Looking for the best GoDaddy alternatives for web hosting and/or domain registrations? Great – there are dozens of other companies like GoDaddy that are worth considering.
Here’s the thing: GoDaddy is the biggest web hosting and domain name company in the world. On top of hosting and domain name registrations, they offer other services including SSL certificates, website builder, emails, and more.
The problem is they’re not always the best nor the cheapest on the market.
There are many GoDaddy alternatives with excellent and reliable service that can offer you better features at a lower cost.
In this article, we’ve included several GoDaddy alternatives that are more reliable and more ethical. The article is broken down into three sections:
- GoDaddy alternatives for shared hosting.
- GoDaddy alternatives for managed hosting.
- GoDaddy alternatives for domain name registrations.
Why Do I Need A GoDaddy Alternative?
If you’re here, you’re probably fed up with GoDaddy and want to switch to a competitor.
From high renewal fees to unethical business practices, GoDaddy is making it very difficult for customers to remain loyal.
The Better Business Bureau (or BBB), which helps with complaints against businesses, has a customer review star rating of 1.12 (this is out of a possible 5-star rating) for GoDaddy. That’s terrible, right?
And, that’s not the worst part. Over the years, here are the most common problems customer report with GoDaddy:
- Slow customer service response time. The average wait time is about 30 minutes and can get as high as an hour and half. The company is fairly huge so that’s probably to blame.
- High renewal fees for services, especially hosting and domain names. Their initial cost is very low but nearly doubles when it comes time to renew.
- Excessive server downtime, whether its constant 404 errors or outages.
- A large number of websites are hosted on the same server. This impacts site performance.
- The company as a whole is unethical and does some sketchy stuff.
GoDaddy Alternatives For Shared Hosting
Shared web hosting is great for starter websites and blogs that don’t have a lot of traffic. This type of hosting is cheap and offers lots of bang for your buck. In many cases, you’ll be able to buy a reliable hosting plan for under $10 per month.
Here’s the best alternatives to GoDaddy for shared web hosting:
GoDaddy Alternative #1: SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the best web hosting companies on the market. They’re independently owned and one of the few companies that are recommended by WordPress for web hosting.
Known for their superior support, SiteGround offers fast technical support via phone, live chat, and email.
If you’re looking for an alternative to GoDaddy’s shared hosting, SiteGround is our #1 recommendation.
SiteGround Pros
SiteGround Cons
Control Panel
SiteGround’s control panel is called Site Tools. The navigation bar is on the left, and it’s where you’ll find all of the tools for that specific site. The navigation bar doesn’t disappear as navigate through the different tools.
To access a different site you own, you’d have to select it from the drop-down that’s found along the top to the right of the SiteGround logo. Overall, the interface is user-friendly and fairly easy to get adjusted to.
Plans & Pricing
The StartUp plan costs $3.99 per month and renews at $14.99 per month. This plan is good for a single website, 10 GB of web space, and 10,000 monthly visits. You’ll also get:
- Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate
- Unlimited email accounts
- Cloudflare CDN
- Daily backup and restore
Their highest-tier GoGeek plan costs $10.69 per month and renews at $39.99 per month. This plan offers unlimited websites, 40 GB of web space, and 400,000 visits per month. On top of all the features included with the lower-tier plans, you’ll also get 30% faster PHP, staging, and the option to white-label clients.
SiteGround Vs GoDaddy Hosting Price Comparison
| 12-Months | 24-Months | 36-Months | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | $47.88 (Renews at $179.88) | $239.76 (Renews at $287.76) | $377.64 (Renews at same price) | Visit SiteGround |
| GoDaddy | $83.88 (Renews at $107.88) | $155.76 (Renews at $215.76) | $215.64 (Renews at $323.64) | Visit GoDaddy |
Price Summary: SiteGround’s introductory price for the 12-month term is $36 cheaper. GoDaddy offers cheaper hosting if you prefer 24 or 36 month terms. In fact, GoDaddy’s renewal costs are cheaper than SiteGround’s introductory pricing.
SiteGround Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You want to deal with a web host that is officially recommended by WordPress.
2. You want an ethical, faster web host with a higher uptime of 99.9%.
3. You need a support team with a faster response time.
4. You plan on utilizing the free perks provided – Let’s Encrypt certificate, Cloudflare CDN, and daily backup and restore.
Website: www.siteground.com
GoDaddy Alternative #2: Bluehost
If you’re not into SiteGround, then Bluehost is the next best GoDaddy alternative. Bluehost’s web hosting is also recommended by WordPress.org.
Bluehost is owned by Endurance International Group (EIG), and gets many unfair reviews by critics because of that. The company hosts over two million websites for a reason.
The company boasts incredible uptime levels, fast and responsive customer support, and incredibly fast loading speeds.
