GoDaddy Hosting Review: Features, Performance & Alternatives

GoDaddy is one of the top web hosts and site builders I recommend to many beginners and small business owners for many reasons. For one, it’s free to start (for the website builder) and one of the easiest platforms overall. But I won’t lie: GoDaddy isn’t perfect and has some notable drawbacks as a web host. In this GoDaddy hosting review, we’ll do a deep dive into its capabilities, benefits, and biggest drawbacks as a web hosting service.

GoDaddy Web Hosting Overview

When to Use GoDaddy as Your Web Host

GoDaddy is one of the most popular web hosting services, but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best for your business. One major drawback is its pricing: It doesn’t offer any month-to-month plans, which can be inconvenient as you’ll be locked into a three-year contract. On the technical side, its security, while adequate, isn’t the best in the industry.

On the other hand, GoDaddy is also one of the most user-friendly platforms, so it’s a good starting point for any beginner—even for building your business website. Below are some of the best use cases for when and when not to choose GoDaddy as your website host.

Best GoDaddy Alternatives

Now that we’ve fleshed out some of GoDaddy’s biggest points and drawbacks, it’s also worth looking at some other options for your website. Our GoDaddy hosting review found that some of GoDaddy’s biggest missing points are in its pricing, security, and certain features like a CDN or dedicated hosting. So, if these are major deal-breakers for you, check out some of the best GoDaddy alternatives.

Best For	A cost-effective solution with plans from $1/month for unlimited websites	Security with a free SSL certificate, DDoS, hacking, and malware protection, and automatic backups	A content delivery network, with the Business and Cloud Startup plans automatically including a CDN	A 99.99% uptime guarantee with a dedicated server
Starting Monthly Pricing	$1/month (billed annually)	$1.99/month	$2.49/month (two-year contract)	$3.47/month
Learn More	Visit IONOS	Visit InMotion Hosting	Visit Hostinger or Read Our Review	Visit KnownHost

GoDaddy Web Hosting Features

General Features Rating: 5/5

Niche Features Rating: 3.5/5

As a web host, GoDaddy ticks all the essentials. It has data centers across the globe, allowing people to visit your website from anywhere. It guarantees a 99.9% uptime and has around-the-clock security and adequate cloud storage. Plus, it has one of the simplest interfaces to navigate, which is ideal if you’re a beginner.

However, it has one major difference from other web hosting providers. As mentioned, in 2024, GoDaddy started discontinuing its dedicated servers. Instead, it’ll migrate all its hosted websites into a VPS, a virtual server instead of a physical one. This means if you choose GoDaddy as your web host, you can only choose between a shared server or a VPS—not a dedicated server.

Some of GoDaddy’s other major features as a web host are its user-friendly dashboard for accessing your cPanel, its global data centers, unlimited bandwidth, and its free email.

GoDaddy Web Hosting Performance

What GoDaddy says on its website is one thing; how it holds up in the real world is another. So, as part of this GoDaddy review, I tested a sample GoDaddy website with the help of Uptime.com, a website performance checker, to check its overall quality. I tested GoDaddy on three points: website speed, global uptime, and overall domain health.

Website Speed

Website speed is simply how long it takes for your website to load. The faster your website loads, the better because studies show that most visitors will abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.

On that side, GoDaddy holds up well enough. On all points, the sample GoDaddy website took less than two seconds to load. The observed load, the website’s loading speed detected by the browser, came in at 1.24 seconds. One minor concern was the speed index, which is how long it takes until your website’s content is visible to visitors. This took 1.9 seconds to load, which isn’t bad but could be better.

Global Uptime

One of GoDaddy’s major points as a web hosting service is its global data centers that promise your site’s accessibility anywhere in the world. We also put that to the test by checking if the site was up in multiple locations. It brought back mostly positive results. Not only was it up and running in locations like New York, Amsterdam, Singapore, Frankfurt, and Tokyo, but it also loaded at average speeds of less than one second.

Domain Health

Finally, I also ran a comprehensive health check on the sample GoDaddy website, which checks its domain name system (DNS), web server, blacklist, and malware security for any issues. (It also checks the mail server, but that wasn’t applicable to our sample site.)

