GoDaddy Review: Is This Popular Web Host Worth Your While? – CNET

7.5/ 10
SCORE

GoDaddy

Pros

• Ability to choose data centers in a variety of locations to improve your site speed for your target audience
• Excellent server performance
• Wide variety of plans to choose from so you can upgrade as your site grows
• Top-notch phone support, including text support

Cons

• Introductory prices are higher than many competitors’ costs
• The basic shared plan doesn’t include SSL certification
• Firewall protection isn’t included with shared or WordPress hosting plans
• Customer support can be aggressive with upsells

If you’re looking for web hosting, you’ve probably heard of GoDaddy. It’s the biggest web hosting company in the world, powering 15.6% of all websites^[1].

However, popularity doesn’t necessarily equal quality. So I tested and reviewed GoDaddy in several key areas: plans and pricing; ease of use; security; performance; and customer service. I used our system for testing web hosting reviews^[2] to complete these assessments and rank the quality of GoDaddy’s web hosting services.

Overall, I found working with GoDaddy relatively simple, and the server performance and customer support exceeded my expectations, proving GoDaddy to be a decent host for hobby blogs and simple websites. However, GoDaddy charges relatively high prices and relies on add-ons for crucial security features. I also found many complaints about GoDaddy regarding more complex support needs, so it may not be ideal for complicated websites.

GoDaddy plans and pricing

GoDaddy offers a variety of web hosting types^[3]:

• Shared hosting
• WordPress hosting
• Website builder hosting
• VPS hosting

Shared hosting is typically the best option for first-time website creators, so I’ll provide a comprehensive overview of GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans and a brief analysis of the other options.

I’ve also compiled the most important information about GoDaddy’s hosting plans below:

All the prices listed here are based on purchasing a three-year plan.

WordPress hosting

WordPress hosting^[6] from GoDaddy is shared hosting optimized for WordPress, a popular content management system — CMS — for creating, maintaining and organizing content like blog posts and landing pages. These plans come with WordPress preinstalled and the highest-tier plan also features advanced WordPress tools like a plugin manager.

GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting^[7] plans also include key security features you won’t get with regular shared hosting: a firewall^[8] and malware^[9] scanning/removal. This makes WordPress hosting seem like the natural choice for anyone who isn’t dead set on another CMS — but there’s a catch. According to customer service, these are “one-time only.” GoDaddy will catch or fix only the first malware issue your site encounters. After that, you’ll have to buy a security subscription.

The lowest-tier WordPress plan from GoDaddy starts at $11 a month and rises to $13 a month on renewal, while the highest-tier plan starts at $18 a month and rises to $23 a month on renewal. These prices are based on purchasing a one-year plan.

Website builder hosting

GoDaddy offers a website builder^[10] that lets you see your changes in real time while editing your site. You can use the website builder itself for free, but if you want to create a website with your own domain^[11], you’ll need to buy a website builder plan^[12].

GoDaddy’s most affordable website builder plan starts at $11 a month and rises to $13 a month on renewal. The most expensive website builder plan starts at $13 a month and rises to $27 a month on renewal.

VPS hosting

VPS hosting^[13] involves several virtual private servers being created on a single physical server. Each VPS has a vCPU — virtual central processing unit — and dedicated RAM, plus significant amounts of dedicated storage. This allows VPS sites to store thousands of large files, like high-resolution images, and accommodate several hundred thousand monthly visitors.

GoDaddy offers both managed and unmanaged^[14] VPS hosting. The unmanaged plans are reasonably priced, with the lowest-tier option starting at $9 a month and the highest-tier option starting at $230 a month. Managed plans are far more expensive, with the lowest-tier plan starting at $99 a month and the highest-tier plan starting at $320 a month.

Ease of use: Mostly simple, with a few caveats

After taking a close look at GoDaddy’s plans, the next step in my GoDaddy review was testing the following processes: purchase/checkout, account management and website and server management.

Purchase process

GoDaddy’s purchase process is pretty involved. A Cart box appears on the right side of the screen when you select a plan, complete with our first red flag: You’re automatically signed up for a free trial of Microsoft 365 Email Essentials, complete with an auto-renew.

Security tools and SSL setup sound great. In fact, they’re essential — which is why they’ll probably be bundled into your hosting plan if you buy it elsewhere. Malware scanning might not be included, but other popular hosts, like HostGator^[18] and A2 Hosting, include built-in firewalls and automatically set up your (free) SSL certificate for you, even on their lowest-cost plans.

Once you approve the items you’re purchasing — and add these features if you want them — you’ll be asked to create an account, then enter your billing details.

Overall, the GoDaddy purchase process is highly involved, with unnecessary steps and aggressive upsells for features other hosts offer for free. The whole experience is terrible when compared with the one-page checkout offered by HostGator and A2 Hosting — the latter of which doesn’t even try to sell you any add-ons.

Account management

Logging in to GoDaddy doesn’t automatically take you to your account management area. Instead, you need to click on your name at the top of the page to access account management. Many sites, including web hosts like HostGator, hold account information in this area, but the other web hosts I’ve tested so far, such as A2 Hosting, also direct you to your account dashboard as soon as you log in.

The My Products page is clearly laid out, allowing you to access and manage your domain, website and other products from one area.

