GoDaddy Reviews of 2021
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Our Verdict: Outstanding Choice for All-In-One Hosting
GoDaddy is best known for their domain registration services, but how do they stack up as a web host?
They offer a variety of hosting plans, including shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting. GoDaddy is also one of the few web hosting services that offers both Linux and Windows hosting.
We created this guide so that users searching for their ideal web host have all the necessary details about GoDaddy in one place. That includes customer and expert reviews, an overview of the plans they offer, general pros and cons, and frequently asked questions.
By using our special coupon code, CJC2OFF30, you can save 79% on hosting and more.
Over 580 of our users have rated GoDaddy, giving them an average score of 3 out of 5 stars. This is a respectable rating, but if you want to review your other options, check out our complete guide to the best-rated web hosts.
Quick Overview
With 72 million domain names under their management, GoDaddy is the biggest domain registrar in the world. Another thing that sets them apart from other hosting providers is that they are particularly focused on catering to the needs of small businesses.
Here’s an overview of everything else you need to know about GoDaddy:
Company Culture
Frankly, I came into this review with the opposite of a soft spot for GoDaddy.
After all, they made their name from Super Bowl ads, bikinis, and controversy in the past.
But when I looked at their services recently, I was pleasantly surprised. It appears that GoDaddy has embarked on a new brand image of late.
From a marketing perspective, I think they realized that using scantily-clad women to sell domain names was only going to get them so far.
GoDaddy, in fact, released 2017/18 diversity statistics which revealed that significant improvements have been made in gender representation at their company — another pleasant surprise.
So, to their credit, GoDaddy stepped back, took a hard look in the mirror, and decided to reinvent their brand for the better.
Uptime and Average Response Time
Over the past 10 months, GoDaddy boasted an uptime rate of 99.992%.
GoDaddy also had an average response time of 1,053 ms, as measured by Pingdom. This is far from impressive, as many top hosts have an average response time in the low 300s.
You should note that these figures were only taken from one site that we monitor on GoDaddy, so the results may be slightly different for your site.
Control Panel
GoDaddy offers a cPanel-based interface for Linux hosting, while their Windows servers use Plesk.
I tested cPanel. The dashboard layout is very user-friendly. Everything’s clearly marked and categorized, with a hint at where to start first.
If you’re unfamiliar with cPanel, here are a few useful features it offers:
- Easy installation of apps and add-ons
- Email management
- Database management
- Overall, a flexible environment for your website
Datacenters
GoDaddy has a datacenter located near its headquarters in Phoenix, along with two additional Arizona facilities and others in:
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- Ashburn
- Amsterdam
- Singapore
Guarantees and Trial Periods
For shared hosting, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee. To request your money back, just call customer support. You can also downgrade your plan at any point if you like.
And they offer the following 99.9% uptime guarantee: “If we fail to maintain this Service Uptime Guarantee in a particular month (as solely determined by us), you may contact us and request a credit of 5% of your monthly hosting fee for that month.”
Lowest Price for Hosting
Their cheapest hosting plan is $8.99/month, but they’ll reduce that rate to $5.99/month for the initial term. When you renew for your second year, the cost goes back up to $8.99.
Backup Policy
For managed WordPress plans, backups are included for no extra charge. You can initiate a backup or restore from your control panel. For other plans, you can add 1-click restore backups for $2.99/month.
Behind the Scenes
To wrap things up, here’s a quick summary of all the other notable GoDaddy features. Their intuitive account dashboard is especially useful.
- Products Dashboard
- Upgrading Your Plan
- Shared Hosting File Manager
- cPanel Account Dashboard
- Check All Your Site’s Stats on the cPanel Dashboard
- cPanel Email Dashboard
- Professional Email Add-On
- Welcome Email with Promotional Offer
Pros and Cons
Like all hosting companies, GoDaddy has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are the most important ones to keep in mind while you decide which hosting company to choose.
| Pros | Cons |
| >GoDaddy provides a lot of tools that can help small businesses be more productive — you can get online in minutes with dozens of templates to choose from based on your product or service >24/7 phone and chat support in dozens of languages | >Adding on à la carte products (site backups, website builder, etc.) can get pricey >Unlike many other providers, GoDaddy’s shared hosting packages do not include a free CDN |
GoDaddy’s Shared Hosting Plans
GoDaddy offers four plan tiers for shared hosting.
