GoDaddy started offering a so-called fully managed WordPress hosting service in the last couple of months. Everything looks attractive for many beginners who want an easy way to build a website. But later, when they see the facts in-depth, everything will look different and not the same as they want.
In this post, I’ll share my own GoDaddy WordPress hosting review, and I’ll compare the speed with the famous WP Engine as a fully managed WordPress hosting service.
What’s GoDaddy
GoDaddy is a well-known shared hosting provider, they even offer dedicated servers and VPS. From the first days that they launched their fully managed WordPress hosting, I’ve decided to try them. Honestly, I just used a domain that I’m not using, just to see how things work with them.
So, I’ll share my experience with such a hosting provider, and that way, you get real details and tips.
What attracts people to GoDaddy services is their cheap domain names first and the great promotional offers they make. For example, the company offers huge discounts from time to time and that allows them to build a strong platform of thousands of servers and lots of customers.
But what about the quality of their hosting? And what do they offer to make your site better, faster, and secure?
My experience with GoDaddy
After creating my account, I started the installation, and everything was a little confusing, as was the GoDaddy control panel. I’m not trying to make GoDaddy bad, but really, their control panel should be easier than that, especially for beginners who use their services for the first time.
Next, I tried to upload a small database, but I found that they don’t offer the cPanel. Luckily, they offer cPanel now after upgrading their hosting service. I’ve used the phpMyAdmin instead, and everything worked, except the slow loading time that I can’t accept.
Frankly, I have contacted their support for other things and they replied gently but hadn’t tried to ask them to fix the loading time issue. It was some 7 seconds, and even more, for a one-page website, with a few paragraphs and one small image.
Later, I asked some readers who hosted with them, just to see how things worked for them. They reported the same issue with the loading time that was horrible. But, many of them have contacted the support team, and they fixed the problem.
That’s what I’ve missed because it was a test site and not a serious project. So, it’s good news to know that the GoDaddy support fixed the loading time problem. By the way, it was a caching system issue, to be exact.
Instead of making things complicated and long, I prefer putting them in clear points.
Pros of GoDaddy hosting
- Guided WordPress installs
- Cheap hosting
- You have cPanel which is great
- Enough monthly bandwidth for a small blog
- Phone support
- Free domain name
- Daily backup
- PhpMyAdmin access
Cons of GoDaddy web hosting
- A little confusing account’s control panel
- Not as fast as it should be
- Some downtimes
- Lots of advertising offers
GoDaddy adds its own WordPress plugin to your installation. They add a setup tool and you can create simple pages like the “about us” and the “contact” page. If you’ve never tried anything like that before, then, GoDaddy hosting will be a good choice for you.
On the other hand, if you already know these easy things, and you want to get superior quality, then, GoDaddy is still good, but not the best, without a doubt.
At that cheap price, no one can offer a real premium WordPress hosting. That needs super-fast servers, a powerful caching system, optimized infrastructure, and of course, a custom PHP accelerator.
All that needs billions in terms of investments and configuration. If you keep that in mind, you will conclude that low-cost WordPress hosting won’t be the best choice. But, it’s recommended for newbies and people who look for a personal blog or company website without any setup knowledge.
User reviews
Here are a few customer reviews from the web about the GoDaddy web hosting service in general. Lots of reviews reported big problems and other reported issues with their customer support. Of course, there are many satisfied people, but in general, the reviews are not recommending GoDaddy for WordPress sites. Some of them have complaints about the GoDaddy traffic limits, server resources, and even customer assistance.
GoDaddy Vs WP Engine Vs InMotion Hosting
As you can see, GoDaddy offers a low-cost WordPress hosting service that suits every small budget need. However, everything is limited and you’ll find yourself in the need to upgrade for other larger plans later. The biggest problem with GoDaddy is their slow server, you’ll struggle with such a slow loading time.
On the other side, InMotion Hosting is a popular web hosting provider with thousands of customer reviews and great impressions. Inmotion Hosting offers better quality WordPress hosting service with amazing features. For example, every account comes with free SSD servers and amazing uptime that beats the GoDaddy uptime clearly.
Inmotion Hosting compared to GoDaddy is better, faster, more secure, and affordable at the same time. There are lots of reviews about Godaddy that reported issues with the loading time and the customer support.
The GoDaddy customer complaints reported a slower loading time than what people expected. It’s not the right web hosting solution for serious bloggers and entrepreneurs while Inmotion Hosting is a business web hosting provider with professional services.
GoDaddy vs WP Engine: We can’t compare the two different kinds of web hosting solutions for a simple reason, the first one is shared hosting, and the second one is managed hosting. WP Engine is faster, more secure, and better than both Inmotion and GoDaddy. However, that costs more money for every web hosting plan, and that quality reflects the cost.
So, if you really want the ranking for these 3 different WordPress hosting solutions, then, it will be like the following:
Do you need the GoDaddy WordPress hosting?
WordPress is a PHP and MySQL software that needs a fully optimized server to work properly, and super fast. GoDaddy can be a good choice, but only if you have a little investment to put on a single blog. Later, when you need more disk space or sites, you can upgrade and get the next-level plans.
They make things easy to use, in terms of installations and adding the first pages. But, if you really want to host a professional blog and take care of all the things, then I only recommend InMotion Hosting in the first place as it’s an affordable and reliable WordPress hosting.
Also, if your website receives thousands of visits per day, then, I recommend WP Engine if you can pay $29 per month for a premium hosting plan. No other company can beat what they offer as speed, support, features, and reliability.
