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Name.com isn’t just an accredited domain registrar but a hosting provider as well. Its plans are user-friendly, affordable, and feature-rich. However, you’ll notice some gaps, including a lack of powerful first-party hosting and robust security features. While it’s certainly functional if you only need basic shared hosting, enterprise-level sites won’t be well-accommodated here.
Name.com Pros, Cons, & Things That Could Be Better
Beginner-friendly, low-cost hosting
Reliable performance and uptime
Free SSL, domain, backups & more
Advanced security costs extra
No Windows hosting, unlike InterServer
No dedicated resources or plans
Lacks scalability, in contrast to IONOS
If you’re looking for a simplified, affordable hosting service, Name.com definitely meets these criteria. Its web hosting range comprises three plans – Personal, Premium, and Business – along with a specialized WordPress plan for single websites. If you want cloud hosting, you can easily set up a DigitalOcean Basic Droplet on the Name.com platform. The service is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish.
The hosting provider offers perks like a free domain, cPanel, backups, and SSLs in some of its plans. However, it’s important to note that Name.com’s hosting is exclusively Linux-based, with no Windows hosting options available.
Also, all its hosting services – yes, even the cloud-based DigitalOcean plans – are strictly shared. After testing Name.com, I found that this shared setup works well for personal use and small businesses, but it won’t suit demanding high-traffic sites or medium to large e-commerce platforms.
Another critique of Name.com is that its services lack advanced security. All you get is two-factor authentication (2FA) and Domain Lock Plus if you buy Advanced Security + Privacy for $4.99/year. Sure, SiteLock is available as an add-on, but it can cost as much per month as the hosting plans themselves. In comparison, Hostinger includes more advanced security in its plans – no purchase of additional add-ons necessary.
With all that being said, keep reading for the details and to find out if Name.com is truly the right host for your specific needs.
4.2
Features
Light on Features – But Also on Price
Simplified services generally are light on features, and Name.com is no exception. Its plans are very basic but provide essential tools, including unlimited bandwidth, storage, free backups, and free SSLs – at least, with Name.com’s shared web hosting and WordPress plans. In comparison, its DigitalOcean plans have limited bandwidth, and backups are only available as a paid add-on.
Overall, most Name.com hosting plans feature everything you need to get started.
Free Automated Backups
You can download full backups directly from your Name.com cPanel control panel
Backups are a crucial feature for securing your web hosting account and website. Name.com’s plans either include free automated backups or offer them as a paid add-on:
Web hosting plans. Free automated backups are provided every 48 hours. You can download an offline copy for safe storage or restore backups through the cPanel control panel using the Backups Wizard or Backup tools.
WordPress plan. Free daily automated backups are included and fully managed for you.
Cloud plans. Weekly scheduled and on-demand backups are available as an add-on for a monthly fee, which depends on your Droplet configuration. Up to three backups can be retained at a time per account.
If you’re a new customer on an annual plan and claim your free domain name from Name.com, you also get free personalized email addresses. These email addresses can be configured to end with your domain name, adding a professional touch.
However, I’d recommend setting up important business and personal email accounts with free email providers like Gmail. This ensures you never lose access to these vital accounts for verifying your other hosting, website builder, or subscription accounts.
Your Name.com hosting plan also includes a free 30-day trial of Titan Email, which you cannot remove from your order. You’ll need to activate it once your hosting account is live. The Titan Email trial is optional and comes with no obligations.
Downright Cheap Hosting Plans for One-Page Websites
Name.com’s one-page website builder plan is perfect if you’re looking to host and build a single landing page for your business or project. Billed annually, this plan costs less than a fast food meal and includes a free SSL certificate, contact form, stock images, and Google map embedding.
Just note that there’s only 15 MB of storage and you won’t get anywhere near as much control as you would with WordPress or any other Name.com builder solutions.
WordPress Plans & Features
Softaculous allows you to manage your WordPress site in cPanel
Name.com’s plans come equipped with a variety of useful WordPress tools and features. First off is its super low-cost WordPress hosting plan, which you pay annually for. It only works out to be a few dollars a month – less than half the price of the Personal web hosting plan. This plan includes pre-installed WordPress, managed WordPress updates, and unlimited storage, but you can only host a single website per plan.
With Name.com’s general shared web hosting plans, you get other useful WordPress tools, including the WordPress Manager by Softaculous. This tool, accessible from the Softaculous panel in cPanel, lets you manage WordPress site plugins, security settings, and more.
