Siteground Vs Godaddy: Which One Should You Use As Host? (Compared)

Finding a web host presents a whole new set of challenges. You have to consider things like page speed and uptime guarantees, not to mention security and cost.

Believe it or not, there are even more factors to consider when it comes to choosing your web host. I’ve created this comprehensive comparison so that you can see for yourself how two of the most popular web hosts stack up.

GoDaddy and SiteGround are very different companies with different strengths and weaknesses. If you’re struggling to choose between the two, read ahead to find out which company is actually better.

Table Of Contents

• Which One is More Reliable?
• Which One is Easier to Use?
• Which One is Faster?
• Which One Has Cheaper Hosting Plans?
• Which One Has Better Customer Service and Support?
• Which Has Better Security?
• Which one is the overall winner?

What is SiteGround?

SiteGround is a web hosting company that was started back in 2004 by a group of college friends. It’s grown into a well-regarded company, serving around 2 million domains worldwide. They have data centers in the US, Spain, Bulgaria, and the United Kingdom.

As they’ve grown in popularity, they have remained dedicated to maintaining a high standard of service to their customers. SiteGround currently remains under private ownership.

SiteGround has a comprehensive set of plans that encompass a solid set of features. They have in-house teams dedicated to customer support and security. SiteGround offers plans for shared web hosting, WordPress hosting, dedicated cloud hosting, and reseller hosting.

SiteGround has much to offer for both small and large businesses. They have implemented several affordable plans with the ability to grow and manage several websites. SiteGround offers tons of unlimited features, excellent security, and good value.

What is GoDaddy?

GoDaddy is a company that provides web hosting, website builders, domains, marketing, and web security solutions. GoDaddy has been around for longer than most web hosting companies.

Way back in 1997, Baltimore entrepreneur Bob Parsons came out of retirement to start GoDaddy. He originally wanted to call the company, “Big Daddy’” but the domain was already taken, and settled on “GoDaddy,” instead.

GoDaddy has been around for over two decades and they have a lot to show for it. In 2018, they became the largest web host in the world. Today, they host over 72 million domains with 14 offices placed around the world. Compared to SiteGround, this number of domains is absolutely massive.

GoDaddy’s philosophy is to empower entrepreneurs with the right tools to be successful. They offer several types of web hosting including, business hosting, reseller hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting. They also have a website builder as well as affordable domains.

Because GoDaddy has so many hosting options, it’s a good option for small to large businesses. This option gives you the convenience of a web builder and web host from the same provider.

What Type of Hosting Service Should You Choose?

Choosing a web host is difficult enough, but do you know what type of hosting will suit your business the best? There are tons of options between GoDaddy and SiteGround, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and more. So, let’s take a look at what these options really mean.

Shared Hosting: Shared hosting just means that you will be sharing your hosting service with other websites. This option is great for small businesses or websites that aren’t expected to get a huge amount of traffic. With shared hosting, each website is responsible for sticking to its allotted data. This is typically the most affordable option as well.

VPS Hosting: This type of hosting is the next step up from shared hosting. VPS hosting, short for “virtual private server” is the best option for mid-sized businesses and websites that expect heavier traffic. This option will provide a singular hosting environment, meaning you’re the only business with access to these resources. You can usually host several websites with this hosting service.

Dedicated Hosting: This option is typically only necessary for complex websites with a ton of traffic. Dedicated hosting means that your website has access to a full server that is managed by the web host. With dedicated web hosting, you usually have access to top-notch security, user support, and an excellent feature set. Of course, this option is also the most expensive.

WordPress Hosting: Both of these web hosts offer WordPress hosting, which is essentially shared hosting that’s been optimized specifically for WordPress websites. This option is usually affordable and perfect for simple WordPress sites.

SiteGround vs GoDaddy:

Now that you have a better idea of the types of web hosting you’ll need, let’s jump right into the comparisons.

Both SiteGround and GoDaddy offer extensive web hosting services, but each has different strengths and weaknesses. In order to judge which host is better, we will be looking at the following criteria:

• Reliability
• Ease-of-Use
• Speed
• Cost
• Customer Support
• Security

Let’s get into it. In a face-off between SiteGround and GoDaddy, which one is actually better?

1. Which One is More Reliable?

When it comes to reliability in a web host, there’s one major factor to consider: uptime. Uptime is the amount of time your website is kept up and running for your visitors. This is obviously a critically important feature for the success of your site.

When you choose your web host, you’ll want to look for an uptime guarantee that ensures the host takes responsibility for any downtime.

What causes downtime? Although most hosts are pretty good about keeping your site up for the majority of the time, there are factors that cause downtime for every host.

