Table of Contents
- Hover Review – Simple with Strong Customer Support
- Benefits of Hover
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Hover
- Pricing
- Web Hosting
- Security
- Customer Support
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best Secure Domain Registrar
- Namecheap Review – Affordable and Flexible
- Benefits of Namecheap
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Namecheap
- Pricing
- Web Hosting
- Security
- Customer Support
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best Secure Domain Name Registration Service
- Domain Registrar Service – Buyers’ Guide
- Pricing
- Web Hosting
- Security
- Customer Support
- Domain Registration – Final Verdict
It’s a great idea to create a website to boost your online course business. However, that comes with the challenge of choosing an appropriate domain registrar service.
Hover and Namecheap are two very popular domain registrars you can go for.
In this post, we’ll discuss the findings of our tests with both services to determine which one is the better option for you.
| Features | Hover | Namecheap |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | 3 and a half stars | 4 and a half stars |
| Web Hosting | 0 stars | 4 stars |
| Security | 3 and a half stars | 4 stars |
| Customer Support | 4 stars | 4 stars |
Now that you have some idea about what each service has to offer, let’s delve deeper to find the better one of the two.
Hover Review – Simple with Strong Customer Support
Hover has been a popular domain registrar service since its inception in 2008.
They’re a great option if you want to have multiple domains since they offer great discounts on them. That being said, this is probably something that won’t apply to you since you’ll most likely only have one website that’s dedicated to your online course(s).
In addition to domain management services to properly look after your registered domains, Hover also provides you with free SSL certification as part of its package.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Affordable • Integration with third-party web design tools and hosting providers • Flexible discounts on multiple domains • Free SSL certification • Convenient domain management tools | • Does not offer web hosting services |
Benefits of Hover
The first thing we should talk about when we talk about the benefits of Hover is how easy to use it is. Its interface is extremely simple with the most prominent options being domain search, extensions, email services, and discounts.
Once you search for a domain, you’re provided with a neat list of recommendations that will include the exact match (if it’s available) as well as close suggestions that could work too.
Now, let’s talk TLDs. Without getting too technical, all you need to know is that TLDs are the part that comes after the period after you write your domain name. Here’s an example:
Here, the TLD is “.com”. Hover provides over 460 TLDs to choose from. Different TLDs cost differently but Hover’s prices are fairly reasonable compared to other domain registrars who sell the same TLDs.
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Hover
Pricing
When it comes to a generic “.com” TLD, Hover will cost you $12.99 per year.
That isn’t too expensive but the thing to worry about is the fact that domain renewals cost $14.99. This is fairly expensive when you compare the domain pricing with its competitors.
Similarly, domain transfers cost $10.99 which is also fairly expensive.
Web Hosting
Hover does not offer web hosting services with its domain name registration service.
Hence, if you opt for Hover, you will have to browse and choose a compatible web hosting service in addition to it.
This can be tedious. Not to mention how much extra you’ll pay. Hover as well as the third-party web hosting service.
As a new online course creator, this can eat through your budget.
Security
In terms of security, Hover does deliver.
As we mentioned above, you get free SSL certification on your domain with Hover’s package. To give you some context, SSL certificates can typically cost anywhere between $8 to $60 per year.
Hence, the fact that you get this security for free is a pretty big deal.
Furthermore, Hover also provides you with domain privacy which ensures that your credentials and other personal information are not added to public directories on the internet.
Customer Support
Hover’s customer support is fantastic. You can contact them via live chat, phone as well as and email any time you face any issue with their service.
The staff is empathetic, fast, and extremely helpful. They provided multiple detailed solutions to a problem we faced when integrating our web hosting service with the domain we registered using Hover.
What Do the Customers Think?
In terms of the reviews we found, people are fairly impressed by what Hover has delivered as a domain registrar.
They love its ease of use and simplistic interface along with security provided by two-factor authentication.
We also came upon mentions of how the customer support is great and very helpful.
Here are the reviews we came across online:
Best Secure Domain Registrar
The best secure domain registration service is Hover thanks to its free SSL certification and domain privacy features that keep your credentials protected. In addition to that, it also provides flexible discounts and pricing if you opt for multiple domains.
Namecheap Review – Affordable and Flexible
Namecheap is a highly trusted, ICANN accredited registrar. It’s been active since 2001 and it does so at incredibly cheap rates.
