Namecheap vs Hetzner: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Looking over Namecheap vs. Hetzner, it’s clear why both hosts are so popular. They have both hosted millions of
websites that run on WordPress for decades, building up a loyal customer base.

• 
  Hetzner (Overall grade: 7.9)
  
  
  stands out for its high-performance infrastructure and comprehensive technical and operational security measures, which include advanced DDoS protection and ISO 27001 certification. The hosting provider offers a wide range of hosting types, including cloud hosting, and provides reliable uptime with solid network redundancy. Hetzner’s pricing is transparent, offering flexible payment options and advanced hardware choices like Intel Xeon Gold and AMD EPYC processors. The only downside is its somewhat steeper learning curve, which may be challenging for non-technical users. Despite this, Hetzner’s advanced performance capabilities and extensive support make it a top choice for users needing robust, high-traffic website hosting solutions.
  
• 
  Namecheap (Overall grade: 7.2)
  
  
  is praised for its affordability and user-friendly approach, making it an attractive option for beginners and small to medium businesses. It offers a variety of hosting types, including dedicated WordPress hosting, and provides built-in caching, a free CDN, and free SSL certificates along with a website builder. However, its actual uptime performance slightly lags behind with an average of 99.96%. Namecheap also excels in customer service, offering 24/7 live chat support and comprehensive assistance with website migration. Despite occasional slow support response times and limited automatic scaling options, Namecheap remains a reliable choice due to its competitive pricing and ease of use.
  

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in
certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

🏆 Winner: Hetzner Online: Provides reliable uptime with solid DDoS protection across multiple data centers.

Namecheap promises a 100% uptime guarantee for shared, business, and dedicated server accounts and a 99.9% uptime guarantee for other types of accounts. Their actual uptime performance varies, averaging around 99.96%. While some tests show perfect uptime, there have been instances of minor downtimes. The average response time is 1.05 seconds, with customers potentially receiving compensation for any confirmed downtime.

Hetzner Online offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, often achieving 100% in testing. Their multiple data centers in Germany, Finland, and the USA, combined with 24/7 monitoring and free DDoS protection, further enhance reliability. Their network redundancy using Juniper backbone technology ensures a stable hosting experience.

Overall, Hetzner Online stands out with its consistent uptime performance and robust network infrastructure, making it the better choice for hosting requirements.

🏆 Winner Hetzner: Reliable and feature-rich hosting services.

When comparing the general performance of Namecheap and Hetzner, both utilize SSD storage for faster load times. Namecheap’s shared hosting plans offer SSD storage with various limits, while Hetzner goes a step further by incorporating NVMe SSDs, enabling higher read and write speeds. Namecheap provides built-in caching with its EasyWP plans and offers a Free CDN, whereas Hetzner includes unlimited traffic in its web hosting packages and supports CDN. Namecheap has datacenters in the US, UK, and EU, while Hetzner has facilities in Germany, Finland, and the US. Hetzner offers advanced hardware choices like Intel Xeon Gold and AMD EPYC processors, augmenting performance.

Website Speed

Namecheap’s EasyWP WordPress hosting boasts a fully loaded time of 0.7 seconds and a time to the first byte of 192 milliseconds, along with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. It includes a free CDN for faster content delivery. Hetzner’s use of NVMe SSDs and high-performance processors coupled with unlimited traffic ensures websites load swiftly and reliably. Hetzner also provides daily backups and enhanced security features like DDoS protection and GDPR compliance with optional DPAs, contributing to overall site speed and security.

Scalability

With Namecheap, users have to upgrade their plans manually as their needs grow. They offer a variety of plans from shared hosting to VPS, but no information on dedicated servers or automatic scaling was provided. Hetzner, on the other hand, offers more elastic scaling options. Users can opt for shared or dedicated vCPU options with its cloud hosting, and there’s flexibility with payment terms and additional features. The cost to scale with Hetzner can be managed through flexible invoicing options for any additional resources such as disk space and traffic overusage.

🏆 Winner Hetzner Online: Hetzner offers robust security measures and thorough regulatory compliance, making it a top choice for secure hosting.
Both Namecheap and Hetzner, have notable differences in their approaches to technical and operational
security, as well as in their compliance with regulations.