These factors include scheduled maintenance, security issues, and power outages. Other than these events, your site should be kept up and running around the clock.

Why is the uptime rate important for your business? Let’s say a web host offers a 99.0% uptime rate. That seems pretty great. Only 1% downtime guaranteed!

Well, here’s the bad news: even 1% downtime is equal to 87 hours of downtime per year. Yeah, that’s a lot. Easy to see how this could have a big effect on the success of your business, right? This is why so many web hosts offer a close to 100% uptime guarantee.

SiteGround vs GoDaddy

This is a crucial test, so which web host comes through with the best uptime rates? Let’s look at the uptime guarantees from both SiteGround and GoDaddy, break down the numbers, and see who has the best offer.

Right off the bat, SiteGround is coming in with a 99.99% uptime guarantee based on a year of service. These are the numbers you want to see when choosing a host.

This equals just one hour of downtime per year. What happens if they don’t meet the guarantee?

SiteGround offers users a month of free services for uptimes rates between 99.00%-99.90%. You’ll receive an additional month for every percentage below 99.00%.

GoDaddy also offers a pretty good uptime guarantee of 99.90% uptime per month. Now, it may be nitpicky, but this uptime guarantee is not quite as high as SiteGround’s guarantee.

In fact, if you experienced this rate with SiteGround, you’d be due for a free month of service.

Now, if GoDaddy fails to meet this guarantee, you will be eligible to receive a 5% credit of your monthly service fee. You can apply this credit to other GoDaddy services.

The question is, what does a 5% credit really look like?

Let’s say you are using the basic hosting plan, which currently costs $5.49 per month. Now, 5% of your monthly service fee amounts to…$0.27.

Siteground’s free month of service looks pretty good right about now.

On top of that, the fine print tells us that SiteGround is willing to compensate you with at least a month of free service should the uptime guarantee fail.

GoDaddy on the other hand only offers a small percentage of your monthly fee as a credit for other GoDaddy products.

2. Which One is Easier to Use?

The main factor that comes into play here is the dashboard. Most web hosts use what’s called a cPanel, which is fairly intuitive for most users.

The dashboard is where you can view and manage your website. Everything from billing to domain name will be managed from the dashboard. The other factor that we look at is how beginner-friendly each panel is.

SiteGround vs GoDaddy

Which company has the better dashboard? GoDaddy offers a sleek cPanel to users. This is a popular choice and many users will be comfortable using this control panel. Users can easily install applications, view helpful reminders, and access management tools using the control panel.

If you’re interested in WordPress websites, the GoDaddy dashboard has a one-click installation for WordPress. It has also incorporated a Quick Start Wizard to walk new users through the WordPress dashboard.

As of 2019, SiteGround revamped its entire control panel. They actually dedicated an entire team of people to this project to ensure that the new dashboard would be top of the line. The dashboard includes advanced technology for a better user experience.

This dashboard also comes with a full set of custom tools as well. These tools were developed to address the specific needs of SiteGround customers such as WordPress auto-updates, staging, encryption, and more.

Overall, the SiteGround ground team has clearly put a lot of time and effort into creating a custom dashboard that addresses the needs of its users.

Which host is more beginner-friendly?

SiteGround redesigned its dashboard with user-friendliness at the forefront of the design. They recognize that these dashboards can be extremely confusing for a beginner. With this in mind, they created a control panel with simple, easy-to-use features.

GoDaddy is user-friendly in that it uses the traditional cPanel, which is familiar to anyone who’s used a web host before. Additionally, it has a few features that help guide new users through the dashboard.

This one is an even draw.

3. Which One is Faster?

Page speed is without a doubt one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a web host. Slow load time can have a detrimental effect on acquiring leads and making conversions.

Luckily, page speed can be measured very accurately. We put a lot of trust into our web host in this arena so let’s see who comes out on top.

What is page speed? When we talk about the speed of a web host, we’re really talking about how long it takes to load your website. This is referred to as page speed and it plays a direct role in audience decisions.

A website that takes any longer than three seconds to load is a no-go. While three seconds might seem super-fast, any longer than this usually causes customers to leave the site immediately.

SiteGround vs GoDaddy

First up is SiteGround. In a head-to-head test of load time conducted by Cloudwards, SiteGround proved to have consistently fast load times. In this test, they sent 50 virtual users to a SiteGround server over the course of 5-minutes to get measurable load times.

The results showed the average load time was around 0.24 seconds. Across the web, you can find results like this, with SiteGround blazing through with wickedly fast load times.