In the table below, you can compare the main differences between these plans side-by-side:
| Economy | Deluxe | Ultimate | Maximum | |
| Website Allowance | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 100 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free SSL Certificate | No | No | Yes (1 year) | Yes (full-term) |
| Databases | 10 x 1GB | 25 x 1GB | Unlimited x 1GB | Unlimited x 1GB |
| Starting (Discount) Price | $5.99/mo | $7.99/mo | $12.99/mo | $19.99/mo |
| Renewal Price | $8.99/mo | $11.99/mo | $16.99/mo | $24.99/mo |
GoDaddy’s library of 1-click installs comes via Installatron.
Also, all of these plans include:
- Unmetered traffic
- One year of free domain registration
- 1-click installs (125+ free apps)
- 1-click domain setup
- Easy-to-use control panel
- 24/7 network security and DDoS protection
- 24/7 phone support
GoDaddy’s Premium Hosting Plans
Shared hosting may not be able to handle the technical needs of sites that get a decent amount of traffic. In that case, you should check out GoDaddy’s virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated server plans.
VPS Hosting Plans
The cheapest managed VPS plan starts at $99.99/month and includes:
- 1 CPU core
- 2 GB RAM
- 40 GB storage
You could save money by choosing one of GoDaddy’s self-managed VPS plans, but then you would miss out on:
- AutoSSL functionality with cPanel
- Automated weekly backups
- Automated software updates and patches
- Uptime monitoring
- Free 1-click installs
Dedicated Servers
GoDaddy’s dedicated server plans are definitely on the higher end of the cost and performance scale. Their prices start at $129.99/month for the following resources:
- Intel Xeon-D processor
- 4 CPU cores
- 32 GB RAM
- 2 x 4 TB HDD Storage (RAID-1)
As with the VPS plans, you can choose between self-managed or managed options for your dedicated servers. All dedicated plans also include DDoS protection, a free SSL certificate, and a dedicated IP address.
The GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy also offers a website builder and marketing suite called Websites + Marketing.
It’s extremely easy to build your site from scratch using this tool. They give you dozens of pre-built templates to choose from — then, you just need to fill in the template with your own content. You can add and remove sections to customize the layout however you want.
Websites + Marketing can also help you engage customers via email, manage your online reviews, and improve your site’s position in search rankings.
And with prices starting at just $9.99/month, Websites + Marketing is much more affordable than most page builder tools.
The most expensive Websites + Marketing plan is $24.99/month, and it allows you to build a fully functional online store.
Looking for a great GoDaddy deal?
You can currently save up to 87% on GoDaddy plans using this special discount link. Includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Great Support Staff, but Documentation? Not So Much
GoDaddy has gone all-out in the support personnel department. They employ over 4,700 customer support reps.
These reps are all assigned to specific countries — GoDaddy offers support services in 27 languages.
You can contact support whenever you like over the phone or via online chat. The best part is that GoDaddy’s level of support isn’t contingent on which hosting plan you choose.
Outstanding Customer Support
My experience with their live support was truly outstanding. When I chatted with support personnel, I received helpful answers to my questions from reps who were genuinely interested in understanding me. Also, the wait times were relatively short.
Self-Help Documentation
On the other hand, finding the solution to a problem yourself is a bit difficult to accomplish.
There’s no search bar for support articles at the top of GoDaddy’s homepage (the search bar you do see is for finding domain names). Nine times out of ten, when I needed help I had to resort to text-chatting with a support rep.
I will say that whenever I could find a page I was looking for, the steps were extremely clear, easy to follow, and backed up with relevant images. I was pleased to see that none of the help pages I found were outdated.
There’s also the community forums, but GoDaddy’s support staff doesn’t moderate this content, and a lot of questions go unanswered or poorly addressed.
