What Makes GoDaddy Stand Out?
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that GoDaddy is probably one of—if not THE—most well known domain registrars and hosting providers in the business. With a history spanning over 20 years, the company has grown into a worldwide phenomenon; with over 6,000 employees and over 16 million customers located across the globe. It truly is a one-stop shop for the average customer’s online hosting needs. GoDaddy is all about making things fast, simple, affordable and user-friendly; and while their services aren’t for everyone, there’s no denying that decades-long track record; or the sheer number of customers served and currently servicing.
Plans and Pricing
While GoDaddy offers domain registration, website builders, and more, the focus of this review is their hosting solutions. They have a huge range of offerings under this service alone, as you would expect from an industry giant. We’re talking shared, VPS and dedicated hosting options—although you’ll have to look elsewhere for cloud hosting, as GoDaddy scrapped this product in 2017—as well as specialty hosting solutions for platforms like WordPress.
GoDaddy also includes cPanel as your default control panel for website and account management—or Plesk, if you choose a Windows plan. Both are intuitive and easy to use, and much better than homebrew interfaces that some other providers maintain. Moreover, GoDaddy lets you install over a hundred different apps and tools right from your dashboard, all with a single click. Your choices include top content management systems; like the aforementioned WordPress, Drupal, and more.
Shared Hosting: From $7.99 Monthly
Beginners and budget-friendly seekers start here. Shared hosting with GoDaddy comes in three affordable subscription plans that you can choose from depending on your needs and financial resources. The different price points and features included in each tier ensures that you’ll find a plan that fits you—whether you’re looking to build something small or set up an online home for a large business. GoDaddy even lets you choose between Linux- and Windows-based hosting. Not many hosting providers offer both options—especially for shared hosting—so this is definitely a plus. Both offer pretty similar prices and features, as you can see below.
Linux Plans
| Feature | Economy | Deluxe | Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Monthly Price | $7.99 | $10.99 | $16.99 |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 100 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| cPanel | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-Click Install | 125+ applications | 125+ applications | 125+ applications |
| SSL Certificate | No | No | 1 Year |
| Premium DNS | No | No | Yes |
| 24/7 Security w/ DDoS Protection | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The lowest subscription plan they have is the Economy, which is great for basic websites. The Economy regularly costs $7.99 a month, but you can get it for $3.99 a month if you get the 36-month term. You also have the choice to get 3, 12, or 24-month terms, which will set you back $7.99, $5.49 or $4.99 a month, respectively. If you want to go for a month-to-month term, you have no option to do so, sadly. Month-to-month is available for the two higher-tiered plans; although the Deluxe and Ultimate plans do also come with discounts if you choose longer billing cycles.
Windows Plans
| Feature | Economy | Deluxe | Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Monthly Price | $7.99 | $10.99 | $16.99 |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 100 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| MySQL Databases (1 GB Each) | 10 | 25 | Unlimited |
| MSSQL Databases (200 MB Each) | 1 | 2 | Unlimited |
| FTP Users | 50 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Odin Plesk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-Click Install | 50+ applications | 50+ applications | 50+ applications |
| SSL Certificate | No | No | 1 Year |
| Premium DNS | No | No | Yes |
| 24/7 Security w/ DDoS Protection | Yes | Yes | Yes |
All plans come with 24/7 security and DDoS protection, and cPanel or Plesk. That’s peace of mind and user-friendliness right there. However, bear in mind that all promises of unlimited or unmetered resources still fall under normal usage clauses. This means GoDaddy won’t charge you extra so long as you don’t strain servers and inconvenience other users by abusing resource allocations. If your website does end up needing more resources than is reasonable for a shared hosting plan, GoDaddy can seamlessly upgrade your account to a VPS or dedicated server instead.
You can also get a free domain name along with your plan—as long as you get a 12-, 24- or 36-month subscription. However, unlike other providers that give out free domain name registrations for one year—the industry standard—as part of their plans, GoDaddy’s free domain name lasts the length of your initial term. This means that you can potentially get three free years of domain name registration.
Add-ons with separate fees are also available: the GoDaddy web builder, e-commerce readiness, SSL certificates, and more.
