GoDaddy Hosting Review 2019 - Quality, Speed, Price and Comparison

Deciding your business is ready for a web presence is easy; choosing the right web hosting service is not. GoDaddy is well known as a seller of domain names, and it's also excellent for personal and commercial web hosting purposes. GoDaddy's well-rounded packages fall just shy of those offered by our Editors' Choice picks, but it has many attractive and useful elements that many prospective customers are sure to find worthwhile.

Shared Web Hosting

If you don't want to spend a lot of money on web hosting, shared hosting is the way to go. This form of cheap web hosting places your website on a server with other sites. So, yes, your site literally shares server resources with others, hence the tier's name. This means that it's far from the most powerful web hosting type, however. The sites sharing the server compete for resources—everything from throughput to storage space. You'll want dedicated or virtual private server (VPS) hosting for muscle if you expect big traffic, or if you want to insulate yourself from big traffic spikes.

GoDaddy has a fine range of Linux- or Windows-based shared web servers. For example, the Economy basic shared hosting package (starts at a $1-per-month introductory rate, renews at $7.99 per month) includes 100GB of storage, the ability to host one website, unlimited monthly data transfers, and a free year of Office 365 Starter Email. Microsoft's mail plan comes with just one email address, but you can upgrade to more accounts for a fee. See the Email Hosting section, below, for more options.

The Deluxe plan (starts at $7.99 per month, renews at $10.99 per month) builds on the Economy package by adding unlimited storage and domains. The Ultimate package (starts at a $12.99 per month, renews at $16.99 per month) adds double the processing power and a one-year Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. FYI, GoDaddy tosses in a free domain name if you sign up for an annual plan.

Speaking of long-term plans, GoDaddy offers steep discounts to people who plan to stick around for the long haul. For example, if you sign up for a 10-year Economy Linux shared hosting plan, you pay $718.80, which is 25 percent off the full price.

GoDaddy's Economy plan is presented as though you can't sign up for a month-to-month payment plan (the lowest price displayed is for a three-month minimum sign up period), but once you add the plan to the cart, the one-month plan appears. We're glad the option exists, but we do wish it were easier to find. We couldn't find it until a GoDaddy pointed it out after we complained that the option didn't exist in a previous version of this review.

GoDaddy has rich shared hosting plans, but HostGator$2.64 at HostGator - Shared still reigns as the PCMag Editors' Choice for shared web hosting services. Like GoDaddy, HostGator boasts unlimited domains and monthly data transfers across the board, and a choice of Linux- or Windows-based servers, but it tops its rival by offering a VoIP number for your business and unlimited storage with all plans.

VPS Web Hosting

VPS or virtual private server hosting is exactly what it sounds like. You're paying for space on a shared server, but one that does much more to isolate you from your server mates than plain old shared hosting does.

Hostwinds may be the PCMag Editors' Choice for VPS hosting, but that doesn't mean that GoDaddy doesn't have quality virtual private server packages. GoDaddy's VPS plans (which start at a $19.99 per month, renews at $29.99 per month) offer Linux- or Windows-based servers, as well as unlimited domains and monthly data transfers. The specs top out at 8GB of RAM, 240GB of storage, and a free SSL for one year. That's good stuff, especially if you sign up for a multi-month plan. The Economy Virtual Private Server plan, for example, drops to just $9.99 per month if you agree to a two-year deal. That's 50 percent off. As with the shared plans, these VPS plans use Office 365 Starter Email.

So why does GoDaddy fall short of winning our VPS hosting Editors' Choice award? It's because Hostwinds simply has a wider range of VPS plans. For example, the base VPS starts at just $16.99 per month (for 1GB of RAM, 30GB of disk space, and 1TB of monthly data transfers), while the upper tier scales up to $574 per month (for 96GB of RAM, 750GB of disk space, and 9TB of monthly data transfers).

Still, GoDaddy's VPS services are a capable option for people who want a web hosting solution that's more powerful than shared web hosting, but don't want to pay dedicated web hosting's relatively expensive cost.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated hosting is the tier you need when you operate a site that demands lots of system resources. With dedicated hosting, your site exists on a server all by itself, thus leveraging all of the server's power. This is the hardware you need to power a site designed to handle millions of visitors per year.

GoDaddy's dedicated servers come in many Linux or Windows configurations. Economy (starts at $89.99 per month, renews at $169 per month) comes with four CPU cores, 4GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, three IP addresses, Office 365 Starter Email, and a free SSL certificate. Value (starts at $104 per month, renews at $199 per month) ups the RAM and storage to 8GB and 1.5TB, respectively. Deluxe (starts at $129 per month, renews at $249 per month) boasts 16GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. Ultimate (starts at $179 per month, renews at $349 per month) has a sizeable 32GB of RAM. Naturally, a long-term commitment nets you big savings. For example, if you sign up for 24 months of the Economy plan, you pay just $79.99 per month).

