SiteGround vs Go Daddy Comparison Guide

Comparison Guide

The main differences between SiteGround and Go Daddy are how they set up their plans, how they host WordPress, and how they handle technical support.

1. Company Info

SiteGround and Go Daddy couldn’t be more different when it comes to their size and who they market toward. SiteGround is a fraction of the size with a long history of hosting experience and they focus a majority of their attention to customer service. Go Daddy is one of the largest hosting companies around with lots of hosting experience and they focus a lot on providing a variety of products to their customers.

SiteGround

SiteGround was founded in 2003, they have over 50 employees and they are located in Sofia, Bulgaria. They have registered around 300,000 domains and have around 400,000 customers. Their datacenters are spread across the world in U.S., Europe, and Singapore.

SiteGround markets towards users who want to host WordPress (and other CMS’s) and also want personal technical support.

Go Daddy

Go Daddy was founded in 1997, they have over 3400 employees and they are located in Scottsdale, Arizona. They have registered over 55 million domains and have around 11 million customers. Their datacenters are located in Arizona, Iowa, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and India.

They market towards new website owners who want specific packages for smaller sites. You can get more technical plans with Go Daddy, but they are not as popular.

2. Plans and Pricing

At face value, both SitGround and Go Daddy’s plans seem pretty similar. SiteGround will be slightly more expensive on the high-end plans, but around the same price for shared hosting. The only other difference is that Go Daddy offers VPS services instead of Cloud Hosting services.

SiteGround

Shared Hosting

• Startup – $3.95/Mo. 1 website, 10GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email accounts, free domain name.
• GrowBig – $7.95/Mo. Multiple websites, 20GB storage, priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored. unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email, domain name. Priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored.
• GoGeek – $14.95/Mo. 30GB storage, priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored, less accounts on server, advanced hardware, Joomla and WordPress staging. Multiple websites, unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email, domain name.

Cloud Hosting

• Entry plan Cloud 1 – $68.95/Mo. 2×2.0GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 40GB space, 1TB bandwidth.
• Top plan Cloud 4 – $138.95/Mo. 4×2.0GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, 150GB space, 5TB bandwidth.

Dedicated Hosting

• Entry Server $229/Mo. – 4GB DDR3 RAM, Quad Core Processor, 500GB space, 5TB bandwidth.
• Top plan Enterprise Server – $429/Mo. – 16GB DDR3 RAM, Hexa Core Processor, 1GB space, 5TB bandwidth.

Go Daddy

Shared Hosting

• Economy – $2.99/Month unlimited bandwidth, 1 website, 100GB, 10 Databases, 100 Email Addresses.
• Deluxe – $4.49/Month unlimited bandwidth, websites, and disk space. 25 databases, 500 email address.
• Ultimate – $9.99/Month unlimited bandwidth, websites, disk space, databases, and email address.

VPS Hosting

• Entry plan Economy – $23.99/Month 40GB storage and 1TB bandwidth.
• Top plan Ultimate – $149.99/Month 240GB storage and 8TB bandwidth.

Dedicated Hosting

• Entry plan Economy – $89.99/Month 160GB storage and 5TB bandwidth.
• Top plan – $249.99/Month 1 TB storage and 15GB bandwidth.

Discounts for paying upfront

• Shared Hosting 50% OFF
• VPS: 10% Off 12 Months, 20% Off 24 Months.
• Dedicated: 10% Off 12 Months, 20% Off 24 Months.

3. Control Panel and User Experience

SiteGround and GoDaddy have pretty good design, but SiteGround is easier to use. SiteGround uses a well-known hosting control panel called cPanel. Go Daddy uses their own hosting control panel and some of the their tools have another control panel, which can be confusing.

SiteGround

One major benefit to using SiteGround and cPanel is that a lot of other hosts use it. So, if you came from a different host or ever want to move hosts, a lot of them will use cPanel and you will already know your way around it.

The design is great. It’s easy to find your way around and use different tools. The most important features are listed at the top. Features like databases, FTP and Email are located at the top for quick access.

Go Daddy

One problem I have when I use Go Daddy is the amount of different control panels they have. Almost every product and tool they have has it’s own control panel, which can be confusing.

The design looks good, but it’s not always that easy to find your way around. You may find yourself getting lost in between different tools.

4. Installing and Managing WordPress

The distinct differences between WordPress when it comes to installing and managing it are that SiteGround uses Softaculous and Go Daddy uses Hosting Connection.

SiteGround

To install WordPress at SiteGround you can use Softaculous or the manual method. Softaculous provides a fast, 1-click installation of WordPress. I prefer to install WordPress using the manual method because you get more control over the database creation and customization.

To manage different aspects of WordPress you can use the FTP access, File Manager, MySQL Databases, and phpMyAdmin to keep your site healthy.

Go Daddy

To Install WordPress at Go Daddy you can use their proprietary software called Hosting Connection to perform a 1-click installation of WordPress. I prefer to install WordPress using the manual method, like previously stated.

To manage WordPress you can use the same tools as SiteGround.

5. Performance

SiteGround performs excellently as a WordPress host. As for Go Daddy, we have not monitored any websites on their servers. The only data we have is from samples of the SiteGround website.

SiteGround

The site I monitored for this data is a pretty small site with no caching or CDN attached to it. The average response time is 1.12 seconds which is pretty fast considering there is no speed enhancement. The average uptime is 99.95% which is excellent. SiteGround is both fast and reliable.

Go Daddy

I don’t currently have any performance data for Go Daddy, but check back in the future to see what we find.

6. Technical Support

In my experience, both SiteGround and Go Daddy have excellent technical support. SiteGround has better ticket system and live chat support while Go Daddy has a better phone support system.

SiteGround

I prefer to use live chat over most tech support methods because you can multitask while you do it. For instance, I can trouble shoot online forums and documents for solutions while I chat with the technical support staff. With SiteGround the staff are extremely friendly and pay full attention to your case. One of my favorite features is the picture next to the name of the technician helping you. This personalizes the experience and makes it much easier to communicate.

Phone support with SiteGround is decent, but it can be hard to understand the technicians because they are located in Europe. It’s rarely an issue, but sometimes it can make communication more difficult.

SiteGround has one of the fastest ticket system around, which makes it a favorite of mine. They will respond to you in an average of 10 minutes.

Go Daddy

With Go Daddy you don’t get an option for live chat. Since that’s what I prefer, it sets me back some.

They do have phone support which is very helpful and friendly. I have been able to solve most issues with one phone call.

The ticket support is not as good as SiteGround because it is much slower. It has taken around 13 hours to get a response from Go Daddy. Since SiteGround is so fast, there is hardly a comparison.

Conclusion

You get all around better service at SiteGround. I like them more because they are very customer focused, they have competitively priced plans, a well designed control panel, better WordPress management, and more helpful support.