After thoroughly testing GoDaddys hosting services, I can say one thing: avoid the basic shared hosting plans. Theyre simply not worth the price tag. Opt for WordPress hosting from GoDaddy (because it actually uses modern technology and performs pretty decently) but Ill warn you nowto get all the best features, it will cost you!
Hosting from the Worlds Most Famous Domain Company
If youve been around the internet for a while, youve probably heard of GoDaddy. Its the most well-recognized brand in domain name registration, even if that branding has changed some. Gone are the days of race car driver Danica Patrick on the home page. Now, GoDaddy wants to be your provider of all things website-related
Whats on offer from the hosting division? Regular shared hosting, reseller hosting, WordPress-specific plans, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers
Youd think that with over 20 years of experience offering web services, GoDaddy would know exactly what its doing. Well, branding isnt everything, so I ran a test website on GoDaddy for several months to find out how well it could perform. I did this as part of Website Planets huge web hosting comparison project, where we tested all the big names in the industry
Spoiler warning: Im sorry, but GoDaddys ordinary shared hosting is not great. Its really not great. And while GoDaddys WordPress hosting is better, its pretty expensive compared to many of our top-rated hosting providers for WordPress
If you dont want to pay for WordPress hosting from GoDaddy and are looking for a really cheap hosting solution thats reliable, check out Hostingers latest dealsthis is the host that achieved the best performance scores in our testing, and its prices are pretty unbeatable
3.5
Features
GoDaddys WordPress features are more generous than its basic plans
GoDaddy Talks a Good Game but Could be Better
Look, GoDaddy does domain names first and foremost. It isnt the least expensive in the businessHostinger offers slightly cheaper registrations overall. Still, its a major focus for GoDaddy, and services such as web hosting sometimes seem like more of an afterthought. A cynic might say that these services exist only to get more money out of existing customers
Thats me. Im the cynic. Anyway, I bought the basic Web Hosting plan, tested it, wasnt impressed, so came back to test the WordPress plans, crossing my fingers, toes, eyes, and anything else that I could cross, in the hope that the WordPress plans would be better. To my eternal relief, my experience was much better the second time around!
First of all (a bit ofstuff ahead), GoDaddys basic shared hosting is Apache-based. Thats the classic (AKA old) web server tech that most hosts are moving away from. Actually, none of the best hosts use it. Its inferior to the newer NGINX and LiteSpeed in its capabilities, and doesnt work as well with WordPress and other CMS (content management systems)
Four different plans are available in the Web Hosting category, all with unmetered bandwidth. The Basic plan comes with 100GB of storage space (not SSD, which is the newer storage techbut the older HDD), and the other three have unlimited space
The more advanced plans support more databases, and while the basic plan can handle one domain, the others can handle unlimited domain names. There seems to be some Processing Power & Speed difference between them, which means the more expensive plans have more RAM and CPU
This is cPanel-powered hosting, meaning you get all the regular tools. Installatron is the auto-installer tool available (its very similar to Softaculous), which means WordPress and many other CMS are easily installable in a few clicks
GoDaddys WordPress hosting plans do have more going for them. There are four plans for WordPress (in addition to the much more expensive managed WordPress plans). The lower-priced plans dont have unlimited storagebut it is SSD storage. Storage starts at 30GB, which is more than enough space for most websites, and the higher-priced plans are optimized to support unlimited monthly visitors (25,000 for the lowest-priced plan)
Heres just a few reason why I recommend you choose GoDaddys WordPress Hosting instead of its standard shared hosting plans
Free SSL Certificates are Included
Lets be clear: SSL isnt an extra or something nice to have. Its a thing you need. Specifically, its the technology that encrypts all data that goes between your site and your users, protecting both. Search engines also prefer secure sites, incidentally
GoDaddy is the one big web hosting company that still doesnt offer a free SSL certificate on its standard shared hosting plans. It can choose to offer one, as Lets Encrypt certificates are great and dont cost the host a thing, but it doesnt
It does, however, offer free SSL certificates on its WordPress plans. All of them. For the lifetime of the hosting plan, not just for the first year like some hosts. I was very relieved to see this. I mean, Id like GoDaddy to offer free SSL certificates on all of its hosting types, but Ill settle for this. Its a step in the right direction
Backups Are Included on WordPress Plans
Unlike the standard shared hosting plans where pretty much everything beyond the storage space and a 1-click installer will cost you extra, GoDaddys WordPress plans include backups. You can schedule them, make them on demand, and download and/or restore your website from a backup with a couple of clicks. Yes, a lot of web hosts include backups, but GoDaddys standard shared hosting plans dont, so this is definitely something to get excited about
Theres Automatic Malware Scanning
Even the lowest-priced GoDaddy WordPress hosting plan includes free automatic malware scanning. If you choose the Ultimate plan and above (more expensive, of course), then you get unlimited malware removal and hack repair as well as simple malware scanning. This is just another thing that you have to pay extra for with GoDaddys standard shared hosting (and WordPress hosting isnt really that much more expensive with GoDaddy, either)
Other Free Tools
Firstly, theres the SEO tools and staging tools. Okay, so you do have to choose the Deluxe plan and above to get the SEO tools and the one-click staging area (for testing out changes to your website without affecting your live site), but the price difference isnt huge
Secondly, if you opt for the E-commerce plan, which pre-installs Woo-Commerce as part of your WordPress installation, you get access to premium WooCommerce extensions. These can help make your online store more profitable (as well as saving you money on the cost of the extensions themselves)
GoDaddy also incorporates its own bespoke WooCommerce payment platform thats automatically activated when you install WordPress. Its only available for stores in the US, howeverbut its included with all hosting plans, even the most basic shared hosting plan. The Poynt plugin enables you to accept major credit and debit cardsand receive the funds the next business day!