VPS Hosting: From $29.99 Monthly
There’s a lot to like about how GoDaddy packages their VPS hosting solutions. The features are decent, and they’re all laid out clearly for the customers to conveniently mix and match. Customers also get the freedom to configure their server in terms of level of control, length of contract, and options for site backup and safeguards. You can choose between Linux and Windows, as well.
| VPS Plan Type | Regular Monthly Price | RAM | Storage | Bandwidth | Dedicated IPs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux Economy | $29.99 | 1 GB | 40 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Linux Value | $39.99 | 2 GB | 60 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Linux Deluxe | $69.99 | 4 GB | 120 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Linux Ultimate | $139.99 | 8 GB | 240 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Windows Economy | $39.99 | 2 GB | 40 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Windows Value | $59.99 | 3 GB | 90 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Windows Deluxe | $79.99 | 4 GB | 120 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
| Windows Ultimate | $149.99 | 8 GB | 240 GB | Unlimited | 3 |
All Linux VPS plans are configurable to allow different levels of control that the customer wants, so there’s Self-Managed, Managed, and Fully Managed hosting. The Self-Managed plan comes with barebones features like automatically installed CentOS, Fedora, or Ubuntu operating systems, root access, DDoS security optimizations, backups every 10 days, and one IP address. The Managed and Fully Managed hosting comes with the barebones features except for the root access and an option for CenOS 6 operating system only. It also includes leverage patching tools, cPanel, automated installation and updates of third party apps, optional migrations (for the managed), and three IP addresses. Aside from that, the pricing scheme depends on the RAM and storage requirements. Windows plans are practically the same, except for the different OS options—of course.
GoDaddy also understands that hiring a full-time server administrator is out of reach for most customers, so they have a selection of expert services for times when you absolutely need help for more difficult tasks; such as content migration, domain and server backups, and server setups. They cost a pretty penny, though! For example: Content Migration costs $99.99 for 7 to 10 days worth of expert work. These services are premium add-ons to what GoDaddy provides for free.
Dedicated Hosting: From $169.99 Monthly
If you’re not the type to sink effort into tweaking every feature of your dedicated server just to get maximum performance, then give GoDaddy’s dedicated hosting services a shot. GoDaddy offers Linux and Windows servers, which gives you a degree more of flexibility than some providers that are Linux-only. Basic server management services and key features like cPanel or Plesk also come free, so you won’t even have to fret much over routine maintenance. However, that’s about the extent of the flexibility you can expect, as GoDaddy foregoes the myriad of server configuration options that you find with other providers. Instead, you get a less complicated line-up of pre-designed servers that may not be fully customizable, but are ready to go in minutes—without you having to do much more than select the package and contract durations that best suit your needs.
| Feature | Economy | Value | Deluxe | Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux Monthly Price | $169.99 | $199.99 | $249.99 | $349.99 |
| Windows Monthly Price | $199.99 | $229.99 | $279.99 | $379.99 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | 1 TB | 1.5 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Dedicated IPs | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
All of GoDaddy’s servers run on the same kind of Intel Xeon quad-core processors, with a maximum of 32 GB of RAM and 4 TB of storage space. You can select different flavors of Linux for your server: Ubuntu, Fedora, or CentOS 6 or 7. Bear in mind, though, that both cPanel and managed services are only available for Linux CentOS 6. That’s right: if you select a different Linux version, you’ll save $10 a month, but you’ll have to forego the control panel software and basic server management services that supposedly come free with your GoDaddy package. On the other hand, if you’d like to veer the other way and add a dedicated team of server administration experts on top of the basic management services, you can opt to pay an additional $110 per month.
Meanwhile, for Windows servers, you can choose between Windows Server 2008 or 2012. If you want to handle all your server maintenance and upkeep through the command-line, you can save $10 a month by opting for a self-managed server. Otherwise, GoDaddy gives you a basic managed server by default (and without additional charge). Like the Linux options, this includes basic services like patching, server monitoring, and backups, as well as the Plesk control panel software. Again, if you’d like to opt for fully managed services instead, that’s an additional $110 per month.
Regardless of which basic package you choose, GoDaddy also gives you the option to purchase add-ons like automatic daily backups and restores or search engine visibility boosts. The site also lets you opt-out of a free year with an SSL certificate, a service that renews for $69.99 a year if you don’t forego it.
WordPress Hosting: From $7.99 Monthly
GoDaddy offers WordPress hosting solutions with reasonable rates that even a starting blogger can afford, plus tools and features needed to keep the website in top shape.
| Feature | Basic | Deluxe | Ultimate | Developer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Monthly Rate | $7.99 | $9.99 | $14.99 | $24.99 |
| Websites | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Web Space | 10 GB | 15 GB | 30 GB | 50 GB |
| Monthly Visitors | 25,000 | 100,000 | 400,000 | 800,000 |
| One-click Staging | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SEO | No | Plugin | Up to 2 sites | N/A |
| 1-year Free SSL | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Malware scan and removal | No | No | Up to 2 sites | N/A |
A backup service is done daily to help protect your data in case of any untoward incident that erases your files from the storage. You can also restore them with a single click, but this option depends on the plan you choose. GoDaddy’s servers are monitored round the clock for anything suspicious; which makes it all the more likely that any untoward activity is stopped before they cause trouble for your website. As with all their plans, GoDaddy offers DDoS protection so you are safe from targeted attacks. The choice of data center—which GoDaddy allows for free—is also a great help for content creators. Location is a crucial factor, and this option can help cut down page loading times.
