I used NameCheap as my primary registrar for many years. I switched to NameSilo when they made their presence known here several years back. They’re based here in Phoenix, and they’re one of the top 15 registrars in the world.
As domain registrars, they’re both great.
I don’t like NameCheap’s WHM/cPanel hosting. I’ve got a basic account at NameSilo and it’s working out for what I need. My needs for this aren’t as picky as a full WHM reseller account.
I actually went from NameCheap to Eleven2 for hosting.
(There are several dozen default settings that the hosting provider has when installing WHM and cPanel, and for most of them, users can’t see or change them. The vendor just says, “That’s our policy” or “That’s just what the software does.” If you’ve ever had a chance to go through it on a dedicated server, you know the extent of all of the settings that are available. NameCheap selects a bunch of settings that I find interolerable. Their excuse is they’re set that way “for security reasons”, which is BS in most cases. They do it because they’re a source of excessive support time caused by dumb users.)
I think I saw where NameCheap is owned by EIG, and I believe all of those stupid WHM/cPanel settings are established as a broad policy across all AIG hosting platforms as a way to reduce their already horrid support demands.
The biggest things I look out for regarding registrars is this:
* what’s the renewal fee during the first 30-day grace period? GoDaddy socks it to ya. Both NC and NS charge the same as a regular renewal. Also, I’ve heard people say that they missed the initial renewal deadline and GD dumped the domain into their auctions and it was gone in a matter of minutes! NC and NS wait until the 2nd 30-day period begins before they put them up for auction. I lost one at NS that I was 4 hours late on renewing within the initial 30-day grace period.
* Name privacy — both NC and NS offer 100% free name privacy forever. Last I checked, GD charges $12.95/yr for it, on top of the cost of the domain. (GDPR requires it, so it’s easier to offer it for free than not. But I’m sure it’s a fine profit center for GD’s non-European (ahem — American) customers.
As far as VPS goes … I’m sure I’m the odd man out here, but I despise having to deal with hackers and doing basic admin work on servers. I did it for 8+ years and it’s just not something I enjoy. I don’t need root access, so WHM is fine for my needs. I’m happy to live under the security umbrella set up by the hosting provider on the entire server. I do not want the hassle and expense of doing all of that stuff myself. If I can get everything I need for $20/mo via WHM, why spend many times more than that to quadruple my own workload just to get root access occasionally? I’ve got 3 Macs where root access on a *nix box is one mouse-click away, and I can install anything I want to play with it if needed.