None of GoDaddys Plans are Perfect, Though
There are some things that I found disappointing with GoDaddys WordPress plans. These plans are semi-managed. That means that you can set up automatic backups and automatic updates, but if you dont set these up, they wont happen. GoDaddy doesnt manage these things for youbut they will offer support if you need it
Most web hosts include a free website builder with even the most basic shared hosting plans. I can understand why GoDaddy doesnt offer that with its WordPress plans, but the standard shared hosting plans dont include a website builder, either. If you want to use GoDaddys website builder, youll have to purchase a completely separate builder plan
4.0
Ease of use
Shared Hosting is NOT Easy to UseBut WordPress Hosting is Simple. Kind of
GoDaddys homepage can be deceiving. Its nicely designed, the logo is modern, and youd be forgiven for thinking that this is a modern, well thought out service. It isnt
Choosing Your Plan Can Be Tricky
The main thing to note about GoDaddys plans is that theres not a lot of details. I like hosts that have those big comparison tables so I can easily see what each plan includes, right down to server software and PHP versions. GoDaddy doesnt have those. It gives you the basic details, tells you what one plan has that the other doesnt, but I couldnt find any technical details anywhere
If youre not bothered about the technical stuff, then GoDaddys lack of it wont be a problem, but it kinda annoyed me. I spent way too much time trying to find information out (because, well, asking the live chat agent was a bit of a joke!)
Connecting Your Domain Is Hard
Anyway, like I said before, the first time I signed up and tested GoDaddy, I went with the basic web hosting plan, and signup was generally easy. I was immediately given the A records (not nameservers) for connecting my domain. I took a screenshot at the time, but figured it wouldnt matter because Id just get that info again later
For context, nameservers are the easy way to connect a domain name
As it turned out, connecting the domain without my screenshot proved to be a ridiculously difficult task, as I couldnt find those A records anywhere. The main account area has almost no information in general, and most of the tabs are filled with services that are available for purchaseones that arent actually included with your plan
Sneaky stuff during signup, too. Thatll cost you in 12 months
Back to domain connecting. There was no info to be found, and support couldnt help. They gave me the wrong nameservers and the domain didnt connect. I ended up using my screenshot, and managed to connect my domain myself, but that was an unnecessary hassle. If youre not experienced with web hosting, you definitely dont want to be dealing with this kind of thing
Of course, if you opt for buying a domain name with your hosting (or choose a plan that offers one free), then your domain name will be already set up and you simply have to link it to your hosting space from your account dashboard. That, at least, is pretty simple. Even if you buy your domain name from GoDaddy later, connecting it is easy. That makes me think its trying to get you to buy your new domain name directly from it. Anyway, thats what I did the second time round and it was easy
GoDaddy Might Take Your Money, Then Decide Youre a
Three weeks after I signed up for the first time, GoDaddy suddenly decided I was suspicious, and required that I verify my info. The system had flagged me as a fraudulent user
Other hosts do this too, but it happens immediately after signup. Your account doesnt get activated until you provide your ID. GoDaddy suddenly remembered to do this three weeks after I had signed up, when I was no longer actively checking my control panelso I missed the notice
And then they CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT
I lost everything I already had going and had to sign up again, starting completely from scratch
As far as Im concerned, this is ridiculously bad service. I lost time, I lost my work, and if I hadnt thought to take my own screenshot, I would never have been able to connect my domain name to my hosting account
It Got Better On the WordPress Hosting Plan
At least installing WordPress was easyand on the WordPress hosting plan it was ridiculously easy. So easy, it almost seemed too good to be true! Theres an installation wizard that takes you through the whole process, including choosing a theme, so its 100% beginner-friendly. It takes about five minutes from start to finishand if you havent got a domain yet, WordPress will be installed on a temporary domain so you can get started right away
The installation wizard for WordPress is!
