GoDaddy is arguably one of the most popular web hosts out there, thanks in part to its attractive affiliate plan that has bloggers and influencers promoting its services consistently. However, it's on the more expensive end, its refund policy isn't great, there are rumblings of domain name front running, and its declining customer service has led many users to explore other options that offer more value and better support.
Thankfully, there are a ton of GoDaddy alternatives. Here's a closer look at our top five alternatives to GoDaddy, each of which appears on our list of the best web hosting providers.
What you should know about GoDaddy
Serving more than 21 million customers, GoDaddy has 82 million domains and 6,000 employees. It's one of the most widely used web hosts and domain registration platforms, thanks to its variety of services and ease of use. While there are many users who sing its praises, there are many customers who complain about reliability and declining customer support. GoDaddy is ideal for beginners, although more advanced users may find its higher-tier plans lacking compared to the competition.
Before you decide on an alternative to GoDaddy, first understand what matters most to your business. Is your company experiencing rapid growth and, therefore, needs a web host whose plans can scale as your business does? Is it advanced security features that are most important to you? Perhaps you're a cash-strapped startup, and affordable pricing is what you're looking for. Below, we've compared other popular web hosting providers to help guide you to a platform that fits your goals and budget.
5 top GoDaddy alternatives
With hundreds of GoDaddy alternatives, we narrowed down our selection through a key set of criteria, such as affordability, scalability, and advanced features. Some of these providers excel where GoDaddy falls short, such as customer service or performance. Whether you're a small business, freelancer, startup, or larger enterprise, these hosting services can offer something for everyone.
Scala Hosting: Best for customization
Some of the biggest differences between GoDaddy and Scala Hosting are how long you receive some of its features for free. GoDaddy provides a lot for free to entice new customers to use its services -- free domain, free email, and free SSL certificate -- but those only last so long. After the first year, you'll pay for both the domain and SSL certificate and then the email is only free for your first three months and is limited to two inboxes. Email is offered as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
It's worth noting that while Scala Hosting's cheapest plan, Mini, only has one website for as low as $2.95 per month, its Start plan offers unlimited websites starting at $5.95 per month. Compare that to GoDaddy's base plan for one website, you're paying $5.99 per month. Its most expensive shared plan only allows up to 50 websites. So, if you're looking for scalability, Scala Hosting has unlimited websites with a broader range of services for cheaper.
GoDaddy offers a 30-day money-back guarantee while Scala Hosting provides an anytime unconditional money-back guarantee. This means it will refund any of the unused services as a proration.
Liquid Web: Best for performance
While Liquid Web doesn't offer shared hosting, which is often the cheapest type of hosting available, it does offer Cloud VPS, which is also economical and offers greater scalability and flexibility. It's optimized for high traffic and resource demands, making it ideal for those who need more control and power over their hosting environment, such as larger businesses requiring greater performance. So, if you're an ecommerce site or a high-traffic enterprise, Liquid Web is an ideal web host.
In contrast, GoDaddy is best suited for solopreneurs or small businesses, offering built-in packages that don't require much tinkering. GoDaddy's packages are more static and less flexible unless you upgrade to a higher-tiered package.
GoDaddy offers a free SSL certificate for the first year, and that renews at $99 per year. Liquid Web doesn't provide an SSL certificate at all while most web hosts offer this for free every year. GoDaddy and Liquid Web have the same 30-day money-back guarantee, the same level of customer support, and the same number of websites with its base plan.
Bluehost: Best for beginners
One of the biggest differences between Bluehost and GoDaddy is that Bluehost's base plan allows for up to 10 websites while GoDaddy only allows for one website. Additionally, Bluehost gives you a free SSL certificate, and GoDaddy only provides it for free for the first year, and then you're paying $99 per year for it.
Most web hosts offer SSL certificates for free for the duration of your contract with them. Even then, you can purchase an SSL certificate elsewhere for way less than $99 a year. For such a standard feature with almost every web hosting plan out there, the fact GoDaddy charges so much for it beyond the first year isn't ideal.
Like GoDaddy, you only get a free domain the first year, and then Bluehost charges a renewal fee of $21.99, plus $15 for WHOIS privacy. Renewal for GoDaddy is $11.99 plus 18 cents per domain for ICANN fees. Both web hosts provide the first three months of email for free. After the trial, Bluehost charges $2.49 per month, and GoDaddy charges $1.99 per month for the first year, or $23.88 annually, and it renews at $95.88 annually.
Dreamhost: Best for WordPress users
DreamHost is one of four web hosts endorsed by WordPress as DreamHost has a huge team of WordPress experts ready and waiting to help if you need it. It also has one of the longest money-back guarantees in the industry at a whopping 97 days, compared to GoDaddy's standard 30 days. Both web hosts offer 24/7 customer support.
Both DreamHost and GoDaddy's base plans allow for one website. However, DreamHost's one other shared hosting plan costs $3.95 per month and allows for unlimited websites. GoDaddy doesn't offer a plan with unlimited websites with shared hosting, although its most expensive performance plan allows for up to 200 websites.
DreamHost has a drag-and-drop website builder so you can create websites without using any code. GoDaddy has a website builder, but you must have a much more expensive plan -- these start at $119.88 per year and renew at $155.88 per year. While GoDaddy also includes web hosting, DreamHost's website builder is already included in its web hosting plans, so you're not having to pay anything extra.
Mochahost: Best for affordability
Mochahost is significantly cheaper than GoDaddy at $3.18 per month for its cheapest plan, compared to $5.99 per month for GoDaddy. Mochahost provides free SSL certificates, free migrations, and free weekly backups with its most basic plan. GoDaddy provides a free SSL certificate but only for the first year and charges $99 per year thereafter.
GoDaddy also has a free WordPress migration tool, although its automatic backups are daily, which is helpful should your site get hacked or you accidentally break something on your backend while updating a plugin -- you'd be surprised how often that happens, especially with WordPress plugins. Users with Mochahost can have automatic daily backups, but only on its most expensive plan, which costs $23.90 per month after the introductory term ends.
Another area GoDaddy appears to beat Mochahost is with its domain names, but upon closer inspection, you're still paying more. To get a free domain name with Mochahost, you must have a higher-tiered plan, which starts at $4.18 per month for the Business plan. Still, this is cheaper than GoDaddy's base plan.