SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Which One is the Winner?

We put these Webhosts to the test to find out which is the best!

WINNER 

bluehost vs. siteground

siteground homepage english

SiteGround Pros

  • Ideal uptime
  • Incredible performance
  • Awesome freebies
  • Value for money

10

Excellent!

VS

bluehost vs godaddy

SiteGround vs godaddy

GoDaddy Pros

  • Good server response time
  • User-friendly

6.5

Average

Let’s start with a mathematical equation. If A = B and B > C, how is A compared to C? Answer: A > C.

Ok, ok, don’t get frustrated. We’ll explain it in hosting terms. 

We compared Siteground vs Bluehost , and it ended in almost a tie. Similarly, in our comparison of Bluehost vs. GoDaddy, Bluehost was the clear winner. Therefore, this comparison of SiteGround and GoDaddy should end with SiteGround > GoDaddy. 

But does it? That’s what you’re going to find out. We will be taking Siteground and GoDaddy head-to-head, and noticing both’s features, ease of use, performance, customer support, and pricing. Whichever will be better overall will be the eventual winner.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

How do these compare?

Vendor

siteground vs. godaddy
Godaddy Logo

Features

10/10

6/10

Ease of use

10/10

9/10

Performance

10/10

7/10

Support

10/10

6/10

Value for money

9/10

6/10

Cell

Siteground vs. GoDaddy: Features


GoDaddy is the #1 web hosting in terms of commercial hosting market share. SiteGround isn’t small either ⁠— sure its 2 million customers are one-tenth of GoDaddy’s, but that’s huge nonetheless.

For both parties to retain customers or attract customers in such quantity, both must provide the essential features. Not only that, extra features ⁠— the freebies ⁠—  can also influence the customer’s buying decision.

How do SiteGround and GoDaddy compare in that regard? Let’s find out.

SiteGround

One of the USPs of SiteGround is the quantity and quality of the features it offers. In our experience that includes dealing with dozens of commercial web hosts, Siteground’s features have been the best. Even on their most basic shared plan, you get features such as:

  • High-performance SSD storage

  • Top-of-the-line security

  • WordPress-optimization. Siteground is one of the only three web hosts WordPress officially recommends.

  • Free automatic backups

  • Free site migration

  • Free SSL certificate

  • Free CDN

  • Free professional emails

  • Free website builder

  • Support for all popular CMS including WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and more

  • Unmetered traffic

  • 30-day money-back guarantee

  • 99.9% uptime guarantee

All value-added features combined make SiteGround an incredible option if you are looking for the most features. We would consider it an ideal features list if they had included a free domain. Anyway, it’s still a tough competition to beat for GoDaddy.

GoDaddy

As far as GoDaddy’s features go, it covers the primary features very well. However, the value-added features are less, especially for the cost of hosting, in our opinion. The base shared Linux hosting plan includes the following features: 

  • More than needed storage ⁠— the base plan apparently has 100 GB disk space!

  • Free domain name. However, the offer is not applicable to top TLDs like .com or .net. 

  • Free Office 365 email ⁠— this is for the first year only, sadly. You’ll have to pay for the renewal.

  • A website builder

  • Good security

  • Unlimited bandwidth

  • 99.9% service uptime guarantee

  • 30-day money-back guarantee

You see, that’s the thing ⁠— the freebies included are limited or “nerfed” (if you understand video game analogy). Otherwise, these are a common set of features by GoDaddy.

Verdict

SiteGround’s features are better without a doubt. Not only does it have extra features such as free SSL & free site migration, but at the same time, the features GoDaddy includes are limited in nature.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Ease of use


It’s extremely crucial for a good web hosting provider to give easy to use GUI-based controls. Especially when we are talking about giants like GoDaddy, the user can be anyone ranging from a pet shop owner looking to establish an e-store to the greatest tech-enthusiast of all time.

Our definition of user-friendliness includes everything from the signing up process to accessing emails & databases from the control panel.

SiteGround

Signing up with SiteGround is easy. Just select a plan, add the asked details, and pay.

To manage your account, you need to log in. On the dashboard, you’ll find all the options needed for managing the account, including the apps you want to install to the plans/add-ons you want to renew.

Similarly, to manage the website/hosting, you need to go to the admin panel. This will open SiteGround’s proprietary control panel. We’d rank it among the top control panels in the whole of the hosting industry. It’s so much more intuitive, categorized, and well thought out than the widely-used (& a panel SIteground used in the past), cPanel.

Not only is the control panel more user-friendly, but it also has all the functionalities, including managing domains, websites, files, databases, security, and more.

Overall, using SiteGround is a top-notch experience.

GoDaddy

Signing up with GoDaddy is straightforward. And so is its dashboard. Both just like SiteGround, in terms of experience as well as details needed & functionalities offered. 

As for the control panel, GoDaddy uses traditional cPanel. Some people actually prefer cPanel because…

  1. They are used to it. Most hosting providers have been providing cPanel for a long time.

  2. All the functionalities are there. Managing email, files & folders, domains, databases, security tools, one-click installs...you name it.

Overall, the UI and UX GoDaddy has built is pretty good.

Verdict

With either option, it’s easy to use & manage everything (one needs to). Our pick would be SiteGround because of its awesome control panel. However, given the fact that some professionals prefer cPanel to any other control panel, we’d say it’s pretty much a tie.