In addition to this, SiteGround has put its focus on creating WordPress hosting with extremely fast load times. They’ve done this by incorporating a feature that inhibits render-blocking Java Scripts that typically slow down WordPress sites.

GoDaddy was put to the same test over at Cloudwards to see how fast the load times are. The results were surprising. The results showed consistent load times of 0.0 milliseconds. Sounds good right?

Unfortunately, this happened because the page simply wasn’t loading at all for most users! The test showed a fair amount of HTTP errors suggesting the site couldn’t handle the traffic it was receiving.

Now keep in mind, tests across the web show varying results for GoDaddy load times, but these results are hard to ignore.

4. Which One Has Cheaper Hosting Plans?

When it comes to choosing a host, pricing and value cannot be ignored. I’ll keep this simple and show you exactly how much each plan costs and which features that come with them. I’m going to look at the shared and dedicated hosting plans for the purpose of this test.

SiteGround vs GoDaddy

SiteGround Shared Hosting Plans

SiteGround vs GoDaddy 

SiteGround Shared Hosting Plans 

• Start-Up Plan $3.95/mo: 
• 1 Website 
• 10 GB Web Space 
• ~ 10,000 Visits Monthly 
• Unmetered Traffic 
• Free WP Installation 
• WordPress Auto updates 
• SSL 
• Daily Backup 
• Free CDN 
• Free Email Accounts 
• WP-CLI and SSH 
• Unlimited Databases 
• 100% renewable energy match 

  

Grow Big Plan $5.95/mo 

• Unlimited Free Website 
• 20 GB Web Space 
• ~ 25,000 Visits Monthly 
• Unmetered Traffic 
• Free WP Installation 
• WordPress Auto-updates 
• Free SSL 
• Daily Backup 
• Free CDN 
• Free Email Accounts 
• WP-CLI and SSH 
• Unlimited Databases 
• 100% renewable energy match 
• Dynamic Caching 
• On-demand Backup Copies 
• Free Professional Site Transfer 
• Staging 
• Add Collaborators 

Go Geek Plan $11.95/mo 

• Unlimited Websites 
• 30 GB Web Space 
• ~ 100,000 Visits Monthly 
• Unmetered Traffic 
• Free WP Installation 
• WordPress Auto-updates 
• Free SSL 
• Daily Backup 
• Free CDN 
• Free Email Accounts 
• WP-CLI and SSH 
• Unlimited Databases 
• 100% renewable energy match 
• Dynamic Caching 
• On-demand Backup Copies 
• Free Professional Site Transfer 
• Staging + Git 
• Add Collaborators 
• White-label Clients 
• Highest Tier of Resources 
• Priority Support 

SiteGround Cloud Hosting Plan (Dedicated) 

• Entry Level Plan $80/mo 
• 2 CPU Cores 
• 4 GB Memory 
• 40 GB SSD Space 
• 5 TB Data Transfer  

Business Plan $120.00/mo. 

• 3 CPU Cores 
• 6 GB Memory 
• 60 GB SSD Space 
• 5 TB Data Transfer  

Business Plus Plan $160/mo 

• 4 CPU Cores 
• 8 GB Memory 
• 80 GB SSD Space 
• 5 TB Data Transfer 

  

GoDaddy Shared Hosting Plans:  

• Economy $5.95/mo 
• 1 website  
• 100 GB storage capacity 
• Standard Performance 
• 10 databases 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• Free Office 365 Email – 1st year  
• Free domain – with annual plan  

Delux $7.99/mo 

• Unlimited websites 
• Unlimited storage capacity 
• Standard Performance 
• 25 databases 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• Free Office 365 Email – 1st year  
• Free domain – with annual plan 

 

Ultimate $12.99/mo 

• Unlimited websites 
• Unlimited storage capacity 
• 2x Processing Power 
• Unlimited databases 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• Free Office 365 Email – 1st year  
• Free domain – with annual plan   
• Free Premium DNS  
• Free SSL Certificate – 1 

Maximum $19.99/mo 

• Unlimited websites 
• Unlimited storage capacity 
• 2x Processing Power & Speed 
• Unlimited databases 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• Free Office 365 Email – 1st year  
• Free domain – with annual plan   
• Free Premium DNS  
• Free SSL Certificate for the full term of your hosting plan 

 

GoDaddy Dedicated Hosting 

Economy $94.99 

• 4 CPU Cores @ 3.1 GHz 
• 4 GB memory 
• 1 TB storage (RAID-1)^ 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• 3 dedicated IPs 
• Free 1-year SSL certificate 

Value $109.99 

• 4 CPU Cores @ 3.1 GHz 
• 8 GB memory 
• 1.5 TB storage (RAID-1)^ 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• 3 dedicated IPs 
• Free 1-year SSL certificate 

 Deluxe $134.99 

• 4 CPU Cores @ 3.1 GHz 
• 16 GB memory 
• 2 TB storage (RAID-1)^ 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• 3 dedicated IPs 
• Free 1-year SSL certificate 

 Ultimate $184.99 

• 4 CPU Cores @ 3.1 GHz 
• 32 GB memory 
• 2 TB storage (RAID-1)^ 
• Unmetered bandwidth  
• 3 dedicated IPs 
• Free 1-year SSL certificate

5. Which One Has Better Customer Service and Support?

As with any sort of software or technology, chances are you’re going to run into some problems along the way.