Name.com Features at a Glance
Free domain name
✔
Free backups
✔ (except cloud plans)
Free email
✔ (shared web hosting plans only)
Money-back guarantee
30-day
Uptime guarantee
99.9%
Data centers
Unknown
4.6
Ease of use
My Hosting Experience With Name.com
Setting up a website with Name.com was a simple and stress-free experience. The process is straightforward, with a small selection of hosting plans that makes choosing the right option easy. From there, I was able to quickly navigate through payment and website setup, which only took me around 10 minutes using Softaculous on cPanel.
Creating a New Account With Name.com
You only need to enter some basic details to create your Name.com account
Name.com required me to create an account before I paid for my order. Once my payment was processed, I was automatically logged into my account, making the process seamless. The accepted payment methods included PayPal, Google Pay, and credit/debit cards.
I also got a free domain name as part of my annual plan (this isn’t included with the monthly plan). Keep in mind that domain privacy is not included but is reasonably priced at $4.99 per year. Notably, no paid add-ons were automatically included with my Personal shared hosting plan. Options to add Titan Email Pro, Comodo SSL certificates, and other services were available at checkout.
Connecting a Domain and Installing WordPress
If you purchased or claimed a domain from Name.com during payment, it will automatically be set up for you. This is what I did – there was no need for me to adjust my nameservers and I could focus solely on creating my website.
While Name.com offers two website builders, including the One-Page Builder, they’re actually powered by the paid third-party platform, Wix. Wix offers a forever-free plan, but a major limitation is that I’d have to use a “.wix.com” subdomain. If I wanted to connect my domain, I’d need to upgrade to a paid Wix plan, which would be charged separately from my Name.com hosting.
Considering Wix includes hosting in its plans and it’s much cheaper when purchased directly from the Wix platform – about $5-9/month less – this route isn’t very cost-effective.
Luckily, there’s a plan B. For my test website, I chose to use the free, open-source WordPress platform, which is super-easy to install with Name.com and can be done via Softaculous in your free cPanel account.
Having to set up my hosting was a new experience, as it’s usually done for me
When you log into your Name.com account for the first time, you’ll be prompted to set up your hosting account. To do so, add a domain or select your linked domain name from the drop-down menu and click the Setup Hosting Now button.
Once the setup process is complete, you can install WordPress, another CMS, or a site builder. You can select the green Setup Products button. Or, like me, you can install WordPress via Softaculous in cPanel. Go to My Products, select your hosting plan, and click the top-right green cPanel Login button.
Next, scroll a bit further down to the Softaculous Apps Installer section and click on the WordPress logo. Alternatively, scroll down to the Software section in cPanel and click the Softaculous Apps Installer button. Then, find WordPress and click Install under it. You’ll be taken to the WordPress installation page.
On the installation page, make sure the domain listed is correct and create a WordPress Admin username and password for your login, and click Install again. Then, just wait for the process to complete, and you’re ready to start building your site.
Other Ease of Use Features
Free cPanel Control Panel
cPanel is a popular control panel that’s used worldwide to manage Linux-based hosting plans. With higher-spec VPS, cloud, and dedicated plans, you usually need to buy a cPanel license, which can be expensive. However, a few hosting plans offer cPanel for free – including Name.com’s shared web hosting plans.
cPanel features many useful tools, including a WordPress Toolkit and Softaculous, a 1-click installer of 380+ web apps, SSL/TLS management with free AutoSSL Let’s Encrypt SSLs, the Backup Wizard, email and database management tools, and SSH access.
Free SSL Certificates
With the purchase of domain privacy, you also get a free SSL. You can also activate a free Let’s Encrypt SSL from AutoSSL on any cPanel account. To do this, navigate to My Products > cPanel Login > SSL/TLS and add the certificate.
You can also choose from various SSL formats, including:
RSA, 2,048-bit (recommended)
ECDSA, P-384 (secp384r1)
ECDSA, P-256 (prime256v1)
RSA, 4,096-bit
Just remember to save your settings to allow AutoSSL to update. While you do need a domain name, you don’t need an active website to secure your domain with an SSL certificate.
Integrated DigitalOcean Cloud Plans
While I wouldn’t advise purchasing a Wix plan from Name.com, its DigitalOcean plans are actually a great option. Not only do you pay the same as you would going direct with DigitalOcean, but you also get the benefit of managing and billing all your services through a single platform: Name.com.
That said, the available options are limited to Basic Droplets with shared CPUs. If you need DigitalOcean’s General Purpose or CPU/Storage/Memory-Optimized Droplets with dedicated CPUs, you’ll need to purchase directly from DigitalOcean. For a standard personal, business, or even starter e-commerce site, I think Name.com’s Basic Droplet range should suffice.
4.3
Performance
Satisfactory Performance, but Less Than Ideal Optimization
Typically, shared hosting plans don’t let you choose a data center location, but most hosts share this information so you can choose the best host for your audience. After all, you want a host with data centers as close to your visitors as possible to ensure the fastest loading speeds and best website performance.
