GoDaddy Review

June 13, 2024 / Daniel Blechynden

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GoDaddy

Editorial Score9.2

Performance and uptime

Generally reliable uptime of around 99.9%, loading speeds are quick, not always be optimized for peak performance 9.0

Features

Provide essential tools for site building and management, one-click installs, sufficient storage, standard security features 9.0

Security

Strong security protocols, including SSL certificates, regular backups, and malware scanning, DDoS protection 9.0

Scalability

Good scalability options with shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting, upgrading resources is straightforward but may involve downtime 9.0

Customer support

Extensive customer support with long hours, including evenings and weekends, phone, live chat, and email 10

At A Glance

GoDaddy offers beginner-friendly hosting solutions built on an intuitive management dashboard and a cPanel control panel. It’s a little high-priced, but it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee and introductory discounts. You will benefit from a range of features, including unmetered bandwidth and a free domain with shared plans. If you’re looking for a no-frills host, GoDaddy is worth considering.

Bandwidth: Unmetered

Free marketing offer: Introductory discounts

Uptime: 99.9% uptime guarantee

Website builder: Yes (with separate subscription)

Money-back guarantee: 30 days

Price per month: From $5.99

Overview

GoDaddy offers versatile hosting solutions that are suitable for absolute newbies and advanced developers alike. Its no-frills shared hosting is a little basic, but it comes with a tidy user interface, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and excellent educational resources.

You will also find advanced VPS, WordPress, business, and dedicated server hosting. Both managed and unmanaged solutions are available, and you will receive excellent support from the customer service team. Although it’s a little more expensive than some of the competitors, GoDaddy presents as a powerful beginner-friendly hosting option.

Best Suited For

GoDaddy targets beginners entering the market for the first time. Its shared hosting solutions are versatile yet easy to use, and it has an intuitive, user-friendly management dashboard. However, there’s still plenty here for advanced webmasters, with everything from self-managed VPS hosting to fully-managed dedicated servers.

Hosting Types

GoDaddy offers a number of different types of hosting, ranging from simple shared plans to dedicated server solutions. Its shared plans, which are the lowest tier of its offerings, are quite good as far as shared hosting goes, but they are also expensive compared to the alternatives, and some advanced features are lacking.

Specialized WordPress hosting is available, and this includes basic management, WordPress-optimized servers, and a one-click website migration tool. This is a good option for beginners who want to create a site on WordPress, but who may not have the technical skills to configure their server properly.

VPS (virtual private server) hosting is also available for those who need something slightly more powerful. GoDaddy’s VPS solutions are self-managed, giving you the flexibility to configure them the way you want. If you’re less technical-minded, the slightly more expensive managed business hosting packages deliver the power of VPS with the usability of shared hosting.

At the top end, GoDaddy’s dedicated servers are powerful and versatile. Both managed and unmanaged options are available, although the former can get rather expensive.

Hosting Features

GoDaddy is a beginner-friendly hosting provider, and its solutions are backed by a number of noteworthy features.

cPanel control panel

All shared hosting and many of the other packages come with a cPanel control panel. This is accepted as one of the industry leaders in control panels, and it’s beginner friendly yet packed with advanced tools.

Website builder

GoDaddy has a separate website builder product that’s an excellent option for those who want to get online fast. It’s a little basic, and its section-based editor does have limited design flexibility, but it’s a great alternative to purchasing hosting and using a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress.

Free domain

All shared hosting accounts come with a free domain for the first year of your subscription. However, this is only available if you sign up for a year or more in advance.

Free Microsoft Office 365

All four shared hosting plans also come with access to free Microsoft 365 mailboxes for the first year. This could be useful and save you a little money if you plan to use Microsoft 365.

One-click app installation

GoDaddy’s shared hosting and many of the other plans come with the Installatron one-click installer. This enables you to install apps such as WordPress with the click of a button.

Plans & Pricing

GoDaddy has four shared hosting plans that start from $6.99 per month with an initial three-year subscription (increases to $8.99-$24.99 per month on renewal). Monthly subscriptions range from $10.99 to $29.99 per month, and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The lowest-tier Economy plan (from $5.99 per month) supports a single website with 100GB of storage and unmetered bandwidth. The Deluxe (from $7.99 per month) and Ultimate (from $12.99 per month) plans add unlimited websites and storage, among other tools. The high-end Maximum plan ($19.99 per month) adds boosted performance and unlimited free SSL certificates.

There are also 4 configurable VPS plans ranging from $4.99 to $69.99 per month with standard RAM and $9.99 to $99.99 per month with high RAM. The 4 business hosting plans are similarly powerful, include extra server management, and range from $19.99 to $59.99 per month.

Other options include managed WordPress hosting, which starts from $11.99 per month, and dedicated server hosting, which starts at $159.99 per month. Both managed and unmanaged dedicated server options are available.

Uptime and Performance

GoDaddy is a leader in the web hosting space, and its performance doesn’t disappoint. For starters, it offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This is standard for most hosting providers, but it’s still good to see.

On top of this, GoDaddy is known for its decent server speeds. It’s certainly not the fastest host on the market, but its shared hosting performs around the average for similar hosts. All servers are backed by a suite of security features, including advanced physical security and 24/7 server monitoring by a team of professionals.

Technology

GoDaddy doesn’t provide a large amount of information about the technology behind its hosting solutions. However, it’s one of the world’s largest hosting companies, and you can rest assured that your site is secure and well managed. It hosts more than 5 million websites on its 35,000 servers, and continues to invest in new infrastructure to drive its many different hosting services.

One thing we did notice is that GoDaddy offers a number of data centers across the world. You can switch data centers from your hosting control panel, enabling you to bring your website geographically closer to your main audience. This will, in turn, improve your site’s performance.

Ease of Use

GoDaddy is a beginner-friendly hosting provider that targets those with little experience. Its main dashboard is tidy and easy to navigate. Advanced tools are available, but they aren’t forced onto you, and you won’t have to worry about them unless you understand them and want to use them.

With a shared hosting subscription, you will have access to a cPanel control panel. This is the hosting industry-standard, and it’s known as one of the most intuitive, versatile control panels on the market.

All things considered, you shouldn’t have any trouble using GoDaddy, even if you have no web development experience.

Support Services

GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone and live chat support, and the team is generally friendly and responsive. You should receive a response from a live chat agent within minutes, and the person we spoke with answered our questions quickly and concisely. However, the automated phone menus can become frustrating to navigate.

Along with its live support streams, GoDaddy has an excellent help center. This is fully searchable and contains a vast array of resources touching on every aspect of hosting, including setting up your account, linking your domain, and various advanced configuration actions. Here, you will find step-by-step guides, video tutorials, informational articles, and more.

In Conclusion

GoDaddy is one of the world’s most popular web hosting companies, and it’s easy to see why. It offers a selection of beginner-friendly hosting solutions, and its shared plans are very easy to get started with. It’s not the cheapest host we’ve seen, but the 30-day money-back guarantee essentially enables you to test it risk-free.

On top of this, the management dashboard is versatile and easy to navigate, there’s a selection of more powerful options for advanced users, and the customer service is decent. We’d suggest GoDaddy if you’re looking for a user-friendly, hassle-free hosting option.

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