Overall, I’d rate their support material as “fair”. The content is good, but it can be difficult to find what you need.
Uptime Guarantee and How to Request It
GoDaddy has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, but they determine the percentages of uptime themselves. Assuming you somehow find out about a lack of uptime, you must contact them yourself to cash in on the guarantee.
Even if you are able to jump through those hoops, your reward is merely a 5% credit on your next month of hosting, which on low-tier plans could be a whopping 20 cents.
The Mystery of GoDaddy’s Infrastructure
GoDaddy keeps pretty mum about their infrastructure. I was able to find out that they use 37,000+ servers spread out across at least nine datacenters, but they don’t publish information about their network setup.
According to a 2018 press release from Business Wire, GoDaddy committed to a multi-year transition to AWS and will make full use of Amazon’s cloud software and hardware services.
No Content Delivery Network
I was surprised to discover that GoDaddy doesn’t use a content delivery network to improve performance, and I couldn’t find a way to install one in their help documentation.
I assume that on the VPS and dedicated plans you can install Cloudflare or another CDN yourself, but shared hosting is left out in the cold, CDN-wise.
GoDaddy Alternatives
If GoDaddy sounds intriguing to you, you might want to compare its plans to similar web hosts. The web hosts below are similar in that they also offer website builders, sell domain names, and cater to small businesses:
Our top picks are iPage, HostPapa, and HostGator — take a look at what you get in terms of freebies and performance with their basic shared hosting plans:
| iPage | HostPapa | HostGator | |
| Bandwidth | Scalable | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | Unlimited | 100 GB | Unlimited |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Support | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Price | $1.99/month | $3.95/month | $2.08/month |
Bluehost is yet another option worth considering. They don’t have their own site builder, but they do provide you with free access to a CDN.
Most Popular GoDaddy.com Alternatives
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(Billed as $1 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
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(Billed as $1 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
Usual price: – Get % off!
Starts at:
$2.88
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(Billed as $1 Per Month) ⓘPrices in are approximate, based on current exchange rates. The host will likely charge you in USD, or at a different exchange rate.
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Interested in GoDaddy?
Our readers can currently save up to 87% on GoDaddy plans using this special discount link. Includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
GoDaddy Review Conclusion
GoDaddy is great for:
- Small businesses or entrepreneurs who want to get a website up quickly at a good initial price. As your business grows, you can expand the services you get from GoDaddy, such as adding an online store. But GoDaddy probably isn’t for you if you need enterprise solutions or extensive development tools.
- No matter the size of your business, GoDaddy is also a great choice for anyone who isn’t super tech-savvy and wants an easy-to-use website builder.
With all the information you have here, you should be in a position to make the right choice for your site. Happy hosting!
Contributing editor: Frank Moraes
About Natalie Mootz
Natalie writes about consumer tech and enjoys all manner of geeky things. She lives in California with her husband, two cats, and a banjo.Connect with Natalie
GoDaddy.com Frequently Asked Questions
- How easy is it to transfer an existing website to GoDaddy?
GoDaddy makes it very easy to transfer an existing website to their web hosting services. If you are moving a simple site that was built with HTML, all you need to do is access the existing website files and upload them through GoDaddy’s Hosting Control Center, or by using an FTP client.
GoDaddy will also automatically migrate your WordPress site for you. All you need to do is enter some basic information about your site into an online form, and then GoDaddy takes care of the rest.
- Where can I find the 1-click install options?
You can find the 1-click install options in your control panel. Look for the Installatron icon (GoDaddy’s 1-click provider is Installatron). For a full list of the available apps, visit Installatron’s website.
- How many email addresses do I get on the cheapest hosting plans?
The cheapest GoDaddy hosting plan provides you with unlimited email addresses at no additional cost. You can create an email address by logging in to your Workspace Control Center.
- Does GoDaddy allow me to create unlimited websites?
Most of GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans allow you to create unlimited websites, apart from the most basic plan which is limited to one website only. The WordPress plans are also limited to one site. You can create as many sites as you have resources for with the VPS and dedicated plans.
- Is the bandwidth and storage unlimited?