Unfortunately, obtaining information about Name.com’s data center locations proved difficult. Despite extensive searching and inquiries, neither the support team nor online resources provided clarity.
Since Name.com also doesn’t offer a Content Delivery Network as a standard feature, this was quite a concern. Support did assure me there were multiple global locations, and my performance test results appeared to back this claim up.
In my tests, my site typically loaded in an impressive 1.3-2 seconds in Chicago, Illinois. In my global tests, these figures were the same, with the 4 US locations I tested offering the fastest results (1-1.3 seconds). Uptime was also great at a consistent 100% throughout testing.
GTmetrix Performance Tests
If a reliable US host is what you’re after, Name.com delivers
In my GTmetrix tests, my test site achieved an A rating for performance. The chosen test server was located in Chicago, Illinois.
While generally fast, I did notice some spikes in loading speed over the week
Looking at the historical GTmetrix test results, we can see that site loading speeds for my Name.com test site were mostly consistent. Well, except for that 4-second spike in loading speeds, which isn’t ideal.
GTmetrix Global Speeds
US servers performed the best in my GTmetrix tests of Name.com
I was expecting a much more varied result here, as hosts typically perform best in regions near their data centers and worse in those further away. These consistent global performance results have certainly left me a little perplexed as to Name.com’s mysterious, secretive global data center locations.
UptimeRobot
100% uptime is good, but to be expected if you claim a guaranteed 99.9% uptime
Name.com also delivered very consistent uptime throughout testing, with no actual incidents of downtime. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
3.5
Support
Limited Support Channels and Even More Limited Assistance
Name.com offers two primary support channels:
Live chat
Ticket support
There’s also a phone number, but it’s primarily for complaints.
While Name.com support gave me a relatively fast answer, it was almost never helpful or personalized assistance. It seems most responses are canned or taken primarily from the FAQ or Help Center guides. In some cases, the responses appeared to be from agents who lacked knowledge on the issue at hand, leaving me to wonder if their job is simply to check off the 24/7 support requirement rather than actually solve customer problems.
Where are Name.com’s data centers located? It’s a real mystery…
On sending my first ticket, I got a reply 21 minutes later, but it didn’t include any answer to my question about data center locations. Once I clicked on the Start Live Chat button, a small pop-up with a question mark appeared on the page. After adding my query, it tried to redirect me to the FAQ answers first. Luckily, there’s a Live Chat button located just underneath that took me straight to real live chat support. So, no real subversion here.
Live chat support without the “support” is just “live chat” – and that’s about all that I got!
After adding my query and contact details, the chat agent connected and responded just a few seconds later. Unfortunately, the joy ended there when the agent informed me that I should send in a ticket, as his knowledge didn’t cover the topic. And, it wasn’t a complex topic – this was a simple query about features like a CDN and security.
Not surprisingly, Name.com suggests submitting an Abuse submission form instead of calling their phone helpline to lodge a complaint. At least you have plenty of FAQs, Help Center articles, and even video tutorials to fall back on. The problem arises when you need to ask about something that isn’t covered publicly. And in comparison to some of the other, more transparent hosts I’ve tested, this lack of coverage for such topics leaves much to be desired.
4.3
Pricing
Affordable Hosting Plans With Flexible Payment Options
Name.com’s WordPress and web hosting plans are undeniably affordable compared to the competition. On the other hand, its Wix plans are overpriced and DigitalOcean comes without discounts when purchased through Name.com. DigitalOcean’s cloud hosting remains a premium service, so it still provides solid value. You can also claim a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re unhappy with the Name.com hosting service.
In terms of payment options, Name.com’s WordPress plan is only available with annual billing, but you can choose monthly or annual payment for web hosting and DigitalOcean plans. Another interesting payment feature allows you to pay for up to 10 years of hosting and domain registration in advance, which comes with discounts. Ynless your business or venture is definitely going to be around for that long, you should maybe think twice.
Of all the web hosting plans, I feel that the Personal plan offers the best value. But if your site is more content-heavy, 10 GB of storage probably won’t be enough. Luckily, upgrading to the Premium or Business plans will only cost you a few extra dollars per month. In any case, all hosting plans offer the same features, including a free domain, SSLs, cPanel, and backups, meaning your choice mainly comes down to storage and website limits.
Name.com joins countless other low-cost shared web hosts, but does it really offer anything new? After testing the host, I can say it might. Certainly, Name.com’s consistent global performance and reliable uptime are unexpected bonuses.
On the other hand, its storage quotas are quite low and I’m not 100% assured of my sites’ security, making it less than ideal for larger or more demanding sites. Hostinger offers a much more secure service, with a free security suite and an actual choice of data center location for shared plans.