Winner: Both

SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Performance


Vendor

siteground vs. godaddy
Godaddy Logo

Uptime

100%

99.97%

Server response time

125 ms

150 ms

Loading time

500 ms

600 ms


Server performance is quite literally the single most important factor to consider while choosing a hosting service. And the most important metrics? Server response time, Uptime, and Loading speed. Any compromise in any of the performance metrics directly affects the bottom line. So, test all three elements first. Actually, you don’t need to; we’ve done it for you.

SiteGround

The average response time with SiteGround measured 125 ms. It’s an excellent number given that Google recommends below 200 ms

As for uptime, it was ideal. SiteGround server, on which our site was hosted, never went down. Meaning, the uptime measured 100%.

The loading speed is also fantastic. It took approx. 550 ms to load a simple one-page site. It is recommended to have it under one second, and it’s definitely under that barrier.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy’s average response time measured 150 ms, which is impressive. 

The average uptime stood at 99.97%, which is not perfect but above the recommended 99.9%. As for loading time, the same web page took 600 ms to load when hosted on the GoDaddy shared server.

Verdict

Both SiteGround and GoDaddy stands strong as far as performance metrics go. However, SiteGround is a tiny bit better than GoDaddy in all performance aspects.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Customer Support


Vendor

siteground vs. godaddy
Godaddy Logo

Support options

24/7 live chat, emails, and phone support

Live chat, phone support

Knowledge base

Yes

Yes

Quality of response

10/10

6/10


No matter how great performance or the most user-friendly experience a web host offers, things are bound to go sideways, one day or the other. In such times, a good customer team is needed to get out of the mess.

SiteGround

In all the points we discussed, SiteGround turned out to be better. Yet it’s not known for any of it. The biggest USP & why SiteGround’s customer reviews are outstanding is its customer support. In our opinion, SIteGround has one of the best customer support team, especially its WordPress support.

Firstly, you can connect with the team 24/7 via phone support, live chat, or emails. Besides, it has an in-depth knowledge base that has answers to many of the frequently asked queries.

We contacted the live support on multiple occasions, and each time, the experience was phenomenal. The response time was instant, the quality & conciseness of replies was fantastic, and the professionalism/friendly-nature was exceptional.

GoDaddy

If we were to describe GoDaddy’s customer support in one word, we’d say- “Bad”.

GoDaddy offers 24/7 support assistance via live chat, phone calls, emails, and help center articles. All good on the surface, right?!

The real trouble begins when you try to get in touch. We’ve tried to contact the support team via live chat numerous times. Our overall experience includes a frustrating waiting time & a decently knowledgeable or ‘don’t know what he/she is talking about’ support agent.

Verdict

There’s no comparison between SiteGround’s and GoDaddy’s customer support. Comparing SiteGround’s well-rounded support team with what GoDaddy offers is like insulting SiteGround. Let’s not stretch this.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Pricing


siteground vs. godaddy

Introductory pricing (of base plan)

$6.99/mo

Renewal pricing:

$14.99/mo

Money-back guarantee

30 days

VS

SiteGround vs godaddy

Introductory pricing (of base plan)

$5.99/mo

Renewal pricing:

$8.99/mo

Money-back guarantee

30 days

We don’t think you should buy GoDaddy at any price. We bet there’s a better web hosting provider than GoDaddy at any price point. Still, to go by our comparisons format, here we go.

SiteGround

SiteGround vs godaddy

SiteGround used to cost almost half (a couple of months ago) compared to what it charges now. We called it a “steal deal” then. Today, it’s merely an excellent value for money. (We know it’s nothing to be sad about, but who doesn’t like free value?!!)

They have three shared hosting plans: StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek. The base plan costs $6.99/month and the other two $9.99/month and $14.99/month, respectively. This cost applies when you buy it for one year.

It also has Managed WordPress and Cloud hosting offerings, if you are looking for high-performing options.

GoDaddy

Godaddy vs. siteground

GoDaddy has four shared hosting plans. The Economy plan costs $5.99/month. And the other three, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Maximum are priced at $7.99/month, $12.99/month, and $19.99/month.

As for other types of hosting, it has VPS, dedicated servers, Reseller hosting, and WordPress hosting.

Verdict

Because we’ve looked at all other aspects of the base shared plan, we’ll compare the StartUp and the Economy plan pricing. If we look at numbers only, both cost pretty much the same; in fact, GoDaddy costs a buck less. However, if viewed from a ‘value for money’ standpoint, SiteGround is way better than GoDaddy.

Winner: SiteGround

SiteGround vs GoDaddy: Conclusion

The Winner Is - SiteGround

As you read throughout the review or even if you just read the “verdict” part, SiteGround is the clear winner. 

  • Its features are better, both in quantity and quality.

  • The performance is superior in all aspects.

  • Managing SiteGround is a bit better experience because of its refined control panel.

  • And the customer support is in a different league altogether.

In conclusion, you can purchase SiteGround with your eyes closed. And you shouldn’t even think of buying a GoDaddy web hosting plan.

siteground or godaddy

Total Score: 10/10

SiteGround Pros

  • Uptime 99.9%
  • Great performance
  • Free SSL Certificate
  • WordPress Official Recommendation