Other Services
Finding the best hosting provider for your needs does not necessarily stop at just subscribing to the perfect hosting plan. This is the true especially for businesses and projects that don’t have room or resources for extreme micromanagement. Service integration is GoDaddy’s real strength as an industry giant; that their hosting and other services are connected—while admittedly not the best that you can find in terms of value for money—is a huge deal. Customers save time and effort simply by not needing to look anywhere else for what they need.
Website Builder: From $5.99 Monthly
Other hosting providers tend to bundle in their website builders with their hosting plans, or have them be part of their custom control panels. GoDaddy takes a different path: website builder plans. There are four tiered plans to choose from, each with features fit for your increasing needs. From personal blog to professional online store, there’s a GoDaddy Website Builder plan for it. No matter what choice you make, you will always get a website builder and website posting.
| Feature | Personal | Business | Business Plus | Online Store |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Monthly Rate | $5.99 | $9.99 | $14.99 | $29.99 |
| Responsive mobile design | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Website hosting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PayPal Integration | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Security (SSL) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SEO | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Email Marketing | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Social Media Integration | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Globally-Optimized Speed | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Configure shipping and tax rates | No | No | No | Yes |
| Accept Apple Pay and more | No | No | No | Yes |
| Offer discounts and coupons | No | No | No | Yes |
| Manage orders and inventory | No | No | No | Yes |
| Abandoned cart recovery | No | No | No | Yes |
GoDaddy’s Website Builder is designed for web, mobile and social; as well as maximum user-friendliness and great user experience. With a huge inventory of professional and often royalty-free imagery—over 16,000 theme templates available—and a swipe-to-style interface, you can create an attractive website by mixing and matching options. You can also define and add sections—photo galleries, menus, price lists, etc.—as well as specify fonts, colors and more. No coding knowledge needed, and you can even do this from your smartphone! If you are a true beginner when it comes to website design, and cannot be bothered to learn how to use a third party platform—such as WordPress, for instance—GoDaddy’s Website Builder is a great solution.
From GoDaddy’s Website Builder, you can cover multiple social platforms—as you can link to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and more—and provide your audience with a truly seamless experience. With the highest tier plan, you can also run a fully realized online store; complete with not just a basic shopping cart and PayPal integration, but also advanced features like fast checkout and more payment methods.
Domain Registration
GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar; with over 1,107 domain extensions you can choose from, each with varying prices. For example: The common .com extension goes for $9.99, which is the same for the .co extension. More unique domain extensions—like .global, .agency, .guru, and .photography—go for $49.99. $24.99, $27.99, and $17.49, respectively. Additionally, if you already have a registered domain but wish to transfer it to Godaddy, prices start at $7.99; and this comes with a free one year extension.
Apart from offering thousands of unique top level domains, Godaddy also offers private registration. When you register a domain, your personal information can usually be viewed by just about anyone, 24 hours a day. With Godaddy’s private registration features, you can keep your name, address, phone number, or email address away from prying eyes. This should come in handy for keeping spam and other unsolicited emails at bay. There is also a protected registration feature; which should help avoid loss of domain ownership due to credit card expiration, failed billing, outdated contact information, or even simple forgetfulness. Finally, there is also a Certified Domain validation seal that you can get to further bolster your website’s credibility.
Customer Support
GoDaddy provides 24-hour telephone support, which is also reachable through Skype. Anytime you encounter a problem, you can reach GoDaddy and not have to wait for typical business hours. Aside from that, they also provide live chat support and local telephone numbers for 39 countries. These days, it seems that GoDaddy’s customer support team is easily reachable and very competent at handling concerns; however, customer feedback over the years has sometimes not been kind. With two decades of learning how to do it well, we can only hope that GoDaddy’s customer support is at its best right now.
The company’s official website also has a knowledge base of guides and tutorials, as well as a community forum wherein customers can assist and share knowledge with one another.
What's the Verdict on GoDaddy?
GoDaddy Review 2018 – Conclusion
Domain registration is fast and painless when you go with the biggest and the best in the business, but when it comes to other services, GoDaddy may not be your best choice. Overall, GoDaddy’s hosting solutions is a mixed bag. Things like rock-solid uptime, fast page loads, the freedom to choose between Linux and Windows, the money-back guarantee, and more—they make going with GoDaddy all the more enticing. But the various shortcomings—limits on what should be unlimited features, upsells, expensive add-ons and renewal rates, and more—really make it tough to recommend GoDaddy wholeheartedly. GoDaddy’s Website Builder plans are similar: Great for what they are, but limited if you’re looking for real value for money. Of course, GoDaddy’s real edge is the combination of its service integration, impressive track record and name recall. With a reputation built on 20 years of service, it may just be worth it go check out GoDaddy over other hosting providers.
23rd Place8 out of 10
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