EasyWP (Namecheap) Review 2021
Written by Jamie Spencer – Updated 22nd August 2021
Are you interested in launching a WordPress website or starting a blog and looking for a simple solution
to host and manage it? Not quite sure which user-friendly service provider offers everything you need?
You’re in luck, because Easy WP Namecheap might be a good fit for you.
Are you interested in launching a WordPress website or starting a blog and looking for a simple solution to host and manage it? Not quite sure which user-friendly service provider offers everything you need? You’re in luck, because Easy WP Namecheap might be a good fit for you.
If you’ve done some homework already, which is always a good thing when researching hosting services, then you’ve likely run cross EasyWP or at least Namecheap.
EasyWP is Namecheap’s managed WordPress hosting solution. Founded in 2000, Namecheap is best known for its accredited domain registration services. In fact, at the moment, it manages over 10 million domains. However, it also claims to offer one of the cheapest and easiest to use managed WordPress services in the world – Easy WP.
EasyWP Pros
Very Good Uptime: 99.97%
Fast Load Speeds
New Blogger Friendly
One-click Installs
Pros:
• Easy-to-use, beginner-friendly cPanel
• Fast SSD cloud servers
• Free CDN and SSL certificates
• Automatic backup and restore
• Great value for managed WordPress hosting
• 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons:
• Unable to install some WordPress plugins
• Vague uptime guarantee
Disclosure: When you purchase web hosting from Namecheap through links on this page, we earn some commission. This helps us to keep this site running. There are no extra costs to you at all by using our links.
You’re reading this Namecheap EasyWP review to find out if this hosting provider is everything it’s cracked up to be, right? I’ll get into the specifics in a minute, but overall, it’s a solid managed WordPress web hosting solution at a very affordable price. Not only is Easy WP lightning fast and easy to use, but I doubt you’ll find a more affordable managed hosting provider for your WordPress site.
What We’ll Cover in this Easy WP Namecheap Review:
• EasyWP Hosting Plans
• Pros of Using Easy WP/Namecheap
• Cons of Using Easy WP/Namecheap
• EasyWP Main Features
• Alternative Namecheap Hosting Plans
• Registering a Domain with Namecheap
• Is EasyWP Right for You?
EasyWP/Namecheap strives to provide WordPress website owners with premium domain and hosting services at super competitive prices, but have they succeeded?
More importantly, is EasyWP the right web host when it comes to managing your WordPress site?
These are the questions I aim to answer in this Namecheap EasyWP hosting review.
After all, we can’t simply give EasyWP a pass simply because its creator, Namecheap, has such a great reputation and competes with GoDaddy for supremacy in the domain industry, can we?
No, we can’t, so let’s take a look at their managed WordPress hosting product and see how it stacks up.
EasyWP Hosting Plans
Most Easy WP Namecheap reviews leave this for the end, but since your hard-earned money is on the line, let’s begin with the domain and hosting provider’s managed WordPress plans and prices.
EasyWP offers several WordPress hosting plans to choose from, making it a suitable option for all WordPress website owners, regardless of size or industry.
Each plan is equipped with robust tools to help you reach your online goals and rock-solid security to keep your site and your site visitors safe and secure.
Namecheap makes it easy to pick out an EasyWP plan and get your WordPress site hosted in a matter of seconds. The hosting service provides everything you need to create and manage your WordPress website, allowing you to focus on more important matters like marketing, lead generation, conversions, and building your brand.
Here’s what you get with each EasyWP plan:
• Instant WordPress installation
• 99 percent uptime guarantee
• Namecheap Cloud SSD storage
• Database and SFTP access
• Automatic backup and simple restore options
• Proprietary EasyWP dashboard
• Free domain to use until you register your own
• Built-in maintenance mode
• Free SSL certificates
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• 24/7 Namecheap customer support
Right now, EasyWP offers three different managed WordPress hosting plans to choose from:
1. EasyWP Starter
This starter plan is just $1 for the first month and starts at a laughably low $3.88 a month for each month afterwards. With it, you get all of the features just listed plus 10GB of SSD cloud storage and up to 50,000 monthly visitors.
2. EasyWP Turbo
This intermediate plan is just $2 for the first month and starts at $7.88 a month for each month afterwards. With Turbo, you get EasyWP’s full lineup of features plus 50GB of SSD storage and up to 200,000 monthly visitors.
3. EasyWP Supersonic
The premium Supersonic plan is just $3 for the first month and starts at $11.88 a month afterwards. With it, you get the “kitchen sink” so to speak, including 100GB of SSD storage and up to whopping 500,000 monthly visitors.
If you’ve spent any time reading other WordPress hosting reviews, then you know how good these prices are.
However, as with other popular hosting companies like Bluehost and Siteground, the prices fluctuate frequently. So, if you’re thinking about giving EasyWP a try after reading this hosting review, there’s no time like the present to lock in low rates.