4.0
Performance
A Tale of Two Very Different Hosting Plans
For every host I test, I set up a test website with all the usual WordPress bells and whistles. I want it to be as close an approximation as possible of an average working website. I also always ask tech support if they can recommend (or perform) any website optimizations that might help speed things up, to give the host every chance to make a good first impression. I did this twiceonce for the standard shared hosting plan, and again for the WordPress hosting plan. Looking at the results, youd think that Id tested two completely different hosts!
Performance on the Standard Shared Hosting Did Not Impress!
GoDaddys support agent recommended installing the WP Smush plugin, which compresses images in WordPress without sacrificing much in the way of quality. It was a decent suggestion, but it was also the only suggestion
The average complete page load time for my first GoDaddy-hosted website was a ghastly 2.94 seconds, and the average global (not complete) page load was 4.160s. Ideally, you want loading times to be under 2 seconds. At least the uptime reached a solid 99.974%
Ugh.speeds. Truly
GoDaddys WordPress Hosting is Faster But Less Reliable!
I had high hopes for GoDaddys WordPress hostings performance. I mean, it uses SSD, for starters, and its supposed to be optimized for WordPress. I ran lots of tests, though, and the results were kind of inconsistent
The average complete page load time for the website hosted on GoDaddys WordPress Ultimate plan was an okay (but not brilliant) 1.78 seconds. The fastest was 1.1 seconds and the slowest was 3.2 seconds. Like I said inconsistent. The uptime, however, was not such a great story. An average of 99.159% is simply awful
Okay, Im going into the rest of the grisly details now, but if youd rather spare yourself the hosting-geek agony, skip ahead to the Support section now. Let me just warn youthats a whole different kind of agony
There are three data centers to choose from, but GoDaddy is so secretive about their locations that you wont even have any idea where its supposed to perform well. Youre just given a choice between North America Europe and Asia Most other hosts go to great lengths to explain the exact geographic locations of their data centers, complete with pictures and details
As for the tests, GTmetrix is my preferred tool for measuring complete page load times. Then, Sucuri gives me the average global loading times from around the world, and UptimeRobot checks to make sure my site is staying up
Good robot
GTmetrix
Standard Shared Hosting
The fastest complete page load time of 2.2 seconds is well over the recommended maximum of 2s. Never mind the 2.94s average, or the whopping 5s slowest loading time
GoDaddys fastest speed is most hosts slowest speed, and the slowest speed is so bad that any visitor that encounters it will immediately jump ship. The average, actually, is also prettyas two-thirds of your visitors will most likely immediately bounce back to Google
The most amazing thing is that a GoDaddy agent told me that 2.2s is really the fastest speed the service is capable of. I found that to be an unintentionally hilarious confession
GoDaddy WordPress Hosting
The fastest complete page loading speed of 1.1 seconds is decentbut, unfortunately, it didnt last. The wild range of page loading speeds for my test website really bothered me. Sure the average stayed under the magical 2 secondsbut 3.2 seconds is going to send visitors bouncing right back to Googlejust like with the standard shared hosting. I did expect better!
I wish GoDaddy would be more consistent with its speed!
Sucuri
Standard Shared Hosting
When the fastest average global loading time (3.833 seconds) is nearly as slow as the slowest loading time (4.504s), its just bad performance no matter where you are in the world. I mean, the average-average of 4.160s is a bit more than double the recommended page load time
These results are just nasty, and theyre some of the better results:
Moses, meet the Red Sea of Slowness
GoDaddy WordPress Hosting
Because I chose the Europe server for my test website, its no surprise that the page loading speed for Europe is pretty impressive here. Even the global page loading speed average is little more than 1 second. This did give me a little hope although why it took over 4 seconds to load in Los Angeles, USA, I have no idea!
