Godaddy vs Web.com: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Looking over GoDaddy vs. Web.com, both hosting providers offer robust services, but diverge in specific strengths and weaknesses.

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  GoDaddy (Overall grade: 7.8)
  
  
  offers a comprehensive hosting solution that includes a variety of hosting plans like shared, WordPress, ecommerce, and VPS hosting. Its features are designed to prioritize speed and performance, with a 99.98% uptime and quick server response times. Strengths include extensive data centers for faster global content delivery, free SSL certificates, easy scalability options, and a user-friendly cPanel interface. However, GoDaddy’s significant upselling and inconsistent customer support can sometimes detract from the overall experience. The extensive features and reliable performance make it a go-to choice for users seeking a fast and secure hosting solution.
  
• 
  Web.com (Overall grade: 7.3)
  
  
  shines with its affordability and comprehensive features tailored towards small to medium-sized businesses, especially those focusing on ecommerce. It provides unmetered bandwidth, business email, and a beginner-friendly website builder, making it simple for non-technical users to set up and manage their sites. While Web.com guarantees 99.9% uptime, its performance metrics slightly lag behind GoDaddy. Its advanced user management capabilities and detailed customer support options are beneficial, but a lack of advanced customization options and automated backups can be limiting for larger, more complex websites. Overall, Web.com delivers solid value and practical features for those prioritizing cost and simplicity.
  

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

Section 1:

🏆 Winner
GoDaddy: Leading in uptime and speed performance.

GoDaddy guarantees a 99.9% uptime and has demonstrated remarkable reliability with a 99.98% uptime rate during testing. The server response time averages at 341ms, significantly faster than the shared hosting average. Despite some short downtimes with WordPress hosting, GoDaddy ensures efficient global load times, particularly with a 481ms load time in the US.

Web.com also provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee with actual uptime of 99.83% from third-party tests. While it offers good server response times and unmetered bandwidth, the uptime performance slightly lags behind GoDaddy. Offering extensive customer support and useful tools, Web.com is still a solid choice for those prioritizing comprehensive features.

🏆 Winner
GoDaddy: Reliable and comprehensive hosting solution.

When it comes to general performance, GoDaddy and Web.com both offer competitive features, but GoDaddy stands out with its faster response times and globally distributed data centers. While GoDaddy offers up to 40% faster server response times, Web.com claims a 70% increase in speed, owing to updates like PHP 8.0 and OPcache implementation. Both services tout a 99.9% uptime guarantee and unmetered bandwidth. However, GoDaddy has the added advantage of its extensive network of data centers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, which ensures faster content delivery and improved user experience globally.

Website Speed

GoDaddy’s speed benefits from optimized servers and a range of caching methods available through its easy-to-use cPanel interface. The availability of NVMe SSDs in their hosting plans additionally contributes to faster load times. Web.com, with improvements like MySQL 8 and enhanced storage systems, promises superior speed but lacks clarity on specifics like SSD types or caching methods. In practice, GoDaddy’s data centers and optimization features provide a consistently fast experience that benefits both visitors and site administrators.

Scalability

Scalability differs for both providers. GoDaddy allows users to easily upgrade to more advanced plans such as Web Hosting Plus or even VPS hosting, with additional resources like dedicated vCPUs and RAM available. The pricing for scaling varies, going up to $44.99/month for high-end VPS hosting. Web.com also supports scaling, but the details on upgrading or whether it includes dedicated servers are not specified. Therefore, GoDaddy offers a clearer path for scaling as your website grows, with dedicated resources available for those willing to upgrade.

🏆 Winner GoDaddy: A secure and reliable hosting environment with robust technical and operational security measures.

Both GoDaddy and Web.com, have notable differences in their approaches to technical and operational
security, as well as in their compliance with regulations.

Technical security measures:

GoDaddy offers AutoSSL and Managed SSL Services, providing a range of SSL deployment options. Web.com also provides a variety of SSL certificates such as Essential, Premium, and Wildcard. GoDaddy supports the latest PHP versions (7.4 and 8.0), while Web.com has upgraded to PHP 8.0. Both include malware scanning and removal, but GoDaddy offers additional automated updates to fix mixed content errors and optimize firewall settings. Both services ensure daily backups, but GoDaddy includes 1-click restore options and DDoS protection for enhanced security.