GoDaddy's dedicated servers are extremely attractive, but AccuWeb$3.36 at AccuWeb - Shared takes the Editors' Choice crown. AccuWeb's servers can be outfitted with up to 512GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and 50TB of monthly data transfers. You can also select either the Linux or Windows operating system.

WordPress Web Hosting

GoDaddy has multiple tiers of unmanaged and managed WordPress hosting. The unmanaged plans have the same prices and specs as GoDaddy's shared plans.

The managed variety the white-glove treatment with four tiers of Linux-based WordPress hosting. Signing up has its advantages. GoDaddy has thousands of WordPress themes and plug-ins, and it offers nightly backups and automatic WordPress software updates. Like other managed WordPress hosts, GoDaddy doesn't require you to install the CMS, as it comes preinstalled. Once you're logged into WordPress, you can create posts, pages, and galleries as you would with any other self-hosted WordPress site.

The Pro 5 plan (starts at $24.99 per month) comes with five domains, 50GB of storage, five staging areas, site backup (for up to 90 days), and a free SSL certificate. Pro 10 (starts at $49.99 per month) ups the domains to 10, storage to 80GB, and staging areas to 10. Pro 25 (starts at $89.99 per month) builds on Pro 10 by offering 25 domains, 25 staging areas, and 100GB of storage. Pro 50 (starts at $169 per month) serves up 50 domains, 200GB of storage, and 50 staging areas. Please note that the renewal prices are the same as the starting prices.

That's a good offering, but A2$3.92 at A2 Hosting - Shared reigns as the Editors' Choice for WordPress hosting. A2 has plans starting as low as $7.99 per month (for unlimited storage, unlimited monthly data transfers, and free SSL certificate) and as high as $24.46 per month (which adds unlimited sites and unlimited databases).

No Cloud Web Hosting

GoDaddy lacks cloud hosting, an alternative to traditional hosting that draws resources from multiple servers. If you want to get into cloud hosting, which lets you expand server resources with ease, we suggest taking a look at DreamHost$2.59 at DreamHost - Shared, our co-Editors' Choice in that category.

DreamHost's small business-friendly packages start at $4.50 per month (for 512MB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers) and top out at $48 per month (for four CPU cores, 8GB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers). If you're just dabbling in cloud hosting, DreamHost is a fine place to start.

Heavily trafficked sites will favor 1&1 Ionos . The co-Editors' Choice has the specs (16-core CPUs, 48GB of RAM) and prorated plans that big businesses crave. In addition, 1&1 Ionos offers customizable servers that you can build from the ground up. Those, of course, cost big bucks. You should reach out to one of the company's customer service reps for pricing information.

Reseller Web Hosting

If you're looking to get into the web hosting business, but you don't want to deal with infrastructure matters, check out GoDaddy's reseller hostingpackages. The company's two plans—the $8.99 per month Basic and the $14.99 per month Pro—offer sales and commission reports and credit card processing. The servers have the same RAM and storage amounts as those that Hostwinds supplies directly, which is not always the case.

Unfortunately, GoDaddy's reseller packages don't come with email; you'd need to sign up for separate email plans for electronic mail. On the upside, GoDaddy lets you apply your own branding to the servers you rent, and it also supplies 24/7 tech support.

Still, Hostwinds goes the extra mile with more generous specs in a variety of server categories. As a result, Hostwinds is the Editors' Choice for reseller hosting.

Setting Up a GoDaddy-Hosted Site

GoDaddy's free website builder is called GoCentral. It's a completely responsive-design tool, which means you get a good-looking and functional mobile website alongside the desktop website you build. The drag-and-drop functionality makes page building a breeze. For $29.99 per month, you can add a capable web store.

Email Hosting

One of the better aspects of GoDaddy is that it is gradually abandoning its old cPanel email hosting service for accounts bundled with Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium, the Editors' Choice for email hosting.

If you want to purchase email, here's the breakdown: Email Essentials (starting at $4.99 per month or $3.99 per month with a two- or three-year commitment) gives you 5GB of email storage. Online Essentials (starting at $9.99 per month or $7.99 per month with a two- or three-year commitment) ups the email capacity to 50GB and adds 1TB of cloud storage. Business Premium (starting at $14.99 per month or $9.99 per month with a two- or three-year commitment) raises the email storage capacity to 50GB and adds unlimited web conferencing and access to online Microsoft Word and Excel. Premium Security (starting at $24.97 per month or $14.99 per month with a two- or three-year commitment) tosses in encryption and Microsoft Office mobile applications.

We found it a simple endeavor to set up our GoDaddy email, as the web host prompted us to create one during the sign-up process. We simply selected the domain to which the email address would be associated, and then entered an email handle and a password. In general, Microsoft Office 365 is fairly straightforward to configure, but GoDaddy has really taken the guesswork out.