If you thought that the multiple lots of downtime for standard shared hosting from GoDaddy was bad, well you aint seen nothing yet! After such a good start in the performance stakes, what I saw when I logged onto UptimeRobot to check on the uptime of my test website on the WordPress plan was really shocking. I mean, even on the standard shared hosting, GoDaddy got to 99,95%
Admittedly, my test website for the WordPress hosting website was shorter, but over an almost two-week period, there were forty periods of downtime, most lasting 1-2 minutesbut one lasting a whopping 43 minutes. Thats your monthly allowance of downtime with a 99.9% uptime guarantee gone in one period of downtime!
This amount of downtime in less than two weeks is shocking!
There is a 99.9% uptime guarantee, supposedly, but its not a very good oneall you get as compensation is a 5% credit of your monthly fee, which you can only use to purchase additional services from GoDaddy. Also, this guarantee does not apply to a long list of circumstances, from scheduled maintenance to causes beyond our control In other words, dont count on it
3.5
Support
I had a mixed experience with GoDaddys support. It is not the only hosting service to outsource their support to a faraway location (even good web hosting companies, like InterSever and A2 Hosting, are guilty of that), but Godaddys support is a catastrophe of epic proportions
Supposedly, its a live chat service manned by experts available 24/7. In reality, its rarely available within a reasonable time, and sometimes it isnt available at all. Just about every time it was available to me, the agent was less-than-helpful
Theres also phone support, but I cant rate it much higher
Wondering what was so bad? For starters, the agents barely know English, and they dont seem to understand how their company works. They dont know what services are available, or what the differences between them are. They dont understand how web hosting works. They dont even understand howit is to admit that Godaddysperformance is the best it can get
The agents I spoke to ran me in circles, and often disconnected or just stopped answering me. When they disconnect, youre back to the queue again, and nothing is saved from your previous interactions. You have to explain it all againusually, only to be disconnected again
Theres no way to track ongoing issues or to deal with major problemsits mostly you versus a loading screen
My presale chat interaction involved the agent lying to me to about how great the service is, mostly by copy-pasting paragraph after paragraph from her prepared answer sheet. She didnt even always copy-paste correctly
I was trying to understand the difference between the plans, but she didnt know. At first, she said some plans include SSL certificates, but then said only the highest-tier plans do. She didnt know which plans supported WordPress or why I should choose one plan over another. I had to waste almost an hour on this completelysupport interaction
And it didnt get better from there
When I wanted help with installing WordPress, I asked tech support for exactly that
The agent replied, How can I help you
I repeated myself. Can you help me install WordPress
The agent asked what issue I was having
I said, once again, that I wanted to install WordPress
This playful back and forth continued for some time, until I was told to go use Installatron
I then asked for help with connecting my domain, and the agent assured me multiple times that it was already connected. It really wasnt, as domains dont magically connect, and mine wasnt even registered with GoDaddy
This is exactly where a good support agent runs a DNS propagation test to understand where the domain is pointed at. GoDaddys support agent, however, just lied to me. Throughout this entire conversation, I spent long periods of time just staring at my screen, not getting any kind of answer
If Im being kind, the agent was probably juggling 40 other conversations. Or eating peanuts. You never know
I managed to get him to give me the nameserver details so I could connect my domain, and we parted ways. They ended up being the wrong nameservers, and didnt work at all. I had to resort to doing things myself
When I wanted to ask for help with installing my theme and configuring WP, the live chat was unavailable for at least a few hours, so I just gave up
When I sent a message later to request help with optimizing my site, the funniest thing happened. I got to speak with multiple agents, a message or two at a time, before they were all mysteriously disconnected. The agent I did talk with at the end recommended that I install WP Smush. Not bad advice, actually
Still, my page loading time was a sluggish 2.2s
I sarcastically asked if that was the best GoDaddy could do, but the agent told me happily: Yes correct that the mx speed it can achieve
Well, when an agent tells you that terrible speeds are the best a host can do, who are you to question that?
Ive left many chat screenshots out of this article, for all our sakes
When I contacted support about an issue with my website on the WordPress hosting plan, the agent wasnt quite as bad. But the experience was disconcerting. Why? Because I asked a simple question but was given a bizarrely complicated answer. Let me explain
When you use the installation wizard to set up WordPress, you dont set a password yourself. Theres a handy link in your account dashboard that takes you straight to your WordPress admin area. Perfect. Except then I did something (cant remember what) and suddenly that link wasnt working anymore and I couldnt log in to WordPress. I got through to support (by some kind of miracle) really quickly, but then the agent gave me the most bizarre answer to the question how do I reset my password
I mean, that would workbut there are simpler methods!
