You’ve Seen Their Ads…But How Do They Stack Up?
Introduction
Company History
GoDaddy is a staple piece of the history of the internet. They have helped launch millions of websites since 1997. The founder of GoDaddy is Bob Parsons. He was a financial software services visionary who decided to come out of retirement to compete with Network Solutions for domain registration services.
In the last 22 years they have become largest ICANN-accredited registrar on the Internet. Their book of business is over 60,000,000 registered website domains. Their main hub of operation is a 270,000 square foot data center in Phoenix, AZ and they are quickly moving infrastructure into the AWS cloud. (Amazon Web Services)
My Personal Experience
I have been a GoDaddy customer since 2002 when I registered my very first domain. At that time, they weren’t offering hosting services, so I used other providers. (I have been a HostGator customer since 2008.)
I never thought to use them for hosting in the years since because I always thought of them as my Domain Registrar. I am a big believer in using tech companies for their core competency.
Despite having 17 years of experience with them as a customer for domain registration, my first hosting account with them was in 2019 when we launched this hosting review website.
Here is a link to our testing beacon website on GoDaddy services:
http://gd-openhostingreviews.com
Their average uptime and performance metrics are pretty decent:
Uptime – 99.96%
Response Time – 879 ms
WordPress Render Time – 455 milliseconds
With their very basic package, you get a decent 100GB of storage and unmetered bandwidth. Of course you get a free domain for the first year, and it is pretty darn cheap. Their introductory rates start at $2.99/month.
Quick Overview
July 2019 Thru June 2022
| Average Page Speed | 879 ms |
| Average Uptime | 99.96% 15 minutes over 10 outages |
| Average Render Time | 455 ms |
| Average Security Threats | 5 attempts |
| Support | 24/7 Live Chat - 24/7 Phone Support |
| Apps | WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and more |
| Features | Unmetered bandwidth, 100GB storage, free email and free domain 1st year |
| Plans | Shared, WordPress, Cloud, Reseller, VPS and Dedicated Servers |
| Transfer | Not free |
| Pricing | Starting at $5.99/mo (renews at $8.99/mo) |
Three Main Considerations
Speed and Reliability
For as large a company as GoDaddy is, I expect their performance to be solid. No one has time for their website to be down. It is critical for your website to be fast, no matter many people are visiting it.
GoDaddy has operated multi-million dollar infrastructure for years and should be able to deliver. We see well they are delivering their services every month with a simple WordPress website as a testing beacon.
Here is a link to that WordPress site:
http://gd-openhostingreviews.com
In all our testing, GoDaddy has exceeded expectations for uptime and speed. They are also way ahead of most of the competition.
Here is a quick chart showing a breakdown of our GoDaddy performance by month:
July 2019 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 793 ms
Aug 2019 average uptime: 100% average load speed: 776 ms
Sep 2019 average uptime: 100% average load speed: 748 ms
Oct 2019 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 828 ms
Nov 2019 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 851 ms
Dec 2019 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 837 ms
Jan 2020 average uptime: 99.97% average load speed: 886 ms
Feb 2020 average uptime: 99.93% average load speed: 849 ms
Mar 2020 average uptime: 99.97% average load speed: 839 ms
Apr 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 807 ms
May 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 813 ms
Jun 2020 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 866 ms
Aug 2020 average uptime: 99.97% average load speed: 887 ms
Sep 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 870 ms
Oct 2020 average uptime: 99.97% average load speed: 916 ms
Nov 2020 average uptime: 99.64% average load speed: 915 ms
Dec 2020 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 1,033 ms
Jan 2021 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 939 ms
Feb 2021 average uptime: 99.99% average load speed: 964 ms
Mar 2021 average uptime: 99.98% average load speed: 874 ms
Apr 2021 average uptime: 99.94% average load speed: 936 ms
May 2021 average uptime: 99.96% average load speed: 1,003 ms
June 2021 average uptime: 99.94% average load speed: 950 ms
Quality of Support
GoDaddy offers several ways to contact them for support. You can reach their support via phone, email, and live chat.
They also have a Knowledge Base that is quite in-depth, but I found that it is hard to get straight to the point on some things.
I have a go-to method for quickly knowing how well the support techs are going to be able to help. All I do is start a support ticket and ask them a simple basic question.
It is a question that every Data Center Operator should be able to recall quickly:
“What version of RHEL or CentOS is my website running on?”
Pretty straight forward, what operating system is the server using. Nearly all web hosting companies are using Linux, either Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS.