Finding a host with great user support is something that many people fail to prioritize. The reality is, having a web host who provides quick, effective customer service will save you headaches down the road.

In order to put SiteGround and GoDaddy to the test, we will look at the type of user support offered and response time.

GoDaddy vs SiteGround

GoDaddy has a dedicated user support area that includes a phone number, 24/7 live chat, user guides, and tutorials. I went ahead and tested the 24/7 live chat support on the website to measure the response time.

The initial response time was incredibly fast — only 15 seconds. This first response, which appeared to be automated, gave me a few options to choose from. I then selected the “hosting” option.

From here the chat instructed me that wait times would be around 21 minutes to speak with a specialist. They explained that this wait was due to the usual number of user inquiries.

I decided to wait it out and I was actually contacted by someone after 1 min and 23 seconds. Not bad!

SiteGround offers 24/7 support by phone, chat, or email ticket. They also have helpful guides and tutorials for users.

I moved on to SiteGround to try the same test. Using the live chat feature on the website, I requested to speak with someone about web hosting. This directed me to a waiting room feature.

I waited for a minute and twenty-three seconds before I was contacted by a member of the support team.

Strangely enough, it took exactly the same amount of time to contact a support specialist from both websites.

Even better that they came in well under that estimated time. SiteGround was also very fast, and they got points for keeping the customer service team in-house, without outsourcing.

6. Which Has Better Security?

Even though I put security last on this list, it may be the most important factor of all. As you grow your website, you’ll realize just how important it is to keep your site safe from the dangers of the world wide web.

Your web hosting service plays a vital role in this security. What are they doing to protect your site from hackers, and keep your personal information safe?

Let’s take a look at what GoDaddy and SiteGround do in this area.

GoDaddy vs SiteGround

Security is where SiteGround really shines. They’ve created an absolute powerhouse of a security system with their AI-based bot prevention program. This program was developed in 2017 and has the ability to block 500,000 to 2 million brute force attempts every hour. And that’s across all servers. This program is built to detect:

Failed login attempts in the majority of popular web applications – WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, etc.

Number of simultaneous connections to different URLs

Different request types and known DDoS vulnerabilities in applications

Dynamic list of bad user agents that’s constantly being updated

If that doesn’t put your mind at ease, I’m not sure what will. On top of that, they offer a feature called Domain ID protect that ensures your personal information is not publicly available.

SiteGround offers free Let’s Encrypt SSL to all of its users. All shared hosting servers are protected by ModSecurity, an open-source firewall software.

GoDaddy uses a website security system powered by Securi. This system scans to detect any issues with the website on a daily basis.

Now, I was unable to find a detailed description of how the security system works such as the one Siteground provided.

For the most part, it appears many of the security features must be purchased as add ons for the basic plans. GoDaddy offers SSL certificates for an additional $79.99 per year.

It’s worth mentioning that GoDaddy has come under fire for several security breaches. The most recent of which happened in October of 2019. This security issue occurred when an unauthorized individual gained access to 28,000 GoDaddy user accounts.

Which One is the Overall Winner?

Let’s do a quick review:

• Reliability Winner: SiteGround
• Ease-of-Use Winner: Tie
• Speed Winner: SiteGround
• Cost Winner: SiteGround
• Support Winner: Tie
• Security Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround has come in as the clear winner, taking four out of the six categories. GoDaddy tied in two areas: ease-of-use and customer support.

The comparison between GoDaddy and SiteGround is an interesting one; GoDaddy is massively popular with 72 million domains, while SiteGround has a smaller, dedicated customer base.

While both web hosting services provide extensive hosting options, SiteGround offers lower pricing for a better feature set.

When it comes to security, even the cheapest plan gets excellent protection using SiteGround. In other important tests like site speed and an uptime guarantee, SiteGround shows it’s a dedication to providing cutting edge web hosting services.

These two companies are vastly different in their approach. SiteGround shows us where their priorities lie–and that’s with excellent service.