That said, I think that most standard website owners would probably be content with Name.com’s pricing and features.
FAQ
What services does Name.com offer beyond domain registration?
Name.com offers many services, including web hosting, email hosting, paid SSL certificates (from Comodo), Sitelock security, and more. You can purchase these services directly from the Name.com website, along with your domain name. Keep in mind that if you’re signing up for a year of web hosting, you may be eligible for a free domain (1 year) with your plan.
Are there additional costs with Name.com, such as domain privacy or SSLs?
Yes, there are additional costs with Name.com. Domain privacy is $4.99/year on top of your hosting package. While SSLs from Let’s Encrypt are included free with domain privacy, they aren’t included with hosting plans by default. Name.com also offers paid SSL certificates from Comodo, ranging from $9.99-$349.99 per year for enhanced security. For cloud plans, you’ll also need to budget for backups, as these are not included.
How beginner-friendly is Name.com for creating a business or personal site?
Name.com is very user-friendly and the setup process stress-free, quick, and foolproof. Even beginners will find it easy to select a plan, make a Name.com account, pay, and set up WordPress or another web application. Name.com’s shared plans either come with cPanel and Softaculous or pre-installed and managed WordPress.
Does Name.com offer any advanced hosting solutions, such as VPS or dedicated servers?
Name.com offers cloud hosting from DigitalOcean. But Name.com doesn’t refer you to DigitalOcean – instead, you can purchase a Droplet from six pre-configured options via Name.com, with centralized billing and management. Plans range from budget-friendly to high-performance options with 1-16 GB RAM, 25-320 GB SSD storage, 1-8 vCPUs, 1-6 TB bandwidth, and optional paid backups.
Can users easily transfer domains to or from Name.com?
Yes, you can transfer your domain name relatively easily to Name.com. You’ll need to get your domain unlocked from your current provider (if it isn’t) and have your transfer authorization or EPP code ready. If you want to transfer with no downtime, you can request Name.com’s support team to pre-assign your nameservers. Also check Name.com’s domain pricing, as it may differ from your current domain registrar’s rates.
A freelance author, graphic designer, and photographer, Caitlin Greyling writes about web hosting, web builder software, graphic design, tech, and electronics, and has published hundreds of product reviews and comparisons for Website Planet, The Daily Mail, and Durability Matters. Her creative and technical knowledge has been showcased at PictureCorrect, Photutorial, and others. She is currently studying for an NCTJ diploma in journalism. When Caitlin’s not working, she’s exploring nature with her son and dog or relaxing at home with her cat.
Maggy Di Costanzo is an editor at Website Planet, specializing in reviews of e-commerce platforms, website builders, and web hosting services. With experience as a freelance AI content specialist, editor, and writer, she brings a versatile skill set from industries like marketing and real estate. When she’s not editing or staying updated on SEO trends, Maggy enjoys going on hikes with her dog, planning dinner parties, and tracking the stock market.
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Terrible services
Terrible service. Lost access to account, they are requiring me government ID just to remove IP restriction as my if has changed. That is sensitive information. They do not care about customers. Avoid this company. If you need to contact support, you will have problems.
Their system charged me 120$ for autorenew of a domain, 17 days before expiration. At the exact date and time when I logged into the account and TURNED OFF the autorenewal option (because decided to not renew). I have proof. The support laughed at my face saying they don't do refunds, and the autorenew option was "on" all this time, so I have no options to get the money back. Don't use their services! It's borderline fraud, they have nothing in ToS about "autorenew 17 days before expiration", they use an algorithm to charge people and blame them for the activity.
Different TLDs has different renew prices. I guess you did not check that?
HAS November 15, 2024
Deceptive business practices
They renew your domains a month before they expire but don't tell us this and will not issues refunds. They opt you into lots of things like this. Another example: When you're transferring a domain name away from them, they give you the authorization code so you can transfer it but the default all domain names to locked "do not transfer" status so although you clicked to view the "authorization to move code" they put the "and unlock my domain name so it moves" elsewhere so it's confusing. GoDaddy used to be the greatest of all time at this but now it's a bit better - they've backed off - seems like Name.com has stepped into those shoes and is the new shady Registrar. Stay away.
My experience with name.com has been an extremely positive one. I have domains at other registrars and a few hosting services scattered about. Once you get past their automation, the name's live chat support is warm and helpful. I found the support team to be a bit more proficient and knowledgeable (especially regarding domain registration services)than their competitors. Probably could use some additional training on the shared hosting support front realistically, it is a secondary service they provide as a domain registrar. The best part is their staff is not constantly trying to upsell you or shove useless products down your gullet. name.com is a good company run by good people, would recommend.
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