Bluehost Pros
Bluehost Cons
Control Panel
All Bluehost hosting account include the popular cPanel control panel. Bluehost’s customized control panel is well-organized and easy-to-access. You’ll be able to manage your hosting accounts, add or delete websites, install scripts, setup email accounts, and view basic site statistics.
Plans & Pricing
The Basic plan has an introductory rate of $2.95 per month and auto-renews at $9.99 per month. This plan is good for a single website, 50 GB of web space, and 200,000 files. You’ll also get:
- Free domain for a year
- CDN
- Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate
- Custom website themes
- Drag-and-drop website builder
Their highest-tier Pro plan costs $13.95 per month and renews at $28.99 per month. This plan offers unlimited websites, SSD storage, and MySQL databases. You’ll get everything included with the lower-tier plans plus domain privacy, automated backups, dedicated IP address, optimized CPU performance, and $200 in Google and Bing advertising credits.
Bluehost Vs GoDaddy Hosting Price Comparison
| 12-Months | 24-Months | 36-Months | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluehost | $35.40 (Renews at $119.88) | N/A | $178.20 (Renews at $323.64) | Visit Bluehost |
| GoDaddy | $83.88 (Renews at $107.88) | $155.76 (Renews at $215.76) | $215.64 (Renews at $323.64) | Visit GoDaddy |
Price Summary: Bluehost offers cheaper introductory rates. GoDaddy offers a 24-month term and their 12-month renewal is about $12 cheaper.
Bluehost Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You want to deal with a web host that is officially recommended by WordPress.
2. You want to use cPanel.
3. You want exceptional speed performance all across the world.
4. You need a website builder with templates to build a website.
Website: www.bluehost.com
GoDaddy Alternative #3: InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is our final GoDaddy alternative for shared web hosting. InMotion is a feature-rich and very versatile web hosting provider. The company offers shared hosting, virtual private servers, cloud hosting, dedicated servers, and more.
If you’re looking for an alternative to GoDaddy that carries a similar product line, InMotion Hosting may be your perfect host.
InMotion Hosting Pros
InMotion Hosting Cons
Control Panel
Like Bluehost, InMotion Hosting uses the popular cPanel control panel for their hosting accounts. Very user-friendly and not much to it.
From here, you’ll be able to manage website files and any applications that are associated with your hosting service. Some other common things you can manage and have quick access to databases, email accounts, SSL certificates, domains, and more.
Plans & Pricing
The Core plan costs $3.29 per month and later renews at $9.99 per month. This plan is good for hosting two websites, 100 GB of SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, and up to 10 email accounts.
The Pro plan, which is their most expensive plan, has an introductory price of $13.99 per month. It later renews at $23.99 per month. This plan offers unlimited websites, bandwidth, storage, and email accounts. A domain name is also included.
All of their plans include:
- SSL certificates
- Security tools
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Marketing tools
InMotion Hosting Vs GoDaddy Price Comparison
| 12-Months | 24-Months | 36-Months | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| InMotion Hosting | $39.48 (Renews at $119.88) | $66.96 (Renews at $227.76) | $82.44 (Renews at $323.64) | Visit InMotion Hosting |
| GoDaddy | $83.88 (Renews at $107.88) | $155.76 (Renews at $215.76) | $215.64 (Renews at $323.64) | Visit GoDaddy |
Price Summary: InMotion Hosting offers much cheaper introductory rates. The renewal rates are a few dollars cheaper through GoDaddy for the 12 and 24 month prepaid plans.
InMotion Hosting Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You want improved hosting servers with enhanced speed technology.
2. You need a lengthy 90 day money back guarantee.
3. You need access to more one-click app installations (400+ available).
4. You need a website builder and backups (GoDaddy charges extra for both).
Website: www.inmotionhosting.com
GoDaddy Alternatives For Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is optimized strictly for WordPress websites. The web host handles basic administrative task such as installing WordPress, automated daily backups, WordPress core updates, and server-level caching.
This type of hosting is more expensive than shared hosting but offers better performance, security, and support for WordPress websites.
Here are three GoDaddy alternatives for managed WordPress hosting:
GoDaddy Alternative #1: WPX Hosting
WPX is best GoDaddy alternative for managed WordPress hosting. The speed of WPX is incredibly fast, with average page loading speed of 0.574 to 0.717 seconds. In fact, this site is hosted on WPX, and the speed is just incredible.
WPX Hosting Pros
WPX Hosting Cons
Control Panel
WPX Hosting uses a custom basic admin panel. Once you’re at the main services details page, you’ll be able to view manage essential parts of your hosting account (e.g. websites hosted, file manager, backups, etc.).
The good part here is that you can access all site files using the admin panel from the file manager page without having to connect to a FTP solution like Filezilla.
Plans & Pricing
The Business plan costs $24.99 per month or $249.99 with discounted annual prepayment. This plan offers hosting for up to five websites, 10 GB of storage, and 100 GB of bandwidth.