Technical security measures:

Namecheap provides multiple SSL certificate options, including DV, OV, and EV, which cater to various levels of security needs. It also supports PHP versions ranging from 5.X to 8.X. Among its extensive security features are two-factor authentication (2FA) and extensive email security features like SPF, Domain Keys, and PGP/GPG. Hetzner, on the other hand, employs advanced DDoS protection and ISO 27001 certification for its data centers. Both Namecheap and Hetzner support PHP versions up to 8 but Hetzner includes additional PHP extensions and a PHP configurator tool. Hetzner also offers free SSL certificates via Symantec Basic SSL and Let’s Encrypt.

Operational security measures:

Hetzner excels with its administration and web mail access secured via SSL encryption and SSH access using port 222. Its mail security is comprehensive, featuring DKIM, SPF, and adjustable spam filters. Automated defense mechanisms and system integrity checks ensure continuous protection. Namecheap offers similar features like 2FA, hotlink protection, and virus scanning. Moreover, Namecheap’s CodeGuard backup service augments its operational security. However, Hetzner’s daily automatic backups and 24/7 monitoring edge out Namecheap’s offerings in this regard.

Compliance and certifications:

Namecheap complies with GDPR, offering rights such as access, rectification, and data deletion. It also implies support for PCI compliance through its wide range of security features. Hetzner meets GDPR requirements with a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) and stringent European data protection regulations. Additionally, Hetzner’s ISO 27001 certification underlines its commitment to high security standards, though specific PCI compliance details are not provided for either provider.

🏆 Winner Namecheap: Provides competitive pricing with robust features, including a website builder and free SSL certificates.

Namecheap and Hetzner both offer a variety of features tailored to different web hosting needs. Namecheap excels in user-friendliness, offering an integrated website builder with its plans, ideal for those who are new to creating websites or who need to set up a site quickly. Namecheap stands out by offering free SSL certificates for one year and a free Supersonic CDN with basic DDoS protection. Additionally, they provide value-added services such as automatic backups, various storage options across different plans, and 24/7 customer support. These features make Namecheap a more appealing option for users looking for an all-in-one solution.

Hetzner, on the other hand, focuses on providing high-performance infrastructure for more advanced users. Their hosting plans include a robust set of features like unlimited traffic, SSH access, and advanced email synchronization options like Exchange Active Sync and CalDAV. While Hetzner doesn’t include a dedicated website builder, it supports popular CMS platforms like WordPress and Joomla, which can be manually installed. Hetzner’s transparent pricing, which includes flexible cancellation terms and a range of payment options, makes it suitable for users who need reliable hosting with advanced capabilities, albeit with fewer bundled extras like website builders or free SSL for a limited period.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both Namecheap and Hetzner offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Both Namecheap and Hetzner offer extensive email hosting capabilities, including support for IMAP, SMTP, and webmail. Namecheap provides unlimited email accounts on higher-tier plans and integrates spam protection tools like SpamAssassin and Jellyfish. They also offer domain-based email addresses and an extensive suite of email management tools. Hetzner supports synchronization through advanced protocols like Exchange Active Sync and CalDAV, making it suitable for users who rely on real-time email and calendar updates. Both providers do not offer transactional email services, but they include all the necessary features for managing standard email communications.

🏆 Winner
Namecheap: Offers a comprehensive array of budget-friendly and feature-rich hosting plans suitable for various needs.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

When comparing the pricing plans of Namecheap and Hetzner, Namecheap provides a wider variety of options including shared, reseller, and dedicated server plans. Namecheap’s shared hosting plans start at $1.98/month with basic features for three websites and up to $4.98/month for unlimited websites and enhanced storage. Their WordPress hosting features comprehensive security and performance enhancements, starting from $2.91/month. In contrast, Hetzner’s plans are marginally higher in cost but provide more advanced configuration options such as vCores and NVMe SSD. Their entry-level plans start at €2.09/month for basic shared hosting, going up to €21.90/month for higher-tier configurations with unlimited sub-domains and databases. Namecheap, with its competitive pricing and inclusive features such as free domain names and SSL certificates, appears to offer better value for price compared to Hetzner.

Enterprise plans

Namecheap offers advanced dedicated server options tailored for high-traffic websites, content streaming, and machine learning, starting from $44.88/month with customizable configurations. These plans provide full root access, a variety of OS options, and extensive support features, ideal for complex enterprise needs. Hetzner’s CX and CPX series provide highly scalable cloud hosting, with configurations offering up to 48 vCPUs and 192 GB RAM, suitable for large-scale operations. The price points are significantly higher, reflecting advanced features and performance capabilities.

🏆 Winner
Namecheap: Offers instant setup and a user-friendly management dashboard, making website handling straightforward.