Pros of Using EasyWP
Namecheap has been a widely recognized and used domain name services company for going on 20 years, but this doesn’t necessarily translate to their hosting services. Or does it?
In addition to being one of the cheapest managed WordPress hosting providers, EasyWP is also one of the fastest. In fact, with an average load time of 0.7 seconds, it’s faster than Bluehost, SiteGround, GoDaddy, WPEngine, Kinsta, and other top WordPress hosting providers.
In other words, it’s a great value. It’s an even greater value when you factor in everything else EasyWP and Namecheap have to offer.
Let’s have a look at some other reasons to put EasyWP at the top of your managed WordPress providers list.
1. Bang for the Buck
Staying on budget can be tough when you’re starting a new website. While there are some terrific hosting providers available to get your site up and running like a top in no time at all, some can be quite costly to use.
That’s not the case with Easy WP. It offers all of the basics plus more for a very fair price. In fact, there are very few managed WordPress web hosts out there offering features like domain name registration, SSL certificates, proprietary control panels, and 24/7 customer support for such a low price as Namecheap and EasyWP.
As mentioned, you can start out for just $1, regardless of which plan you choose. When the first month is up, the price doesn’t jump up much either. Depending on which plan you choose, you’ll only need to pay $3.88, $7.88, or $11.88 a month.
The renewal price for Easy WP is really cheap too, so there’s no need to worry about the price jumping up on you after the first year. I must admit, this is a breath of fresh air.
Despite all it has going for it, the affordable pricing is by far the best thing about this popular WordPress hosting provider.
2. Instant WordPress Installation and Setup
Unlike some so-called “managed” WordPress web hosting services, EasyWp offers one-click WordPress installation, which is great.
The user-friendly process helps first-time site owners set a solid foundation from the get-go, speed up the building of WordPress sites, and keep from making critical mistakes.
3. Intuitive Dashboard
Many web hosting companies use the standard cPanel dashboard. While there’s nothing really wrong with this as it’s pretty straightforward and easy to use in its own right, Namecheap went a different route with EasyWP.
As I mentioned briefly in the overview section of this Easy WP Namecheap review, EasyWP utilizes its own proprietary dashboard or control panel dubbed the EasyWP Dashboard.
The dashboard is simple, easy to use, and designed specifically for WordPress hosting.
If you’re a fan of cPanel, you might be disappointed as it’s only available with Namecheap’s other hosting plans. If you’re not, however, the EasyWP Dashboard will likely be a breath of fresh air. It makes getting started with EasyWP and WordPress easy as 1-2-3.
4. Free CDN
A CDN allows you to deliver site content instantly to visitors and provide a better overall browsing experience.
Not familiar with CDNs?
Here’s how they work:
CDN is short for content delivery network. The network is comprised of a global network of servers. When someone clicks on one of your website links in Google, on Facebook, or anywhere else, the content is delivered from the server closest to their location.
As you may have read in other Easy WP Namecheap reviews, Easy WP offers a free CDN service wit each of their plans. With it, you can speed up your website and scale faster, making it a tool definitely worth using.
The best part is you can add your CDN and sync it to your domain name in just a few minutes. EasyWP makes the process simple and straightforward.
5. Automatic Backups and Updates
As a website owner, backing up your site is a must. It’s your security blanket should something go wrong. It will make sure all of your hard work doesn’t get erased in an instant and make your life as a WordPress website owner a lot less stressful.
Fortunately, EasyWP offers both automatic and manual backups. You can either have Namecheap automatically backup your site, or you can perform the backups yourself. The choice is yours. Whichever route you take, EasyWP makes backing up your site super easy.
6. Built-In Caching
In an effort to optimize the speed and performance of your WordPress website at all time, all EasyWP plans come with the EasyWP caching plugin pre-installed. This built-in solution caches databases, objects, and pages automatically, so you have one less thing to worry about.
7. Money-Back Guarantee
It’s always nice when a company offers a money-back guarantee. Regardless of whether it’s a hosting product or a tennis racquet, it’s a reflection of a company’s confidence in their products.
Namecheap offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for all of its hosting products, including EasyWP. If you’re not happy for any reason, just let them know within 30 days of signing up and they’ll send you a full refund.
You can also get started with EasyWP for just $1, so there’s really nothing to lose.
Cons of Using EasyWP
I’ve used and tested dozens of hosting providers, and they all have some downsides. Some just have more than others.
Needless to say, no Namecheap web hosting review would be worth its salt if it didn’t mention the potential cons of using the service.
Despite offering just about everything you could ask for in a managed WordPress host, EasyWP does have a few drawbacks:
1. Limited Number of Websites
Currently, EasyWP’s managed WordPress hosting plans are limited to one WordPress installation. If you have or plan on having more than one WordPress you need to host, you’ll need to purchase a website add-on subscription, which will set you back $29.99 per site.
