Namecheap vs Rochen: guide for 2024

Namecheap vs Rochen: Final verdict

Looking over Namecheap and Rochen, 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.

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  Rochen (Overall grade: 8.5)
  
  
  impresses with its solid performance and high level of security, making it a reliable choice for businesses and developers who prioritize uptime and data integrity. Leveraging SSD NVMe storage and LiteSpeed technology, it ensures swift website speeds although specific metrics are not provided. The platform’s AWS-based architecture and comprehensive security measures including proactive malware defense, daily backups, and a Web Application Firewall, offer a robust foundation for those needing enhanced protection and scalability. The only significant downside is its steeper pricing and limited plan options when compared to Namecheap. However, features like SSH access, multiple PHP versions support, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee make it highly appealing to tech-savvy users and professional developers. The presence of phone support, albeit scheduled, adds an extra layer of customer assistance.
  
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  Namecheap (Overall grade: 7.2)
  
  
  is noted for its affordability and a wide array of hosting options that cater well to diverse user needs, particularly smaller businesses and beginners. The service offers shared, cloud, WordPress, VPS, and dedicated hosting, providing greater flexibility. With a focus on affordability, it includes freebies like multiple SSL certificates and a free first-year domain across plans, which are budget-friendly. Namecheap’s straightforward EasyWP dashboard for WordPress hosting and user-friendly cPanel for other plans simplify site management. Despite occasional performance dips and inconsistencies in uptime, Namecheap maintains a commendable 99.96% average uptime. Its excellent 24/7 live chat and comprehensive knowledge resources underscore its commitment to user support, although the absence of phone support might be a drawback for some. This makes Namecheap a strong contender for those seeking cost-effective, versatile, and beginner-friendly hosting solutions.
  

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

SECTION 1: Winner Rochen: Rochen’s impressive uptime and availability win out over Namecheap.

SECTION 2: Rochen ensures reliable uptime and availability with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and a 100% SLA for dedicated VMs, plus comprehensive service credits for network and power outages. Their infrastructure, built on AWS Global Infrastructure, offers quick migration of virtual machines, further enhancing service continuity. Around-the-clock proactive monitoring provides an additional layer of reliability and performance.

SECTION 3: Namecheap offers varied uptime guarantees, 100% for many accounts, but their performance shows some inconsistencies. Their average uptime is commendable at 99.96%, yet occasional outages impact their reliability. Namecheap’s response times, although workable, lag behind some industry standards. Compensation for confirmed downtime shows customer consideration, but the overall performance places them slightly behind Rochen.

🏆 Winner
Namecheap: Extensive feature set and excellent performance.

Namecheap and Rochen both offer competitive hosting services, but they vary significantly in certain areas of performance and features. Namecheap stands out with a wide range of SSD-based hosting plans, guaranteed uptimes, and specific speed metrics for WordPress hosting, ensuring optimal website performance. Rochen, on the other hand, leverages SSD NVMe storage and LiteSpeed technology to boost performance, but lacks specific performance metrics. Both providers have global data centers; Namecheap’s are in the US, UK, and EU, while Rochen’s network is simply described as “global”. Namecheap integrates Cloudflare CDN for free, whereas Rochen doesn’t mention any CDN offerings.

Website Speed

When it comes to website speed, both hosting services deliver solid performance but in different ways. Namecheap boasts a fully loaded time of 0.7 seconds and a time to first byte at 192 milliseconds for its EasyWP WordPress hosting, utilizing multiple caching methods and a free CDN to maximize speed. Rochen’s speed advantage lies in its use of SSD NVMe storage and LiteSpeed Enterprise Web Server, which are known for high speed and efficiency, although specific speed metrics are not provided. This makes Namecheap’s speed performance more transparent and measurable.

Scalability

Regarding scalability, Namecheap offers more clear-cut details on how upgrading works across different tiers of hosting plans, including shared, WordPress, VPS, and reseller hosting. Customers need to manually upgrade plans as their needs grow, though specific details on automatic scaling are not provided. Rochen’s scalability details are more generalized with no clear mention of dedicated servers or automatic plan upgrades, making it harder to assess the costs and ease of scaling with them. Overall, Namecheap provides a more transparent and structured approach to scaling.

🏆 Winner
Rochen: Comprehensive security suite with enhanced protection measures.

Both Namecheap and Rochen have notable differences in their approaches to technical and operational
security, as well as in their compliance with regulations.