Operational security measures:

GoDaddy employs Web Application Firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection, ensuring robust protection against web attacks. Web.com offers OPcode Cache and MySQL 8 updates for improved performance and security. GoDaddy utilizes CloudLinux to balance CPU, RAM, and Disk IO, alongside Cage FS for virtualized file system protection. Web.com supports unmetered bandwidth and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, though GoDaddy’s global data centers contribute to faster page loads. Both have 24/7 customer support, but GoDaddy includes additional features like resources on-demand.

Compliance and certifications:

GoDaddy and Web.com are both fully compliant with GDPR regulations, ensuring the protection of personal data. GoDaddy highlights PCI compliance with products like WooCommerce Hosting, while Web.com offers PCI compliance scanning via SiteLock. Neither service specifies HIPAA compliance.

🏆 Winner
GoDaddy: Offering a diverse range of hosting plans equipped with helpful features.

GoDaddy and Web.com both offer comprehensive hosting solutions designed to cater to different user needs, but they vary significantly in terms of features and user experience. GoDaddy provides a free website builder, which is user-friendly and allows for both simple and complex customizations, making it a solid choice for beginners and advanced users alike. The inclusion of a free email service, free SSL certificates, and free domain registration for the first year in its various plans adds considerable value. Moreover, GoDaddy’s automatic daily backups, unmetered bandwidth, and the availability of a migration tool for WordPress sites provide a seamless experience for webmasters.

Web.com, on the other hand, includes a drag-and-drop website builder and business email services, with the added benefit of supporting multiple programming languages like Ruby, Python, PHP5, and Perl for more tech-savvy users. The service guarantees 99.9% uptime and provides unmetered bandwidth across all plans. A free domain and SSL certificate for the first year make the initial setup cost-effective. However, the lack of specific mentions of staging environments and automated backups may require further investigation. Furthermore, the unavailability of explicit FTP/SFTP and SSH options in the standard information could be a disadvantage for developers needing those advanced controls.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both GoDaddy and Web.com offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Email services at GoDaddy includes free email hosting with each hosting plan, allowing users to set up their own email accounts seamlessly. Beyond sending transactional emails, you can also manage email campaigns directly. In contrast, Web.com offers business email but doesn’t explicitly cater to email campaigns or resell third-party services like Google Workspace or Outlook, which may limit flexibility for businesses with extensive email marketing needs.

🏆 Winner: Web.com: Outstanding affordability and comprehensive features for all types of web hosting needs.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

Web.com and GoDaddy offer varied hosting plans tailored for different needs. Web.com’s plans excel in affordability, especially with their lower introductory prices and a competitive renewal structure. GoDaddy, though more expensive, includes significant features like unlimited SSL certificates and advanced security tools in their higher-tier plans. Both providers offer essential freebies like domains and email, but Web.com’s unmetered bandwidth and simpler renewal structure provide a clear value advantage.

Enterprise plans

GoDaddy’s comprehensive hosting solutions cater to larger enterprises through robust VPS hosting options. The plans offering advanced configurations, such as 4 vCPU and 16 GB RAM (priced at $44.99/mo), support complex, high-traffic websites with enhanced snapshot backups and additional IPs. Web.com does not explicitly list enterprise-specific hosting but provides scalable solutions through their premium shared and WordPress plans, which can support extensive traffic and larger storage requirements.

🏆 Winner: GoDaddy: GoDaddy offers an intuitive setup process and robust customer support.

GoDaddy uses an industry-standard cPanel which is familiar to many users. cPanel’s user-friendly interface allows users to easily install applications, manage their domains, and oversee their backups with minimal hassle. Both technical and non-technical users will find the layout straightforward and the features accessible, helping them manage their websites without significant learning curves. Moreover, automatic daily backups integrated into their system enhance security and ease of recovery.