Although this isn’t necessarily too steep of a price to pay, if you want to host multiple websites with EasyWP, the cost can quickly add up and turn a cheap WordPress hosting solution into an expensive one.
2. Some Plugins Not Allowed
Dozens of plugins can be used with EasyWP. However, since all WordPress websites hosted with EasyWP come auto-installed with the EasyWP plugin, there are some plugins you simply can’t use without negatively affecting the performance of your site.
The list of plugins includes:
• Auto Upload Images
• Database Browser
• Bad Behavior
• Currencyr
• Ad Blocking Detector
• Contextual Related Posts
• Dynamic Related Posts
• AccessPress Social Pro
• Custom Field Template
• EWWW Image Optimizer
• Easy Social Share Buttons
• Easy Social Share Buttons4
Some of the more popular plugins you can’t use with EasyWP include:
• W3 Total Cache
• WP Super Cache
• WP Rocket
• Similar Posts
Regardless of how much you like any of these plugins, you can’t use them with EasyWP, so it’s definitely something to consider.
3. Vague Uptime Guarantee
Uptime guarantees are nothing new. In fact, nearly every reputable web host has one. The trouble is not all of them actually live up to them.
In the case of EasyWP, they promise a 100 percent uptime, which means you can count on your site staying up and running every second of every day. Such a guarantee can be hard to live up to.
EasyWP’s uptime is good, but like most things in life, it isn’t perfect. If you read the fine print, their bold uptime guarantee only applies to their server uptime, not the uptime of your website.
In my multi-month uptime testing for this Easy WP Namecheap review, I experienced an average uptime of 99.84 percent. While decent, it was nowhere close to 100 percent.
To Namecheap’s credit, other shared, VPS, dedicated server, and WordPress hosting providers employ this same tactic, so their actual uptime numbers also rarely match their guarantees.
4. Lackluster Customer Support
If you’re more of an email or live chat person, then this won’t matter much to you. However, it’s worth pointing out that Namecheap support doesn’t include customer support via phone. This is the case for EasyWP and each of its other hosting products.
This means if you have a question or run into a problem, you can’t actually talk to someone. Instead, you’re at the mercy of live chat and help desk tickets.
To make matters worse, Namecheap’s live chat support leaves a lot to be desired. When asked a simple question that should’ve have been answered in under a minute, I was told to give the help agent 3-5 minutes to look over the request. Talk about frustrating!
When I asked another simple question later on in the conversation, I was put on hold again for another 3-5 minutes. Are you serious?
Needless to say, if you have a lot of questions, you’re better off searching through their knowledgebase or FAQ beforehand. It might take you less time to find the answers yourself.
EasyWP Main Features
In spite of the few drawbacks just discussed, EasyWP offers a wide-variety of features that allow its WordPress-focused plans to truly shine.
Offering a Namecheap domain free for the first year is one thing, but EasyWP takes the value up a notch by providing access to Namecheap’s built-in site builder as well.
The website builder features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and over 200 customizable templates to get you going regardless of which industry or niche you’re in.
Plus, it also includes:
• Fully responsive design
• Landing pages
• Video content support
• Social media integration
• Payment options
• SEO optimization
Best of all, since the builder is a content management system, or CMS, it can be used alongside WordPress to make creating a WordPress website even easier.
Free SSL Certificates
EasyWP takes security seriously. As proof of this, SSL certificates are provided for free with every Namecheap and EasyWP plan.
Each SSL certificate features the official SSL seal, 128-bit or 256-bit encryption, cross-browser compatibility, and 24/7 support.
Email Hosting
Namecheap also offers a private and secure cloud email solution for all EasyWP plans.
In addition to its nimble webmail interface, it offers several features to make managing your contacts and emails extremely easy.
These email features include:
• IMAP, POP, Webmail
• Simple email account management
• Anti-spam protection
• Ample GB for file and email storage
• Data sharing, quick viewing, and other collaboration tools
• Smartphone and tablet support
Free and Premium Apps
In addition to these features, EasyWP also comes with several free and premium apps designed to seamlessly integrate with your WordPress site. Some of these readily accessible apps include:
• Namecheap Uptime Monitoring
• G Suite
• Weebly
• Canvas and more!
Online Security Tools
Protecting yourself, your website, and your online customers is critical for your brand’s reputation and overall success. Fortunately, Namecheap recognizes this and has included a variety of security measures in their EasyWP managed WordPress hosting products.
• SSL Certificate
As mentioned above in this Namecheap EasyWP review, a free SSL (secure socket layer) certificate comes with each EasyWP hosting package. Having the certificate will help establish your website and brand as reputable and trustworthy.
