Spaceship.com is a domain registrar launched by Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall. The website, which was seeking beta testers last November, launched in beta a few months ago. According to its Founder, the registrar is growing pretty quickly with more than 100,000 domain names under management (DUM):
After just a few months in open beta, Spaceship .com has now surpassed 100,000 domains under management. More than 25% of those are transfers in from other registrars. One small step…..
— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) July 25, 2023
Although Spaceship was built by Namecheap (according to its footer), it is a separate entity from its sister domain registrar. Spaceship still has a long way to go to catch up to Namecheap and other mainstream domain registrars. By comparison, Namecheap reportedly has nearly 20 million domain names under management.
I think it is a bit unusual for a person to operate two separate domain registrars with a similar target market, so I am curious to see how Spaceship differentiates itself and what comes of the relationship between these two brands.
Spaceship is successful because it’s a no-brainer. Free WHOIS, cheap domain registration, and very competitive renewal and transfer-in rates make it an obvious choice. Overall, it offers a modern interface and excellent service. Spaceship to the sky 🚀
Of course, sooner than later Namecheap will become Spaceshit and all the fees will be higher.
It is just a bait and switch scheme.
So why operate 2 companies build on the same platform and same ownership?
Grocery A and Grocery B- same ownership and sells the same items and same prices…
I know lots of people use and like Namecheap. But I’m one of the exceptions and the only reason is that I do not like its brandname. Maybe the owner had similar thoughts and wanted a cooler brandname? That’s just my assumption. Anyway, it’s good to have a new option for registering domain names.
I meant to reply to you: yeah maybe you are right. I use namecheap and dislike its name.
The illusion of choice?!
yeah maybe you are right. I use namecheap and dislike its name.
it’s temporary as they transition from namecheap to spaceship. the weird thing was when I saw richard’s tweet, I went to spaceship but it was unclear to me what it was. strange huh?