Thankfully, this was an easy fix. I clicked the Change link beside the Primary domain, selected my domain name, waited a few minutes and refreshed the page. From there, I could access my WordPress dashboard by clicking Edit Site.

GoDaddy’s WordPress is the basic CMS and one plugin: Limit Login Attempts. This plugin helps protect your site from brute-force attacks and is one I’ve installed on all my own sites, so I was happy to see it.

The cPanel loads more slowly than I’m used to, but otherwise everything looks how I expected. Once you’ve spent a few minutes exploring the navigation and learning about the various options listed, it’ll be easy to navigate — and there’s a good chance you won’t need to enter this area at all.

Based on this data, I came up with the following average loading speeds:

• Mobile loading speed of 2.74 seconds
• Desktop loading speed of 1.84 seconds
• Overall average of 2.29 seconds

This data isn’t perfect — loading speeds vary based on devices and internet plans — but it gives a good idea of what users will experience in various locations if you’re using a US-based server. Average load times may change if you choose a data center in another location. Still, I’m confident that this gives a good representation of loading speed for most GoDaddy sites — and it earns GoDaddy a speed ranking of 8/10.

This is the best loading speed offered by any of the hosts I’ve tested so far, though the averages are all under three seconds. HostGator’s average loading time was 2.41 seconds, just a little bit slower. A2 Hosting was even slower, with an average of 2.55 seconds.

Overall performance ranking

GoDaddy provides impressive server performance, surpassing its 99.9% uptime guarantee and offering decent loading speeds in most regions. Overall, GoDaddy earned a 9/10 performance ranking during my tests.

How does this compare to other popular hosts? Well, it’s a lot better than HostGator, which experienced seven minutes of downtime during my week of testing and had poor loading speeds outside the US, earning it a mere 6/10 for performance. A2 Hosting’s uptime was on par with GoDaddy’s, but the loading speeds were somewhat slower, earning it an 8.5/10 in performance.

GoDaddy security: Where GoDaddy falls down

GoDaddy’s built-in security is terrible for shared hosting plans. You don’t get a firewall, DDoS protection or any other standard security measures other than SSL encryption — and even that’s limited to one year on the lowest-tier plan, after which you have to pay $99.99 for the service.

The WordPress hosting page says these plans come with a firewall, but there’s a catch: The firewall is only for one-time use. After the first time it detects and removes malware, you’ll be required to pay for an enhanced safety plan.

VPS hosting plans are the only GoDaddy plans with a built-in firewall suitable for ongoing use — and you have to configure it yourself.

This frankly feels extortionate, especially when compared with other hosting providers. For example:

• HostGator includes SSL certification and firewall protection, including DDoS protection, with all shared hosting plans. Plans start at $3.75 a month — cheaper than the lowest-cost GoDaddy plan.
• A2 Hosting includes SSL certification, firewall protection, DDoS protection, brute-force protection, virus scanning and server hardening with all shared hosting plans. These packages start at $2.99 a month.

Even DreamHost — a hosting company that gave me a lot of trouble — offers free SSL certification and a basic firewall with all shared hosting plans.

GoDaddy customer support: An overall positive experience

No review is complete without taking a look at customer service. I looked at three aspects of customer support: the knowledge base, direct communication and reputation.

Knowledge base

The GoDaddy knowledge base is easy to navigate, with a prominent search function and clear icons for commonly searched categories of content.

Let’s break this down a bit:

• HostGator, Dreamhost and A2 Hosting all offer better security features for shared hosting plans, including perma-free SSL certification.
• Dreamhost and A2 hosting offer more storage than GoDaddy on their basic shared hosting plans.
• All three of the hosts considered for this comparison offer introductory prices at $2-$3 less than the most affordable GoDaddy plan.
• Renewal pricing at GoDaddy sits in the midrange. HostGator’s base plan has the same renewal cost as GoDaddy’s most affordable plan, Dreamhost’s most basic plan is significantly more affordable, and A2 Hosting’s most affordable plan comes with a slightly higher renewal cost.
• Customer service is the one place where GoDaddy is notably more reliable than the other hosts. However, this is only my experience — many other people have experienced shoddy customer support with GoDaddy.

Overall, GoDaddy’s value isn’t great. All the other hosts I’ve looked at include more security features and two of them offer more storage — all for lower introductory rates than GoDaddy. A2 Hosting’s renewal rate is more expensive, but with the 100GB of storage and additional security features, its value is still superior to GoDaddy’s lowest-cost shared hosting plan.

Based on this analysis, GoDaddy earns a value ranking of 5/10.

GoDaddy: Is it right for you?

So, is GoDaddy right for you? Well, let’s take a look at how it ranks:

• Ease of use – 7.5/10
• Performance – 9/10
• Customer support – 8/10
• Value – 5/10

This gives GoDaddy an overall ranking of 7.5/10. Though this isn’t the best ranking possible, it’s comparable to what you’ll get from other popular web hosts — HostGator received a 7/10 — and shows that GoDaddy is reliable for most websites, especially simple websites with low support needs.

My one big issue with GoDaddy is the reliance on add-ons for basic security measures on shared and WordPress hosting plans. I would strongly consider avoiding GoDaddy to avoid paying extra for things like a firewall, but the $3 a month for additional security measures won’t break the bank for most users — and VPS hosting users won’t have to worry about this problem.