The highest-tier Elite plan costs $99 per month or $999 with discounted annual prepayment. This plan offers hosting for up to 35 websites, 40 GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
All hosting plans include:
- 1-click WordPress installs
- Staging area
- DDoS protection
- Unlimited email accounts
- Site migrations
- Automatic backups
WPX Hosting Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You want a fast, reliable managed WordPress hosting provider.
2. You need website migrations.
3. You need reliable technical support (average response time is 30 seconds).
4. You need advanced website security.
Website: www.wpx.net
GoDaddy Alternative #2: Kinsta
Kinsta takes managed WordPress hosting to a whole new level by offering premium performance and expert hosting support. Powered by Google Cloud, Kinsta is simply second to none. Kinsta and WPX Hosting can easily rotate between #1 and #2 spots on this list.
Kinsta Pros
Kinsta Cons
Control Panel
Kinsta uses a custom WordPress hosting dashboard. Overall, the interface is user friendly and well-organized. The main dashboard tab shows your sites hosted on Kinsta, resource usage, and website traffic.
The other tabs along the left navigation give you access to things like billing, analytics, Kinsta DNS, migrations, users, and more.
The only disadvantage here is the inability to access website files using the dashboard. You’d have to use an FTP provider such as FileZilla.
Plans & Pricing
The Starter plan costs $30 per month for a single WordPress install, 25,000 visits, and 10 GB of disk space.
Their highest-tier Enterpise 4 plan costs $1,500 per month for 150 WordPress installs, 3M visits, and 250 GB of disk space. This plan supports multi-site functionality and has a backup retention for 30 days.
All plans come with:
- Free SSL certificate
- Kinsta CDN
- Staging area
- Unlimited website migrations
- Automatic daily backups
- 29 data center locations
- Two months free with annual prepayment
Kinsta Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You need a fast, reliable hosting provider.
2. You need the option for multiple data center locations.
3. You need a responsive technical support that knows WordPress inside and out.
4. You need server-side caching to avoid installing external plugins.
Website: www.kinsta.com
GoDaddy Alternative #3: WP Engine
WP Engine truly offers a robust platform to easily manage client sites under one dashboard. Their state of the art platform infrastructure allows you to easily scale to match your requirements. As an added bonus, WP Engine hosting plans include all of the StudioPress Genesis themes for WordPress.
WP Engine Pros
WP Engine Cons
Control Panel
WP Engine uses a custom but very simple user dashboard. Once logged in, the left navigation is where you can find SFTP login details, access your database, create new sites and environments, view account usage and billing, and more.
For those with multiple websites or large list of clients will find the search tool helpful. You can use the search tool to find any site across all of your linked accounts.
Plans & Pricing
The Startup plan costs $30 per month for a single WordPress install, 25,000 visits, 10 GB of storage, and 50 GB of bandwidth.
The highest-tier Scale plan costs $290 per month for 30 WordPress installs, 400,000 visits, 50 GB of storage, and 500 GB of bandwidth.
All plans include:
- Two months free with annual prepayment
- 1-click staging and backup
- Automatic WordPress and PHP updates
- Automated website migrations to WP Engine
- Studiopress Genesis WordPress themes
- 60-day money back guarantee
WP Engine Is Better Than GoDaddy If:
1. You need a fast, reliable hosting provider.
2. You plan on using Studiopress Genesis WordPress themes for your site.
3. You don’t need .htaccess functionality.
4. You need transferable billing to clients.
Website: www.wpengine.com
GoDaddy Alternatives For Domain Registrations
These are the best GoDaddy alternatives to register domain names:
1. NameCheap
.com domain extensions cost $13.98 per year but they always do promotions and the price is usually lower. The renewal price stays the same. All domain registrations come with free privacy protection for the life of your domain, free email address for two months, free domain transfers, and free DNSSEC security.
2. NameSilo
.com domain extensions cost $9.95 per year and renew at the same price. NameSilo runs frequent discounted promotions for domain registrations. All domain registrations comes with free privacy protection, free custom WHOIS records, email forwarding, and domain protection.
GoDaddy Alternatives: Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Which shared web hosting is the best alternative to GoDaddy?
Not only is SiteGround the best alternative to GoDaddy, it’s the best shared hosting provider.
Q2. Which managed WordPress hosting provider is best?
WPX Hosting or Kinsta.
Q3: Is it easy to transfer an entire website to a different web host?
Yes, most web hosts offer some kind of migration service that you can use to transfer a complete website.
GoDaddy Alternatives: Summary
GoDaddy is popular because it has just about everything under one roof. On top of popularity, GoDaddy is known to offer extremely low introductory pricing, only to have it doubled at renewal.
The good news is that you have multiple GoDaddy alternatives to look at. Go with the provider that you can afford for the long haul.
Here’s our final breakdown:
- Use SiteGround for shared web hosting.
- Use WPX Hosting or Kinsta for managed WordPress hosting.
- Purchase your domain names from NameCheap or NameSilo.