Web.com provides a custom control panel designed for simplicity and ease of use. It includes features like a drag-and-drop website builder and automatic WordPress installation, catering primarily to users who prefer a more guided setup process. While these features simplify the initial website creation and management, users familiar with cPanel might feel restricted due to the lack of advanced customization options typically found in cPanel. Nonetheless, Web.com’s control panel is well-suited for beginners and non-technical users.

GoDaddy has a free WordPress migration tool making it simple for users to move their sites to its hosting environment without incurring additional costs. This automation eases the transition by minimizing manual intervention and potential errors. Web.com also offers WordPress hosting with automatic updates and installation, but details about the availability of free migration tools are not clear. Users may need to seek assistance or use third-party solutions for migrating their websites to Web.com.

The platforms provide extensive knowledge bases filled with guides, how-to articles, and instructional content. GoDaddy offers a wide range of resources alongside 24/7 chat and phone support. Web.com also boasts a detailed help center with an intuitive search function and around-the-clock support via live chat, phone, and ticketing, ensuring comprehensive user support.

🏆 Winner: Web.com: A comprehensive solution for advanced user management capabilities.

When comparing GoDaddy and Web.com’s abilities in managing user roles, permissions, and accessibility, Web.com clearly stands out. Web.com offers a detailed and structured approach to user management by allowing account holders to add new users with specific roles and permissions. Notably, Web.com differentiates between Administrative and Technical roles, ensuring that users have access only to the necessary features. GoDaddy lacks specific user management and role details in the available context, leaving potential users uncertain about its flexibility and depth in this area. This absence of detailed user role information makes Web.com the preferable choice for those prioritizing role-based access and permissions.

The user interface and tools provided for managing users on Web.com are more detailed compared to GoDaddy. Web.com’s account management system guides users step-by-step in adding new users, selecting roles, and managing contacts effectively. With clear navigation involving user icons, tabs for accounts, users, and roles, Web.com makes it easy for administrators to handle user permissions and settings. On the other hand, GoDaddy’s user interface details are not explicitly provided, which may imply a lack of specialized tools or a less intuitive management process.

When assessing access control measures and the capacity to manage a growing number of users, Web.com again demonstrates a stronger capability. Its structured user roles ensure that as user count increases, administrators can efficiently manage permissions without compromising security. Web.com’s clear instructions for updating billing, nameservers, and auto-renew settings further bolster its ability to scale seamlessly. GoDaddy, while noted for its hosting services, does not provide enough information to evaluate its effectiveness in scaling user management features.

Web.com User Roles Table:

🏆 Winner GoDaddy: GoDaddy offers comprehensive support options, including an award-winning support team and 24/7 availability.

GoDaddy and Web.com both provide 24/7 technical support via phone and email, ensuring continuous availability for their customers. GoDaddy also has an award-winning support team and its knowledgebase is rich with diverse resources, reinforcing its strong support system. GoDaddy’s live chat support is specific to its United States subdomain, which could be limiting for international users.

Web.com, meanwhile, offers a broader range of support channels with phone, email, live chat, and a ticket system all accessible 24/7/365. Their business consultants are available during specific hours on weekdays, adding another layer to their support. Both providers offer tailored enterprise support, ensuring high-level assistance for demanding business needs.

User feedback

GoDaddy generally receives praise for its ease of use, affordability, comprehensive service offerings, and user-friendly interface, making it a popular choice for domain registration and basic web hosting. Many users appreciate the ability to purchase domains, web hosting, email services, and other digital products all in one place, along with frequent discounts for new customers. However, customer service experiences are inconsistent; while some users find it helpful and responsive, others report long wait times and unknowledgeable support staff. Additionally, recurring issues include high renewal costs, persistent upselling, and occasional technical difficulties.

The hosting provider offers a comprehensive solution for purchasing domain names, hosting, and website building, making it highly convenient for users managing multiple domains and websites. Users appreciate the convenience of having all services bundled together, but some express concerns about the limitations on hosting unlimited domains and the cost associated with individual website software. Overall, the service is satisfactory and well-rated, though there is room for improvement in accommodating users with extensive hosting needs.

FAQ