• WhoisGuard Privacy Protection
WhoisGuard Privacy Protection keeps your name, phone number, address, and email address from being listed in the public Whois database. Without it, spammers, fraudsters, and marketing firms will be able to find and target you.
This WhoisGuard service also helps prevent domain hijacking. What’s that, you ask?
It’s when someone transfers your domain name to a different registrar using your personal information, and it happens more than you think.
• Premium DNS Service
Namecheap offers premium, highly secure DNS service to customers around the world. It includes a 100 percent service level agreement, which means you’ll never need to worry about DNS uptime or downtime ever again.
• VPN
Namecheap’s new VPN service provides fast, secure, reliable, and unlimited VPN solutions for enhanced privacy and security. The global virtual private network operates in 40+ countries around the globe, but since it’s only just been released, it’s hard to say whether it can compete with ExpressVPN, NordVPN and the other big VPN providers.
Alternative Namecheap Hosting Plans
In addition to EasyWP, Namecheap also offers a variety of other hosting plans to meet the needs of different website owners. Let’s have a quick look at each.
Shared Hosting
Namecheap’s shared hosting plans also come with a 100 percent uptime guarantee and feature a new website builder, updated cPanel, automatic website backups, free SSL certificate, and hundreds of built-in apps you can install with a single click.
Similar to the EasyWP plans, Namecheap’s shared hosting plans are incredibly cheap. In fact, if you pay up front for a year, it breaks down to less than $1 a month.
Reseller Hosting
With Namecheap’s reseller hosting plans, you can host several of your own websites or sell hosting space to other website owners under your own branding. These plans are super flexible and come with unmetered bandwidth, anonymous nameservers, a free cPanel, and several reseller tools.
There are three reseller plans to choose from: the nebula plan at $16.88 a month, the Galaxy Expert plan at $26.88 a month, and the Universe Pro plan at $36.88 a month.
VPS Hosting
VPS. Or virtual private server, hosting allows you to easily scale your website without using too many resources and disrupting he performance of your site. With Namecheap’s VPS hosting plans, you get a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, full root access, SSD storage, automatic backups, and more.
You can choose between the Pulsar plan at $14.88 a month or the Quasar plan at $24.88 a month, both of which will allow you to take your site to new heights.
Dedicated Hosting
If you have a large website with hundreds of pages and tons of visitors, dedicated hosting is likely your best bet. Unlike shared hosting, with dedicated hosting, you get your own physical server dedicated just to you.
In addition to your own dedicated server, you also get server management tools to configure it to your liking, allowing you to kick your site into high gear.
The cost of Namecheap’s dedicated hosting service is quite competitive. Depending on your specific needs, you can expect to pay anywhere from $39.44 to $188.88 a month.
Registering a Domain with Namecheap
Most Namecheap web hosting reviews barely mention the hosting provider’s domain name services, but if you can’t tell from their name, it’s actually their specialty.
When it comes to securing a domain name for your website, Namecheap has everything you need, including:
• Domain Name Marketplace
At Namecheap’s Domains Marketplace, you can browse and search all available domains, purchase one, or sell your own domain for cold hard cash.
• Domain Name Registration
With Namecheap’s domain search function, you can find the perfect domain for your site in a matter of minutes and register it in even less time.
• Domain Name Transfer
Have a domain name that’s about to expire? You ca save money on renewal fees by transferring it to Namecheap instead. By doing so, you’ll get an extra year for free.
• Personal Domains
You can also use your own name with a .com or .me extension to create a personal domain to brand yourself in any niche.
The best part about Namecheap domains is that every single one comes with WhoisGuard for free. As I talked about a minute ago, it will keep your information safe and secure from prying eyes, allowing you to protect yourself, your website, and your website visitors and customers.
On another side note, Namecheap provides free DNS services to absolutely everyone, even website owners using a different registrar and/or hosting provider. Once again, this service is absolutely free and available to everyone, which is a testament to the character of the company and its resources.
Is EasyWP Right for You?
It’s hard not to like Namecheap. They have a great reputation as a domain name registrar, and they’re making a name for themselves as a web host as well.
If you’re looking for a super affordable managed WordPress hosting solution built to make setting up and managing your WordPress site easy as can be, then EasyWP is worth checking out.
However, if you’re less interested in cost and more interested in features and performance, then EasyWP doesn’t quite compete with some of the other popular WordPress hosting service providers.
So, it really is a numbers game.
If you want more from your managed WordPress hosting provider and weren’t convinced to give EasyWP a try for $1 today, then there are plenty of other great solutions to choose from.
With dozens of hosting reviews of all of today’s top hosting companies, I cover them all. All you have to do is decide on the best fit for you.
If not, go ahead and get started with EasyWP managed WordPress hosting. You can host your WordPress site for just $1 the first month. With a 30-day money-back guarantee, you really have nothing to lose.