Since GoDaddy has essentially repackaged Microsoft Office 365, you get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of email features, both on the user side and from an administrator's perspective. Assuming you go with the Business Premium feature set as we did, you'll get the full Microsoft Office Suite along with its business collaboration tools. This means the usual productivity apps, such as Microsoft Access, Excel, Outlook, and Word, but it also gives you additional team collaboration, online conferencing, and even VoIP phone calling via Microsoft Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. However, we are a little disappointed in the pricing structure, as some of what GoDaddy sells as extra-cost add-ons, such as encryption, is already present if you go with a plan directly from Microsoft.

Along with the slew of desktop apps, you also get access to Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA), a sleek and modern web adaptation of the Outlook email client. It offers a familiar layout for calendars, contacts, and tasks, and a new "focused inbox"—all available in your browser. What Microsoft means by a "focused inbox" is that, rather than just being a dumping ground for all incoming email, it defaults to a dynamic view that's constantly being updated. This tech is based on a machine learning (ML) algorithm that attempts to figure out which email is most important to you; everything else goes to the regular inbox. As you sort emails between the focused inbox and the regular inbox, the algorithm gradually gets better, helping you to concentrate on email that matters most. You'll also be able to use mentions. When creating a new email, if you prepend someone's name with the @ sign, then it will automatically Cc that individual. You can also apply a filter that will show you emails in which you were directly mentioned.

We are pleasantly surprised to find that GoDaddy defaults to the same email management portal that admins would get by purchasing Office 365 directly from Microsoft. The one caveat is that some of the panes have been replaced with links back to the GoDaddy website. This applies particularly to user and license management. Many of the advanced configuration options remain intact, however. Because of this, you'll be able to take advantage of Exchange Online Protection for spam filtering, though you'll have to dig a little more to get to the Security and Compliance panel.

E-Commerce

GoDaddy has ditched its old Quick Shopping Cart e-commerce software in favor of the free GoDaddy Online Store. The new offering boasts many features, including secure checkout, SEO tools, store themes, and unlimited product listings.

Setting up shop with the new tool is straightforward and easy. You select a theme, add products, pricing, and images, and pick your preferred payment and shipping methods. If you plan on using your website to sell products, GoDaddy Online Store is an excellent choice.

Security Features

GoDaddy offers its own Website Security, a product that includes automatic malware scanning, continuous security monitoring, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Content Delivery Network (CDN). Website Security proactively blocks malware and malicious traffic from reaching your site. It also safeguards against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and Zero Day attacks.

You can also purchase Secure Sockets Layer certificates (starting at $69.99 per year), the software that's represented by a green padlock in your web browser when you visit, say, a financial institution's website. If you plan to sell products via your website, consider an SSL certificate an essential purchase, as it safeguards the data exchange between a customer and your servers.

In terms of security for its hosted email services, you'll find this is all hosted in Microsoft's data centers. That means you'll have all the same security benefits as those provided to other Microsoft Office 365 users. Your email data will be encrypted in transit and at rest using SSL and Bitlocker technology. Per Microsoft's publicly available terms of service, Microsoft employees only have highly limited access to your data and only under specific, audited circumstances.

But remember that while these specifications are nice, they only apply to data residing on GoDaddy's servers. In the case of email hosting, for example, users reading their email using a local email client, like Microsoft Outlook, will still be storing all that data on their on-premises devices where it won't be automatically encrypted. That means for full security, you should still invest in local data encryption software. And for those employees who access data from the road and remote locations, keep their data-in-transit safe by using a virtual private network (VPN) client.

GoDaddy hasn't traditionally had an uptime policy for its older CPanel email. But since the company has transitioned to Microsoft Office 365 for its email services, it's now able to enjoy Microsoft's 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, be aware that GoDaddy has replaced the Office 365 health services dashboard with its own internally branded version. It shows the same kinds of information including when the last issue was, and whether or not it's been resolved.

Strong Uptime

Website uptime is one of the most important aspects of a hosting service. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services. You do not want that. Fortunately, GoDaddy was reasonably dependable in our tests.

We use a website monitoring tool to track our test sites' uptime over a two-week period. Every 15 minutes, the tool pings our websites and sends an email if it is unable to contact any sites for at least one minute. The data revealed that our test site didn't go down once during the observation period. You can count on GoDaddy to act as a rock-solid hosting foundation.

Decent Customer Service

GoDaddy has 24/7 telephone support and live web chat support. We placed a call on a weekday morning and spoke to a customer service rep less than two minutes later. We asked about the different email tiers, and once again experienced the best customer support of any of the web hosting services we've tested so far. The rep was friendly and knowledgeable.

A few hours later, we attempted to fire up GoDaddy's customer service web chat to ask an important question: How do we import our existing WordPress.com blog? Unfortunately, the web chat button was grayed out due to the reps being too busy. We had zero issues when we tried to chat again later that day.

GoDaddy offers a 45-day money-back guarantee. That's lengthier than the standard 30-day refund window, but doesn't compete with DreamHost's generous 97-day money-back guarantee.