On some plans, GoDaddy refers to bandwidth and storage as being unmetered. You will only be charged for extra usage if you don’t use your hosting account for normal activities. For example, sharing large files is likely to attract an additional fee due to excessive bandwidth usage.
- What languages do customer service operators speak?
GoDaddy customer service is available in 27 languages, including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Turkish, Russian, and Chinese.
- Can I pay for my hosting with PayPal?
PayPal is available in some territories. Some promotional discounts don’t work with PayPal, though.
GoDaddy also accepts credit cards, Good As Gold, Discover Network, JCB, Diners Club International, AstroPay, CCAvenue, Invoice (boletos), e-check (ACH), and GoDaddy’s own gift cards. Payment options vary depending on customer location.
- Does GoDaddy have a reseller program?
Yes. GoDaddy offers two different reseller hosting packages, which benefit from discounted pricing, a white label billing system, payment processing services, and sales reports. They also have an affiliate program for referral links and GoDaddy Pro for web developers and designers.
- Can I pay for my hosting monthly?
GoDaddy offers monthly payments as well as longer payment periods. The longest cycle is three years.
Note that if you choose to sign up for a longer contract, you will save money.
- Is Magento supported?
Yes. Magento can be used on GoDaddy shared hosting plans, but you will almost always see better performance if you use a VPS or dedicated server.
There is no specific Magento-optimized plan, but it is provided as a 1-click install.
- How do I check my email on GoDaddy?
You can access GoDaddy email through your web browser using this interface.
- How do I link my GoDaddy domain to WordPress?
If your WordPress site is hosted with a different provider, ask them which nameservers you should use. Go to GoDaddy and add those nameservers to your domain.
Allow a minimum of 24 hours for the changes to propagate.
Then, go to your dashboard and select Settings > General. Carefully type your domain name into the URL field, and save.
- How does GoDaddy Search Engine Visibility work?
Search Engine Visibility is a GoDaddy service that can improve your search engine rankings.
Features include search engine submission, an SEO checklist, a site map creator, and a keyword generator. GoDaddy does not guarantee that your site’s rankings will be improved.
- How do I make changes to my website on GoDaddy?
The way you edit your website depends on the tool you used to create it. If you used the GoDaddy website builder, editing is simple: log into your GoDaddy account, then follow the instructions to make changes to your site.
If you used another platform, such as WordPress, log into the admin area to edit your website.
- How do I use WordPress with GoDaddy?
GoDaddy allows hosting customers to install WordPress quickly and easily on their own hosting account. Once you purchase a hosting plan, the WordPress software is free to use.
If you prefer, you can purchase a managed WordPress package and let GoDaddy take care of all the updates and bug fixes for you.
- How do I create an email account with GoDaddy?
You can create a new Workspace email account by logging into your GoDaddy control panel. In the email settings area, click Create above the list of email addresses.
Once you’ve completed all of the steps required, GoDaddy will send you an email message with configuration instructions for your computer, phone, and tablet.
- How do you set up GoDaddy email on an iPhone?
You can add a GoDaddy Workspace email account to your iPhone’s Mail accounts, but you’ll need to get your email server information from GoDaddy’s Email Setup Center first.
In the Mail app on your iPhone, add a new account and tap Other. Choose IMAP or POP, and then fill in the details from the Email Setup Center.
- What is the POP server for GoDaddy?
The GoDaddy POP server address is pop.secureserver.net.
All GoDaddy email accounts are compatible with POP. On some plans, you can also use IMAP, which can be more convenient when using a single account on multiple devices. Check the fine print to find out whether IMAP is offered on your plan.
GoDaddy.com Reviews by Our Community
Overall Rating from 602 Reviews by GoDaddy.com Customers
| Support | |
|---|---|
| Quality | |
| Features | |
| Value |
Most Helpful Reviews
Manjesh shetty gopcsoft.com
Jul 06, 2016
Godaddy is great hosting company
Reason:
1. Payment Mode : Godaddy has many modes of payments.
2. support : Godaddy offers awesome support if you mess up with your website they will resolve your issue in No time.
3.