If youve ever used WordPress, youll know that theres a forgot password link on the login page. All I had to do was click on that link and reset my password, but GoDaddy wanted me to go poking around in the database? Thats like setting fire to your house in order to get rid of some trash! Still, when I went quiet for a moment (because I was laughing too hard to type), the support guy helpfully offered to fix the problem for me and gave me a new password. Wonderful. Bizarre, but at least he was helpful!
3.5
Pricing
GoDaddys prices are expensive by any standard, but when you consider that it doesnt even provide basic features like free SSL certificates, it starts to look like a cash grab. WordPress hosting plans do include SSL certificates, but youll still need to pay extra for the website security basics (with malware removal) unless you choose the Ultimate plan and above
That said, if I havent convinced you to run for your life, the payment terms available are 3, 12, 24, or 36 months. (Plus a monthly option with WordPress hosting plans.) You can only pay through credit card. Even the three-year plan is pretty expensiveespecially compared to competitors like Hostinger or InterServer. And any minor add-on will cost you more than its worth
Theres a 30-day money-back guarantee on long-term plans. If you sign up for a term thats shorter than a year, you only get 48 hours to change your mind
GoDaddys checkout page is filled with automatic upsells youll have to manually remove on the shared hosting plans- if you dont, they can end up costing waaay more than the hosting itself. Services like Free Office 365 Mail are only free for the first year and will renew automatically, potentially costing you hundreds of dollars. (Upsells arent automatically selected on WordPress hosting plansor they werent when I signed up, at least)
GoDaddy doesnt warn you about this, of coursethe company would probably rather have you confused. It almost seems like they really want you to accidentally check out with add-ons you never asked for
A free domain is included with the 1-year plan, but it will renew for a high price. GoDaddy says the value of the domain is over $30 USD a year. Thats just inaccurate. With Namecheap, you could get the same domain name for less than $10 USD a year, plus a privacy shield. You could even get it cheaper from GoDaddy itself, by buying the domain separately
Comparison
How does GoDaddy Hosting match up to the competition?
Ill say it again: Dont use GoDaddys basic shared hosting plans. The domain registration service is decent, the brand is popular, and even non-techies are familiar with it. But the basic hosting services are a huge waste of money. While the WordPress plans are better, theyre too expensive for what you get. Hostingers WordPress plans offer much faster loading speed, near-perfect uptime, and lower prices, not to mention a free domain name, email addresses, a backup solution, and more. If you have the budget to spare, I recommend you check out Liquid Web one of the best premium hosts available today
FAQ
How much does GoDaddy cost?
The cheapest plan comes in at about $5.99 per month when you sign up, and increases by about 50% when you renew your hosting. From there, the bigger and better plans go up in price at a reasonably steady rate. Its not going to break the bank for most of us, but there are cheaper services that provide much better quality hosting. Before you make any final decisions, you should check out Hostingers cheap plans
Why is GoDaddy so cheap?
I would say, because the hosting service itself is an afterthought but the truth is even more disappointing: GoDaddy really isnt that cheap. The prices are average at best, with much better hosts charging less than half of what GoDaddys cheapest plan costs per month
You can do better
For starters, you should take a look at our frequently updated web hosting coupon page to see who is running the best deals right now
Is GoDaddy good for online stores?
That depends. You can use GoDaddys website builder to build an e-commerce site, but its probably not the best choice if you need more than a simple online store with a few products. There are definitely better e-commerce site builders out there
GoDaddys basic shared hosting packages are a different story. With the awful server performance, youre more likely to have customers running off to buy something else, somewhere else, before your store even gets a chance to load
Which web hosts are better than GoDaddy?
Well, almost every other big-name host is better but if you want specifics, I can do specifics. Your best budget-friendly options are Hostinger and InterServer. Hostinger has a $1.99 per month hosting plan that outperforms GoDaddy in every way
You should also look at our list of the best web hosting services right now, as a great many of the hosts youll find there can hit GoDaddy where it hurts, performance-wise
Brent is a freelance web developer who loves experimenting with new technology and sharing his experiences with others. While his career life can get hectic sometimes, he always makes time for the important things in life: good coffee, good wine, and quality time with his twin boys, Aiden and Sean
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Migrated my account. Restored old data. Site destroyed
Godaddy migrated my shared hosting from a legacy service to a new cpanel service. I called in and reviewed site. Told them it was old. They looked at my current site and said I was not going to be migrated. Week later they uploaded the old data.
All my blogs are with godaddy windows hosting, recently i purchased a new hosting plan. Got a free domain with big discount on economy hosting. my suggestion is need to add more features, like others hosting companies are offering.
Brent Emmerson