While the site passed the DNS and web server checks, it detected possible phishing malware, which is a major security red flag, especially if you handle private information.

GoDaddy’s Customer Support

4 / 5

Customer service is an area GoDaddy prides itself on, and it’s not without reason. It boasts 24/7 support via live chat and email in multiple languages and has one of the biggest customer support teams among web hosting providers.

Many GoDaddy hosting reviews (which you’ll find below) also highlight positive experiences with its customer service representatives, saying they correctly anticipated questions and provided solutions to their problems.

However, some clients also had the opposite experience with GoDaddy’s support team, saying they took time to respond to questions and weren’t helpful with their issues. Unfortunately, GoDaddy doesn’t provide phone support, so there’s no way of speaking to an agent live—you can only contact them via live chat and an email ticketing system. There’s also a help center on its website that you can access anytime.

While GoDaddy may have a bigger support team than other web hosting companies, the support you get will ultimately depend on the agent you connect with. Being able to connect via live chat 24/7 is a significant help, but you’ll need to be very clear about the issues you’re having to get the appropriate solution.

GoDaddy Web Hosting Reviews From Other Users

Part of our GoDaddy hosting review is looking at other users’ experiences with the platform. We looked at GoDaddy reviews across three review sites: G2, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot, where it garnered mostly positive scores.

• TrustRadius, 8.8 out of 10: Users say having GoDaddy as their website host makes it easy to manage as it acts as a one-stop shop. It also makes it easy to buy domains. However, some users reported slow servers and page loading times.
• Trustpilot, 4.6 out of 5: Many clients praise GoDaddy’s prompt customer service as a highlight. However, some clients also found the platform prone to glitching and were unable to successfully transfer their domains.
• G2, 4 out of 5: Several reviews also cite GoDaddy’s easy-to-use platform as a huge advantage, especially in managing several domains. Most negative reviews mention its high costs and the many things you have to pay extra for.

Overall, many reviews about GoDaddy agree on its simple-to-navigate web hosting dashboard and particularly praise its customer support. Meanwhile, GoDaddy’s negative points are its pricing and sometimes unreliable platform.

GoDaddy Web Hosting Pricing & Plans

2 / 5

Pricing-wise, GoDaddy isn’t the cheapest. Plans start at $5.99 a month on a three-year term for hosting one website on its shared hosting plans, and there are no shorter contracts. Costs also increase for multiple websites (and higher storage capacities). However, all plans come with a free email address and a custom domain.

Its VPS hosting plans start at $8.99 a month on a three-year term, allowing you to host unlimited websites on the allotted storage space.

Our Expert Opinion: Is GoDaddy Right for You?

4.5 / 5

GoDaddy is one of the most well-established website hosts in the industry, having been around since 1997. But we can’t deny it also has some notable drawbacks, especially compared with some of its newer competitors. Its starting price point is slightly higher than that of others with similar offerings (i.e., hosting one website and getting a free domain), although it has considerable storage.

Another major drawback is it’s limited to shared hosting or a VPS, so it’s definitely not an option if you want a dedicated server. It also had a few security issues, which can be solved by upgrading to GoDaddy’s advanced security add-on—although that’s an extra cost.

These are all considerable drawbacks, so we can’t say GoDaddy is the best choice if security is a major concern and you need to host multiple websites.

However, I do recommend GoDaddy if you only have one website you want to upgrade with a custom domain and a matching email address to make it more professional; for example, if you already have a website you built on a free platform and want to make it official.

It’s also a good option if you’re a complete beginner in web hosting. GoDaddy’s user-friendly platform can help you get your website online without the need for any coding or technical skills.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Bottom Line

So, is GoDaddy a good website host for your small business? Our GoDaddy web hosting review says yes for the most part. If you’re new to web hosting and just want a way to get a custom domain for your website and a free email address to go along with it, GoDaddy can do the job. But if you’re looking for something that places your site security first and foremost—and offers dedicated hosting—looking elsewhere might fare better.