Uptime : When it comes to Uptime I rank GoDaddy 6/10 because In most cases server will be down for a Min(Not every time)
4. Price : You can buy a domain and many other products at a cheap price and you can apply many coupons.
5.Server response : Server response is bit slow when it is compared to other hosting services like HostGator
Overall Godaddy best hosting services
Alejandro Chataing castingsaca.com
Mar 28, 2015
Rocks:
Pr0s:
-It offers the cheapest service in the market of hosting. It can get you started with little money. I recommend their services to small companies and Entrepreneurs.
-Preferred choice for countries with no dollar currency (which is my personal case Venezuela).
If you are the kind of person to find it a bit hard to get your hands in a few dollars, then godaddy can definitely help you out. Its marketing campaigns offer enough coupons to get your first domain for free + the cheapest hosting for a whole year. The cheapest sale I have personally got is 12,18$ one year hosting with controlpanel + a free .com domain
-There are many users of godaddy so it is easy to find help by googling
CONs:
-Since its such a big company, then your little business is not going to be at the top list of godaddy’s concerns, however they do offer a quality support by phone
-According to many blogs it is not the fastest one around. But for your startup company it should suffice
Zi Yang Lai zylai.com
Jan 19, 2015
Some background: I’m not a webmaster who is in charge of 20 websites nor am I making a living through setting up web hosting, installing WP, designing websites, etc. I am someone that started looking for a web hosting company to build a site for myself to host my photography portfolio.
1. Value – amazing.
As everyone probably knows already, GoDaddy has the cheapest for everything most of the time. I signed up my Economy web hosting through an affiliate link and it only costed me $1/mo. for the first year!
You will not find anything for this price for the features.
2. Uptime – 99.9%, which is today’s industry standard. I’ve heard some bad things about GoDaddy’s uptime when I was researching and before I signed up.
But from my own personal experience, I have not had any downtimes at all. None (I use Pingdom to track my site’s uptime). Downtime differs from server to server.
But I’ve not experienced any downtime. Maybe I’m just lucky.
3. Features – eh… GoDaddy uses "cPanel" – in other words, their own customized version of cPanel.
If this is your first time signing up for hosting, I do not think you’ll care since you will get used to it pretty quickly. I did try the standard cPanel but I find that I actually liked GoDaddy’s version much better. It looks much organized to me and easier to find things.
4.
Support – this is the one thing that GoDaddy sucks at. They representatives do not seem to know much about web hosting. As a newbie, I learned most, if not all, about hosting, WP, SQL databases, etc.
from Google or YouTube. I have not tried out their other services like SSL certificates or reseller hosting.
Guno Ritfeld
July 9, 2019
I recently switch from GoDaddy to Horst Gator after having been a customer over 15 years. GoDaddy’ pricing for dedicate and Hosted service just keeps rising, 2-3 time yearly. After a week of window-shopping, comparing Services, fees, and quality, HostGator came on top. The right pricing, the right product, and outstanding customer service. The switch went without a hitch. My customers did not even notice it. They only commented on the current speed of the display of that website. Now I expect my customer retention to grow due to the increased speed.
Just before writing this review, I conducted a final check with GoDaddy about their refund of unused services and product. Answer; as suspected “No refund or credits”. Your product will continue to run until expatriation. This has been one of my frustrations with GoDaddy for years. They are not focused on quality nor customer retention. Only quick sales and move on. In my opinion, GoDaddy has just become too big and too spread out to focus on quality. Domain registration is their main thing, they should stick to it.
My experience with HostGator.
HostGator customer services and IT technicians are monitored for quality. This makes a huge difference in how customer assistance is given. Technicians are courteous and eager to assist. To my surprise, I got a personal email each time a service was started and ended. I asked to give me a call at a certain time and promptly I got a call from the lead technician to speak about my dedicated server set up and migration time.
“Bravo” Hostgator, keep it up. Do not let growth get in the way of quality.
Jeffrey
July 26, 2019
Hi,
The company I work for have been a long time subscriber on Godaddy’s unlimited email hosting, and have very few problems, as of now they do not offer any unlimited email service..