Their team has extensive knowledge about domains, DNS, and security which they’ve used to build a domain name registration service that is extremely easy to use.
A great thing about Namecheap is that they provided web hosting services alongside domain name registration.
To support their web hosting features, they have a powerful infrastructure of SSD servers which ensure great performance and speed of your site and 100% uptime.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Intuitive to use • Huge marketplace of domain names • Transparent and cheap renewal fees • Affordable • Secure | • Domain transfer fees are relatively expensive |
Benefits of Namecheap
Let’s start with pricing. Namecheap offers some of the cheapest prices for domain name registration in the market.
Generic TLDs are as cheap as $10.99 while other specific ones are still cheap compared to other domain registrars that provide them.
As mentioned earlier, you get web hosting when you register for a domain with Namecheap. You also get premium DNS hosting as well as a domain email as part of the package.
Namecheap also provides you with the cheapest SSL certificates along with free WhoIs protection. WhoIs privacy ensures that your credentials are not logged into public directories on the internet and that your personal information remains safe.
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Namecheap
Pricing
As mentioned above, Namecheap’s pricing is highly affordable as well as transparent.
You can register a single domain for $10.99 per year and renewal fees are also the same.
When comparing this to its competitors that usually charge higher renewal fees, you can see how you stand to save money if you go for Namecheap.
Web Hosting
Unlike Hover, Namecheap provides you with a web hosting service for the domain you register with it.
This is extremely convenient because not only will you not have to waste time looking for a third-party hosting provider but you also won’t have to pay a separate fee for it.
Security
While SSL certificates don’t come free with the Namecheap domain name hosting package, they still offer them at a very cheap price.
You can get a Comodo PositiveSSL certificate with Namecheap for as low as $1.99 per year. The typical price of such a certificate if you buy it elsewhere is $8 per year.
In addition to that, we already mentioned private WhoIs registration which ensures your personal information does not end up in public directories on the internet.
Customer Support
Namecheap’s customer support is also very helpful and responsive just like Hover’s.
You can contact them via live chat, email as well as your phone.
Any time you have any issue with your domains, you can contact them and they will be able to resolve it within hours if not minutes.
What Do the Customers Think?
People seem to love Namecheap’s ease of use, reasonable pricing, and other services that it offers such as SSL certification, domain privacy, and web hosting.
Customer support gets a lot of praise from users due to their responsiveness as well as helpfulness.
Here are some reviews we found:
Best Secure Domain Name Registration Service
The best secure domain name registration service is Namecheap thanks to its cheap SSL certificates and WhoIs protection. In addition to its security, you also get website hosting as part of its package which is super convenient.
Domain Registrar Service – Buyers’ Guide
Pricing
Pricing with domain name services can get tricky because the prices can differ greatly depending on the TLD you choose.
It’s the cheapest to opt for a generic TLD and is often the best option.
However, if you’re an online course creator that wants to target a specific niche, you can consider a specialized TLD such as “.photo” for photography-related courses.
Bear in mind that these TLDs can really run up your costs.
As a new online course creator, we recommend that you opt for a generic TLD with a domain name registration service that costs below $15 per year.
Web Hosting
Some domain name registrars offer website hosting services as part of their package and you should try to opt for one that does.
This can be very convenient because you won’t have to spend time looking for a third-party hosting provider.
Security
Security is highly important for your online course website because if it gets hacked or goes down, it can cost you sales and hundreds if not thousands of dollars in revenue.
Always try to opt for a domain name registrar that has SSL included within its package. If not, then at the very least, they should provide SSL certificates at extremely cheap rates.
Furthermore, it’s a good idea to opt for a service that secures your website in other ways such as through malware scans and DDOS protection.
Customer Support
It’s highly important that the support team for your domain name registrar is extremely responsive and helpful.
This is because you will want to get issues resolved as quickly as possible because otherwise, they may cost you sales and revenue.
Domain Registration – Final Verdict
This brings us to the conclusion of our comparison post for Hover and Namecheap.
In the end, we have to go with Namecheap as our winner for this comparison.
While Hover is fairly secure and offers a wide variety of TLDs, Namecheap offers website hosting, cheap SSL certificates, better pricing as well as a larger library of TLDs.
Which service do you think is better? Let us know in the comments below.