, which is more cost effective than renewing at the regular rate for whatever plan you're currently using.
  • The customer service workers are professional and friendly.
Read full review
Namecheap
  • Domain registration is easy. This is big because when finding the perfect domain name, you have to do a lot of domain checking to see what is available. Namecheap not only makes this easy, but they recommend other domains that you might like instead, if the one you want is taken. They also allow you to sell domains and buy premium domains from other sellers if they are already registered to them.
  • Free Whois Guard & privacy. This is HUGE. All those annoying phone calls and emails you get the second you register a domain, they will stop when you start using NameCheap to register your domains. This is because they provide free Whois and domain privacy with all domains, for the life of the domain as long as it is registered with them. I love this and it is a huge selling point.
  • Easy updating and management of domains. This is a must. At many time, I need to update the nameservers of multiple domains at once. Namecheap makes it extremely easy to do this and allows for bulk updating. Things also seem to propagate quicker than other domain providers.
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Cons
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • Support could be better, it takes a long time to connect with somebody
  • You need to pay extra for a backup you can rely on
  • SiteLock is sold separately, but did not help when we were hacked
  • Site seems to slow down from time to time
Read full review
Namecheap
  • I wonder if it's feasible to have bulk discounts or a loyalty program?
  • They may have this already, but features to buy and sell premium domains, or browse ones for sale, would be great.
  • We don't use their hosting because there are higher quality options, but it'd be great if they did better hosting so we could keep it all under one roof.
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Likelihood to Renew
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
Because we have in house technical support to compensate the lack of quality HostGator tech support, and because the price continues to be affordable the business is likely to continue using HostGator. They provide what the business needs and we have in house support to maintain it.
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Namecheap
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
While you will get support from HostGator, it seems to be a different level from 8-10 years ago. It may take 15-20 minutes to get someone on chat, and unless you follow up, I've found followup email support to take a couple of days. If you stick with it, though, you will get support, and I've never had a problem they couldn't help with.
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Namecheap
We very rarely have to reach out to customer support because the service is so quick, easy and intuitive to use. But when we have had to use it, the customer service was quick, reliable, answered our questions and addressed our problems without too much back and forth, and was native English speaking.
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Alternatives Considered
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
I prefer HostGator over GoDaddy. HostGator does have better and more reliable customer support, and the user interface and user experience are overall much more friendly and easier to use. GoDaddy does have downtime associated with their hosting in my experience, but I have not experienced that with HostGator.
Read full review
Namecheap
Namecheap wins hands down on cost and ease of use. I have experienced zero compromise with using Namecheap. There was no trade-off to enjoy the cost savings. Namecheap does everything the other registrars do and more in some cases.
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Return on Investment
Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
  • Usage of resale options easily quadrupled the money I was spending on HostGator
  • Trust in the host has to be earned, and HostGator has not retained that for me -- it will be a while before I feel confident in their uptime again
  • Overall, HG has been a positive impact on my business as a web developer
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Namecheap
  • Namecheap has saved us hundreds of dollars a year on services that we were required to pay extra for by NetworkSolutions that Namecheap provides for free.
  • Namecheap has made managing our domains simpler, saving us dozens of labor hours a year.
  • Namecheap has encouraged us to experiment with new domain names to see which ones work best. We couldn’t do this with our previous registrars because it was too hard to change from one domain to another.
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ScreenShots