When comparing Namecheap vs Porkbun, the Slant community recommends Namecheap for most people. In the question“What are the best website hosting providers?” Namecheap is ranked 12th while Porkbun is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Namecheap is:
Domain registration at Namecheap is economical, as their name implies.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Low prices
Domain registration at Namecheap is economical, as their name implies.
Pro Great support with 24 hour live chat
Namecheap support is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Their support is provided over live text chat, which has a lower barrier to entry, faster connection, and allows you to communicate easier than other the phone.
Because most of the support you need for domains require you to provide text configuration data, live online messaging is the most efficient way to get fast support. It also does not require your constant attention so you don't have to waste time while the operator is researching an answer for you.
Pro Free subdomains
Namecheap allows you to set up 198 subdomains for free, and also provides wildcard subdomain catching so you can manage them yourself.
Pro Free e-mail and URL forwarding
Namecheap allows you to set up 100 virtual email addresses per domain, as well as catch all forwarding all undefined addresses.
Pro Supports credit cards, PayPal and adding funds to your account separately
When it comes to paying for domains, Namecheap supports all common payment methods. For most people this will be credit cards and Paypal, but Namecheap also has an option to add funds to your account separately.
Pro Free dynamic DNS routing
Pro Strong Anti-SOPA stance
Namecheap took a stand against SOPA.
Pro FreeDNS for outside domain
Namecheap offers a free and premium (w/ SLA) DNS hosting service for domains registered with other registrars.
Pro Free WHOIS privacy protection
It's active for one year.
Pro Bitcoin payment support
Pro Expiration grace period
Namecheap will notify you if your credit card is going to expire, and has a 27 day non-guaranteed grace period for renewal.
Pro Two-factor authentication
Pro Proactive support
Not all registrar care, but when there's an error or something held up the registration they've always at least gave it a shot without prompting. This is done in a proactive way, which isn't seen very often at all. This way the user can be hands off and not need to deal with certain issues as it is taken care of in the background by their support. User is still informed, of course, but can be entirely hands off, or not, but usually they've been efficient and transparent.
Pro Free .me domain for students
Through its NC.ME program, students can get a free 1-year registration on the .me TLD and discounts on .com, .io, and other TLDs along with Namecheap Private Email hosting.
Pro Transparent, everyday pricing for all domains and services
All the top-level domains available at Porkbun (319 of the 1,562 currently in existence) are offered for $1 above the wholesale price, plus the processing fee for your credit card. No gimmicks or bait-and-switch pricing, no surprises. That's the price for renewal and inbound transfers too, so you know exactly how much you'll be spending every year you own the domain.
Pro Free WHOIS Privacy (for top-level domains that allow it)
All domains receive free WHOIS privacy, which masks your personal information from the public registry and saves you from the deluge of e-mail spam and telemarketers which typically accompanies purchasing a domain name today. Some top-level domains, like .us, require that you publish your contact info publicly, and they'll tell you that before you place the order.
Pro FAST Payments - honest pricing - integrity
No more topping up a reseller account with credits that cost a commission to buy or getting caught at renewal with a higher price unless you find a coupon somewhere... It's integrity all the way and a VERY fast payment portal!
Pro Porkbun accounts can be secured with two-factor authentication
Don't let the next big hack allow some internet pirate to steal your domain, just turn on 2FA in the control panel and all logins will require a TOTP code in addition to your e-mail address and password.
Pro Best Service
No hidden renewal charges and free privacy on all domains.
Pro Live support during support hours
During support hours a real human can be reached via phone or email. Emails are generally responded quickly and always within 24 hours.
Pro Not spamming you with useless offers
They are sincere, they do not spam your inbox with "offers" and services you are never going to use and then, if you make the mistake to accept, pay inflated prices when you renew. They communicate with you only for serious and legitimate reasons. Excellent services!
Pro Just the best
Nothing wrong to say about them, this company should stay as they are.
Pro Free SSL Certificates
Every domain is issued SSL certificates for the root domain and any ten subdomains of your choice via the Let's Encrypt service. The certificates expire every 90 days but Porkbun automatically renews them for you prior to each expiration, for as long as you own the domain. These certificates don't offer any identity verification, but they do allow all the traffic to and from your domain to be encrypted at industry-standard levels at no cost. They can be acquired at will through the interface without any contact with support staff and the certificates are available for download as soon as they are created.
Pro Free DNS hosting
Registering the domain is only half the battle, the other half is announcing to the world the IP address of the server hosting your site. Porkbun includes this service with all domain registrations and makes it easy to manage by using the GoDaddy DomainConnect standard for service auto-discovery. This means you don't need to get your hands dirty, just pick the web host you want to connect the domain to from the drop-down menu and click OK. Or you can manage all the settings yourself from the control panel without restriction or interference. You can have as many A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS and TXT resource records as your heart desires (or ARIN allows).
Pro Free e-mail forwarding and reasonable e-mail hosting
All domains come with 10 free e-mail forwards which allow you to use your new domain to create aliases for existing e-mail accounts elsewhere. If you need hosted e-mail instead, that's only $24/year per mailbox, and it includes 10GB of storage, external POP3 and IMAP gateways and a modern webmail portal from which you can send and receive e-mails.
Pro DNSSEC support for all top-level domains
Worried about falling victim to one of the many security risks on the internet? Then take a moment to generate DS records for your domain and Porkbun will propagate them to the root zone for free. Doing this ensures that even if the nameserver for your site goes down, no hackers can impersonate it and steal your visitors' personal or financial information.
Pro Sincere, personal touch to all interactions
The support team is very pleasant to deal with and small enough that personal relationships can easily be formed. The promise of responses to support requests in under an hour is almost universally observed and even their site has some fun (who doesn't like pictures of playful piglets while their SSL certificates are generated?) instilled in it.
Pro Accepts Bitcoin
They accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for all services.
Pro Free website builder and hosting at Weebly
All domains at Porkbun can take advantage of Weebly's very popular website builder, complete with hosting for unlimited content pages and an e-commerce shop for five items. Of course many features are locked out until you pay for a hosting package, but you can very easily host a simple but professional looking portfolio or blog with minimal effort and greater than 99% uptime.
Cons
Con Misleading pricing
For example .me domain registration costs 3$ a year, but a continuation for 2 years cost 30$!
Con Expensive
It costs a lot of money to renew and purchase a domain. It also costs for their premium dns. They used to be cheap, but now it's so expensive.