Namecheap employs a user-friendly approach by providing an instant setup upon order completion and access to the cPanel through a welcome email. For those using the EasyWP hosting plan, the custom dashboard simplifies site management without needing cPanel. It features one-click installations for over 200 scripts, benefiting both technical and non-technical users by making the process streamlined and straightforward. Conversely, Hetzner uses the konsoleH administration interface to manage accounts and domains. While comprehensive, it may pose a steeper learning curve for non-technical users compared to Namecheap’s intuitive design.

The EasyWP dashboard from Namecheap allows swift access to essential tools for site maintenance, enhancing user experience with its simplicity. On the other hand, Hetzner’s konsoleH interface is rich in features, including setting up domains, email, and websites, but may require more familiarity with server management. Namecheap’s Softaculous app installer further eases the process with one-click installations for various scripts, whereas Hetzner’s robust administrative interface demands a deeper understanding of server management and configuration.

Namecheap provides a free migration service to transfer websites from other hosts using the All-in-One WP Migration plugin, ensuring seamless site movement. They handle the transfer process, making it convenient for users switching from different providers. Hetzner also offers migration tools, detailed within their documentation, but the process is more manual and may require technical expertise. While Hetzner’s migration guides are comprehensive, Namecheap’s free service stands out by simplifying the process for users.

Namecheap offers extensive 24/7 support through live chat, a help desk, and a well-organized Knowledgebase covering a wide range of topics from setup guides to troubleshooting. Their support ticket system is protected by SSL encryption, ensuring secure communication. Hetzner also provides 24/7 support via telephone and email, along with detailed guides and tutorials. However, Namecheap’s live chat availability and user-friendly Knowledgebase make it easier for users to find quick solutions.

Winner Hetzner Online: Comprehensive and efficient user management capabilities.

Hetzner Online offers a structured and comprehensive approach to managing user roles, permissions, and accessibility, while Namecheap lacks available information on these features. Hetzner allows administrators to create groups and assign users to these groups, making it easier to segregate duties and permissions. This flexibility ensures that organizations can manage user roles effectively and delineate tasks across different levels of the organization. In contrast, the absence of details about Namecheap’s user management capabilities suggests a potential lack of equivalent features and flexibility.

The user interface provided by Hetzner Online is intuitive and well-designed, enhancing user experience and administrative efficiency. With options like clicking on the profile picture to access user settings and straightforward fields to enter new user information, Hetzner ensures that administrators can manage users without confusion. The inclusion of quotas, additional information settings, and group assignments further enhances the interface’s functionality. Namecheap, unfortunately, does not have any detail published about its interface or tools for managing users, making Hetzner’s offering stand out significantly.

Hetzner Online demonstrates exceptional access control measures that are crucial for managing a growing user base. The ability to check user activities, reset forgotten administrator passwords, and customize storage quotas showcases Hetzner’s preparedness to handle large organizations with numerous users. Administration accounts and unlimited storage quota settings also add value for businesses looking for scalability options. Without comparative information from Namecheap, Hetzner clearly proves to be capable of efficiently controlling access and managing an increasing number of users.

Hetzner user roles table:

🏆 Winner Namecheap: Namecheap offers a user-friendly customer service experience with multiple support channels and extensive resources.

Namecheap provides various support options including 24/7 live chat and a comprehensive Knowledge Base with a wide range of topics. Their customer service is praised for being friendly, helpful, and quick, although the absence of phone support is a downside. They also offer benefits like instant setup, transfer assistance, and a free website migration service.

Hetzner Online, meanwhile, offers phone support, email, and ticketing systems, but lacks live chat support, which can be a drawback for some users. Some customers have experienced slow responses or issues with account management and billing. Hetzner’s support is available in multiple languages and features extensive documentation. The absence of a money-back guarantee or free trial period is another notable downside.

User feedback

Namecheap is widely appreciated for its affordability, reliability, and high-quality customer support. Users commend the availability of free SSL certificates, user-friendly cPanel, and outstanding hosting speed. However, shared hosting speed and the occasional slow response from support are noted concerns. Despite these minor drawbacks, Namecheap remains a popular choice for beginners and small to medium businesses due to its competitive pricing and satisfactory service quality.

Users generally find the hosting provider to be cost-effective with robust performance capabilities, able to handle demanding tasks reliably. Many reviewers appreciate the competitive pricing, ease of use, and the fast, reliable infrastructure. While customer support is often praised for its availability and helpfulness, some users believe it could still see improvements. The platform’s dashboard and additional features could benefit from enhancements, but overall, users are satisfied with the value and quality of service provided.

FAQ