Technical security measures:

Namecheap supports a wide range of SSL certificates, including Domain Validation (DV), Organization Validation (OV), and Extended Validation (EV). Rochen provides Let’s Encrypt SSL for free and offers GeoTrust and managed SSL certificates. Both hosts support multiple PHP versions, but Rochen’s default is PHP 8.3. Namecheap includes features like two-factor authentication (2FA) and virus scanning, while Rochen offers proactive malware defense and daily backups. Rochen’s security also includes a Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Imunify360 for malware protection.

Operational security measures:

Namecheap offers security features like domain privacy, premium DNS, and SPAM filters. Rochen provides end-to-end encryption, spam filtering with Spam Experts, and AWS-based architecture for enhanced network redundancy. Rochen also includes physical security measures such as biometric access and 24/7 on-site personnel for its data centers, whereas Namecheap focuses more on software-driven security like hotlink protection and IP deny manager.

Compliance and certifications:

Both Namecheap and Rochen are GDPR-compliant, with Rochen going further by publishing a dedicated privacy contact and updating its Data Processing Agreement (DPA). Rochen also ensures the security of its operations by securing its data centers with SSAE 18 SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications. PCI compliance is not explicitly mentioned for either provider.

🏆 Winner
Rochen: Offering superior storage, security, and developer-friendly features, Rochen is a robust choice for web hosting needs.

Rochen and Namecheap cater to different user preferences with their hosting services. Namecheap offers an intuitive website builder across its shared hosting plans, making it suitable for users who need a simple, user-friendly platform to build their sites. With plans starting as low as $1.98 per month for the first year, Namecheap’s pricing is attractive for those seeking affordable hosting. Additionally, it provides 50 free SSL certificates for one year, which could be appealing for users running multiple sites. However, when it comes to higher-end features like SSD NVMe Persistent Storage and advanced developer tools, Rochen stands out. Despite its higher monthly cost, Rochen incorporates comprehensive security features, proactive malware defenses, and robust backup options, enhancing its value for tech-savvy individuals and professional developers.

Rochen’s hosting plans offer fewer websites compared to Namecheap, but they compensate with premium data transfer, unmetered MySQL databases, and staging sites even at the lowest tier. Rochen also provides SSH and SFTP access and support for multiple PHP versions, making it highly appealing for developers needing versatility. While Namecheap has a broader range of plans, including Reseller and WordPress-specific hosting, Rochen’s unique AWS architecture and proactive server monitoring enhance performance and security, which is crucial for businesses that prioritize uptime and data integrity. Both providers have a 30-day money-back guarantee, but the added cost for services like WHMCS with Namecheap could influence the decision for those managing multiple client sites.

Email services:

Namecheap supports a wide range of email-related features, including unlimited mailboxes in higher-tier plans, various webmail options, and tools like SpamAssassin for spam protection. On the other hand, Rochen includes complete email service within all its plans and offers spam filtering through Spam Experts. Rochen’s email hosting, combined with comprehensive security measures such as end-to-end encryption, provides a secure and versatile environment for managing both transactional emails and marketing campaigns. Both providers allow domain-based email addresses, but Rochen’s additional proactive malware defenses ensure a cleaner email ecosystem.

🏆 Winner Namecheap: Offers a variety of price plans, suitable for diverse hosting 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 Rochen, Namecheap offers more budget-friendly options across shared, reseller, and managed WordPress hosting plans. Namecheap’s shared hosting starts at $1.98/month whereas Rochen’s starter plan is priced much higher at $18.95/month. Rochen, on the other hand, includes unmetered data transfer in all plans, which provides more flexibility for bandwidth-intensive sites. Namecheap adds value with freebies like a free domain for the first year and free SSL certificates in most of their plans, which Rochen doesn’t provide. Namecheap has a 30-day money-back guarantee compared to Rochen’s absence of such an offer, making it more attractive for new users. Both providers offer varied plans, but Namecheap presents a cost-effective solution with additional features.

Enterprise plans

Namecheap’s advanced dedicated server plans offer customizable configurations for hosting high-traffic websites, content streaming, and more, making it a versatile choice for enterprises. Rochen’s reseller plans, with support for up to 50 websites and unmetered data transfer, provide a sustainable option for companies needing scalable solutions. Both providers cater well to large-scale needs, but Namecheap’s flexible configurations and additional backup storage give it an edge for enterprise-level hosting.