If the first level of support for any Data Center Operation can’t rattle this off the top of their head, or by send a quick IM, then it makes me question what is going on around there.
Here is a screenshot of my support chat:
So a few things to note about this interaction:
It was very painful. It was very difficult to figure out how to initiate a chat. It ended up being 20+ minutes of the agent “Dhanrani” fumbling around, and in the end I didn’t even get the answer to my question.
What made this even worse is the fact that other hosting provider that we have reviewed were able to answer this question within seconds of being asked.
A few positive notes:
Even though the chat was hard to find, GoDaddy puts their phone number everywhere and is easy to find. Their phone agents are very friendly, too.
The chat software did connect quickly and the agent “Dhanrani” verified my account before addressing any questions. Not all hosting companies do this and it leads them prone to social engineering attacks.
Affordability
GoDaddy is one of the lowest priced web hosting providers out there. For a single website you can get started on their basic plan for only $2.99/month. Their top-tier plan for high-traffic websites costs as low as $12.99/month.
This is great considering their uptime and speed results. Sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to low-price hosting companies. Many in the bottom tier can’t deliver results like GoDaddy can.
Remember that these are introductory prices only. After your initial term is up, which is usually a year, the prices will be more. They do offer a money back guarantee, but we have read about some bad experiences from folks trying to take them up on it.
The more time you pay for upfront, the cheaper it is. I wanted want the damage would be with them if I only bought 3 months in advance. Here is a copy of my receipt for purchasing the GoDaddy Economy package for 1 quarter of the year:
Here is what their breakdown is for my renewal after my first three months was up. You don’t get much of a break until you purchase at least a month in advance.
Available Plans, Pricing, and Details
Economy Plan
The Economy Plan comes with hosting for one website at $2.99/month. (The plan renews at $7.99/month). The plan comes with 100 GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, free business email for the first year. Free domain name registration for the first year is also included.
Deluxe Plan
The Deluxe Plan includes all of the features of the Economy Plan, plus unlimited storage and domains. With this plan you can host unlimited websites for $4.99/month. (The plan renews at $10.99/month)
Ultimate Plan
The Ultimate Plan includes all the features of the Deluxe Plan plus some more performance enhancements for $5.99/month (renewing at $16.99/month).
The Ultimate Plan comes with twice the CPU and RAM as the Economy Plan and Deluxe Plan. It also comes with a free SSL certificate for the first year, premium DNS, and unlimited databases.
Maximum Plan
The Maximum Plan comes with everything the Ultimate Plan does plus some more $12.99/month (with a $29.99/month renewal). It comes with two times the CPU power and RAM memory of the Ultimate Plan which gives you two times “maximum site traffic” they call it.
A nice feature in the Maximum Plan is a free SSL certificate the entire term of your purchase, not just for one year like the Ultimate Plan.
Plan Feature Comparison
Plan Features
Plan Features
- Includes Domain: Yes, free for the first year, if you buy at least 12 months of service upfront. Then renews at $12.99/year.
- Easy Setup Process: Complete a three-page registration form. The form gives you a lot of upsells. Be sure to read through all of the boxes that are checked before moving on.
- Admin Dashboard Experience: The GoDaddy Control panel is very clean and it is easy-to-use once you click through it a few times. Uses cPanel for site administration.
- 3rd Party Application Support: One-click integration with Installatron for easy installation of popular open-source scripts like WordPress, Weebly, Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, and more.
- Server Information: Linux CentOS 6, PHP 5 or 7, MySQL 5.6, PostgreSQL 10
- Payment Methods: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, and PayPal.
- Hidden Fees and Clauses: No refunds are given on any domain names. Renewal rates for both domains and hosting increase.
- Upsells: GoDaddy’s check out process has a lot of Upsells. Mostly for extra SSL, data backup, and data security services.
Other Plans
If you need more services or features than the Shared Hosting plans we reviewed, then GoDaddy does offer other types of web hosting services. This including Reseller, VPS, Business Cloud, and Dedicated Servers.
Do We Recommend GoDaddy?
Yes, we recommend GoDaddy for hosting. However, we also recommend shopping around, too.
We really like GoDaddy’s speed and uptime. Their pricing is attractive for the first term, and the renewal isn’t terrible.
The main problem with GoDaddy that we have seen is that many of the basic features you need to run a website are all upsells and addons.
Adding these upsells to your plan could easily double your costs, and the hosting providers on the top of our list include these features for no extra fee.
Visit GoDaddy.com