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Cheap, fast, easy to install. Limited features - you quickly outgrow it. Good choice if you want an all-in-one solution.
EDIT: Originally published in Feb 2012, I’ve updated this post in February 2016 to reflect the current state of GoDaddy hosting for a 2016 GoDaddy Hosting Review.
This is a product review. It’s biased – but mainly because I’m (EDIT: was) an actual customer of .
You’ve probably seen GoDaddy’s Super Bowl commercials, GoDaddy girls all around the internet, and most recently their Helping Small Business commercials in 2014.
GoDaddy is certainly the market leader in domains – and trying to be in web hosting.
Are they just the right WordPress Hosting Tool to build a better blog?
I started out using them (because of the brand) but I’ve moved to. So.
Here’s 7 Pros and 7 Cons of using …
EDIT: changes their promos a good bit – find their
Their economy plan is $6.99/month with 12 month lock-in – but they always give away coupons for longer lock-ins and you can push it down to even $4.99/mo.
Even though GoDaddy’s specialty is not hosting (they started as a domain registrar) – they are using their capital and market presence to really push down on prices.
If you go with them, you won’t have to worry if you are paying too much. ()
Bandwidth is basically how many people can visit your site at once.
Some web hosts might throttle your bandwidth (ie, crash your site) if you suddenly get that tsunami of traffic from CNN or Reddit.
I’ve never had to test it – but most other reviewers I trust say that GoDaddy held up well – even their shared hosting plan.
Even if they don’t hold up to the tsunami of traffic – you at least won’t have to pay for it, like some web hosts do (think overage charges at cell phone companies. ()
Now, full-disclosure, I’m a fan of installing WordPress manually because of security reasons.
That said, having someone else install WordPress is time-saving service – and helpful to anyone who worries about FTP.
But it needs to be done right – and every time I’ve auto-installed on GoDaddy – WordPress was installed correctly. All the security salts were in effect – and all I needed to do was install a security plugin.
It makes the process of WordPress *ridiculously* easy. You just , then open your hosting account, and select auto-install, follow the prompts, and in a few hours – you’re done.
EDIT: They also offer a separate “” product. It’s more expensive, but offers auto-upgrades, security monitoring and other benefits. It’s confusing, I know. You can run WordPress on their normal hosting plans, which is what I do for my sites.
Definitely a huge benefit.
Full disclosure, I’m a fan of separately from .
But, like WordPress auto-install, having one company manage your domain name, email, and hosting can make things just a bit easier.
GoDaddy offers the full gamut of services and ties them all in together well. .
This feature has to do with their huge scale (they have plenty of technology directed at thwarting spam and hackers), but also with GoDaddy’s restrictive policies (which will be a Con) but for now it also keeps out the spam and the attacks.
And that’s a good thing.
Some internet veterans will scoff at this (GoDaddy used to be absolutely notorious) but recently GoDaddy has greatly improved their customer service. They have improved even more so under their new CEO, and the new direction they set out in July of 2013.
It’s not world-class, but for a huge corporate entity with super-discounted hosting… good support is a Pro in my book.
And they fulfill the *basic* duty of every web host… 99.9% uptime.
They boast about their 4GH Linux Hosting…that means that they are current. PHP5, etc – GoDaddy has all the latest technical stuff to do web hosting right. .
EDIT: often run specials – find .)
Yes, this seems technical – but the more in-depth you get with your WordPress site, the more the Hosting Panel matters.
Basically, when you log in to your hosting account via the Web or via FTP – you have a menu of options to manage your website.
The industry leaders (and best) are cPanel and Fantastico. GoDaddy uses their own custom panel.
You may notice that some plugins and themes for WordPress (such as ) require separate tutorials for GoDaddy…this is why.
Again, not huge, but definitely a con.
EDIT: As of January 2014, GoDaddy no longer uses a proprietary hosting panel. They use cPanel (which, again is the industry standard). That has greatly improved their backend. It is still a custom install of cPanel (sort like how Verizon will customize Android on your phone). It also costs a dollar more per month. This point is still a relative con compare to open providers, but nowhere near what it was in 2012.
Remember the whole black out the Internet back in January of 2011 because of SOPA and PIPA?
Yeah – every one in favor of Internet Freedom was against those bills…except GoDaddy.
They eventually became against it…but only after customers transferred thousands of domains to because of it.
Most of us will never forgive GoDaddy – especially because…
EDIT: This point is still true. GoDaddy is still exhibiting behavior that indicates they do not respect privacy or ethics ()
And weird in a bad way. For example, their . And they use blatantly sexist advertising. All this among other just .
EDIT: GoDaddy has recently sanitized their site and said that their 2014 Super Bowl commercial would not revolve around sex. Their new campaign is to be the “champion of small business.” However, they still want to maintain their “edgy” brand. That’s all an improvement, but I’m still wary of companies who do tons of interruption-style advertising over focusing on product.
to the extent that GoDaddy does. And what it means in practice is that your can’t put a bunch of websites up on one hosting account. A WordPress blog/website needs 1 database – so even on the , you are limited to 25 websites.
However, if you go for the , you get unlimited everything for a really cheap price. But still.
EDIT: In 2016, this is still somewhat true. They’ve gotten better with their Deluxe plan. But make sure you are comparing apples to apples. I’m a fan of to sort the options & your priorities.
Ok. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a huge corporate behemoth. In fact, it can bring really good advantages.
That said, GoDaddy brings with it everything you’d expect from a big corporation. Foreign call centers. Entry-level, micromanaged customer service reps. Sort of that impersonal “you’re on your own” style.
If something goes wrong – umm, well…
But moving on – they do have good help articles, which still doesn’t make up for the fact that they are a cost-cutting corporation – and your Economy Hosting account really doesn’t matter on a grand scale – which makes bigness a con in my opinion.
This con relates to #1 above…but deserves it’s own spot.
Mainly because when you choose a web host – it’s a pretty big time commitment. You’ll be investing a lot of energy into your website – assuming that the host is doing their job.
And even though moving web hosts should be simple…there’s a lot of little things that can make it go wrong. GoDaddy isn’t famous for helping it’s customers leave. That’s a con.
EDIT: Yes, as of 2016…this is still true. It’s a bit easier with cPanel, but their domain transfer is needlessly interrupted with annoying upsells and obstacles.
This is the flipside of #5 Pro – that GoDaddy does good security.
Basically, if you want to auto-generate content, use web forms, wikis, etc – you’re gonna have to jump through a lot of hoops.
One of the most popular WordPress contact forms has a – because normally GoDaddy would reject your contact form as spam.
Basically, GoDaddy makes you do a bit more work (though they say it results in less spam attacks for you).
doesn’t stack up overall against my (which is what I’m switching to soon). (EDIT: )
However, GoDaddy hosting is solid and cheap web hosting. If you are looking for a host that,
And if you plan on not doing anything fancy – is a good way to go. .
And by the by, you can get 25% any with the promo code swampland25
EDIT: To answer a lot of questions I’ve gotten about what you do once you get a hosting package…you should send your Domain Nameservers to your hosting account for reliability and speed reasons (automatic if your purchase your domain with your hosting or you get specific instructions if you purchase hosting separately). I’ve written a very detailed . I also have a .
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