Names.co.uk review

First impression

Namesco Ltd is a UK-based hosting services provider that was founded in 1997 by Richard and Rachel Suthering in Northeast England. They offer a range of reliable services such as Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Domain Registrations, Microsoft 365 Packages, as well as Website Builder Bundles and SSL Certificates.

This well-established company is made up of over 1500 highly and experienced hosting professionals and currently serves more than 2 million active customers. In 2019, Namesco Ltd became part of team.blue, a European group of successful brands working together across regions to provide our customers with everything they need to succeed online.

Trial Period

Unlike most hosting providers they don’t offer a money-back guarantee, nor a free trial period to try out their hosting services. However, you can add hosting services monthly if you do not want to commit to a longer period. Their green hosting plans start at just £2 for the first month, which is not a free trial but not far off it either. Perfect to put them to the test.

Billing Cycle

Namesco Shared Hosting plans offer monthly, annual, or biennial signup options with modest discounts available for longer periods, whilst their VPS plans only offer monthly or annual commitments.

The payment methods they currently accept are all major credit and debit cards, like Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, and American Express, as well as paying by Direct Debit, Cheque, Postal Order, BACS, one of the most common bank-to-bank transfers in the UK.

Control Panel

All Namesco hosting packages come with their own, user-friendly and in-house developed control panel, designed from the ground up to make setting up and managing all aspects of your website a breeze. It offers a simple one-click installation of popular CMS software such as WordPress and Joomla, a file manager, FTP & SSH access, PHP settings, database management, and more.

On their self-managed VPS plans users can install their preferred control panel as full root access is provided, but they also have the option to opt for the ever-popular cPanel, DirectAdmin, as well as Plesk 17, a powerful panel with features such as server health monitoring, CPU load average control, error & access logs, setting up and managing hosting and domains including DNS zones, access control and more, at an additional monthly fee.

Limits

Their Shared hosting plans, powered by cutting-edge Dell PowerEdge servers and lightning-fast NVMe SSD drives, are optimized with a range of advanced technologies. These include OPCache for caching string scripts in memory, Varnish Cache for storing local copies of static files like images, Redis for enhancing performance with fast, temporary memory access, and RamDisc for temporary storage of website files for quicker access and loading. These plans are available in four tiers: Beginner, Enthusiast, Pro, and Pro-XL.

The Beginner plan offers 25GB of disk space, 1 CPU, and 1GB of RAM, while the Enthusiast plan provides 50GB of space, 2 CPUs, and 2GB of RAM. Moving up, the Pro plan features 75GB of storage, 3GB of RAM, and 3 CPUs. At the top tier, the Pro-XL plan boasts 150GB of SSD space, 4GB of RAM, and 4 CPUs.

All plans include a complimentary domain name, unlimited bandwidth, and free daily backups.

Namesco's VPS plans, leveraging the latest Intel Xeon E5 Processors, offer three options that range from 25 GB of space, 2x vCore CPUs, and 1GB of RAM  on the VS:25M plan, up to 100GB of disk space, 8x vCore CPUs, and 4GB of RAM on the VS:100M plan.

Website Builder

They offer their own, custom-designed, website builder that is available in two options, the Starter and the Profesional, that is available at an additional monthly fee. This intuitive drag-and-drop builder comes with a range of easily customizable templates, that are fully responsive and that work seamlessly across all desktops, mobiles, and tablets. It allows users to create professional and aesthetically pleasing sites within minutes without any coding knowledge whatsoever. 

Although the builder comes across as basic, I was rather impressed by it, and in my opinion worth every cent. The only noticeable difference I saw between the 2 plans is that the Professional plan includes features such as SEO Tools, Developer Tools, Multi-language, and Blog options with no limit on the number of pages whereas the Starter limits users to 5 web pages only.

Security

Namesco ensures the security of its network and servers through robust firewalls and intrusion detection systems, which continuously monitor for any suspicious activity and promptly alert the security team. Hosting accounts are isolated from one another and benefit from a suite of powerful defense mechanisms.

These include advanced DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack protection with automatic detection and blocking of malicious files, real-time virus and malware scanning, auto-patching for CMS (Content Management Systems) software like WordPress or Joomla, and IP blocking. The IP blocking feature analyzes logs and automatically blocks requests from untrusted IP addresses and user agents (bots) if flagged.

It is worth noting that all Shared Hosting plans, except for the Beginner plan, include a complimentary SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt.

OS

Their Shared Hosting servers, all Linux-based, make use of the CentOS 7 OS (Operating System), a stable open-source OS based on the Red Hat Enterprise source code with a high level of security and various panel options.

Now, if you're on a VPS (Virtual Private Server), you've got a few more choices. They offer Windows Server, should you need to integrate Microsoft applications, Debian, which is perfect for developers as it is big on customization and security, Ubuntu, which is great for large-scale and expanding businesses, as well as CentOS 7 and AlmaLinux.

Support

Namesco offers support based in the UK, ready to assist you 24/7 via Phone or their Ticketing System. Their agents are not only friendly but also quite professional. Every time I reached out with a ticket, they responded within 3 hours. However, I believe having a Live Chat function is essential nowadays, especially for a company of this Stature.

Conclusion

While they may not be the most budget-friendly option available, they certainly excel in several areas. Their security measures, server uptime, and performance are impressive, and their customer support is reliable. Personally, the absence of a money-back guarantee and Live Chat option are the only drawbacks I've noticed. Overall a decent choice should you be looking for a provider.