🏆 Winner Namecheap: User-friendly setup with extensive support resources.

Namecheap incorporates a customized EasyWP dashboard, which replaces the traditional cPanel to streamline the user experience, especially for novices. This single administration panel allows easy management of websites without cPanel complications and includes crucial features like domain management and backups. For more seasoned users, Namecheap also offers cPanel access for traditional hosting plans, which supports Softaculous for one-click software installations. This flexibility means both technical and non-technical users can efficiently manage their sites.

Rochen, on the other hand, sticks with a more conventional approach by offering standard cPanel access for managing hosting services. This panel is widely recognized and used across the hosting industry, providing a familiar environment for users who have previous experience. Alongside cPanel, Rochen supports BoldGrid Site Builder for WordPress, empowering users with limited design skills to create functional and appealing websites. This combination of tools ensures accessibility and ease of use for both beginners and advanced users.

Both Namecheap and Rochen offer free migration services, which simplifies the process of moving websites between providers. Namecheap employs the All-in-One WP Migration plugin for seamless transitions, while Rochen provides free migration for up to 10 sites, typically completed within 24 hours. These services alleviate the burden of manual migrations, making it easier for users to switch hosting providers without additional costs.

Namecheap’s help center is rich with resources including 24/7 live chat, a support ticket system protected by SSL, and a comprehensive Knowledgebase. Their support team is noted for being highly knowledgeable and customer-friendly. Rochen also offers 24/7 support and has extensive documentation covering a wide range of topics, accessible through the My Rochen portal. Both platforms maintain a well-documented and accessible help center.

🏆 Winner Rochen: A powerful hosting provider with exceptional user management features.

When comparing Namecheap and Rochen in terms of managing user roles, permissions, and accessibility, clear distinctions arise. Namecheap lacks detailed information about their user management capabilities, which makes it harder to gauge its flexibility. Rochen, on the other hand, provides a more comprehensive approach to user management. Rochen allows users to create and define various roles and permissions, ensuring each user has access only to what is necessary for their tasks. This flexibility helps in managing both technical and non-technical team members efficiently while minimizing security risks associated with excessive permissions. Thus, Rochen stands out for its robust approach to user management.

Rochen’s user interface for managing users is intuitive and streamlined. It offers a range of tools that make it easy to assign roles, set permissions, and monitor user activity. The dashboard allows for a clear overview of user access levels, aiding administrators in maintaining organized and secure user management. Namecheap’s user interface remains obscure due to the lack of detailed information, which may imply a less developed or less user-friendly system. Rochen’s comprehensive tools and clearly designed interface provide an edge in day-to-day user management tasks.

Rochen excels in access control measures, efficiently handling a growing number of users. It incorporates various layers of access control to safeguard sensitive data and maintain operational integrity. The platform can scale user permissions dynamically, which is beneficial for businesses experiencing growth or dealing with fluctuating team sizes. The efficiency of these measures ensures that even as the user base expands, the system remains well-organized and secure. Namecheap’s capabilities in this area are unclear, which makes its efficiency in managing a growing user base questionable.

Rochen user roles table:

🏆 Winner
Namecheap: Namecheap provides extensive customer support channels and resources, making it a reliable choice for users seeking comprehensive assistance.

Namecheap offers a broad range of support options including 24/7 live chat and an extensive knowledge base. Their resources cover various topics such as domains, hosting, and SSL certificates, providing thorough assistance. The instant setup feature and free website migration services further enhance the user experience, although there is no phone support available. Customers generally report prompt and friendly assistance via live chat.

Rochen, on the other hand, provides 24/7 support through the My Rochen portal. They promise fast ticket responses, averaging within 15 minutes, and proactive server monitoring. Their green initiatives and seamless upgrade process are beneficial for customers aiming for sustainable growth. Unlike Namecheap, Rochen does offer phone support, although it needs to be scheduled. Email contact is also available through the portal and for sales inquiries.

Namecheap vs Rochen: 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.

Rochen Hosting receives positive feedback for its effortless and seamless experience, efficient data backup from US and UK data centers, and the benefit of free website migrations. Users appreciate the robust support for VMware web hosting applications. However, some drawbacks include the customer support being limited to email, which is often slow, and the service being considered somewhat overpriced. Overall, Rochen is a reliable hosting provider with a few areas in need of improvement.

Namecheap vs Rochen: FAQ