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GoDaddy vs HostPapa: Which is Better?
Updated On
August 8, 2024
Reading Time
9 min
As an entrepreneur, business owner, or someone who wants to start a blog, you want an online presence. You need a website to show the public who you are.
While focusing on the design and functionality of a website is important, the web hosting provider you use can prove just as, if not more, important. Two of the biggest names in the web hosting industry are GoDaddy and HostPapa.
On a one-on-one comparison it is a close call as they each have pros and cons, but nonetheless, there is always a winner. In this guide, we’re going to do a thorough review of both to help you better understand the differences as well as which one is superior.
As someone in the market for a new service, you always look closely at what features you get for the money you spend—the same is true of web hosting. You have to examine the features provided by different hosting providers to know if that service meets your requirements.
Check out the summary of the features provided by both GoDaddy and HostPapa (Host Pappa) below.
GoDaddy Key Features
GoDaddy offers an array of features that can be improved based on the pricing plan you choose. With the most basic plan, you get plenty of impressive features such as free site migration, one-click WordPress installation, unmetered bandwidth, support of 10 databases, a free domain name, and even a free Microsoft 365 email.
Plus, GoDaddy provides an easy-to-use cPanel to manage your website backups, security, and more. GoDaddy also offers one-click installation on a plethora of applications outside of WordPress. These include applications for blog writing, forums and more.
Depending on the plan of your choice, you can receive between 100GB of storage to unlimited storage, hosting of one website or unlimited websites, and unlimited SSL certificates for all your websites.
The downside of GoDaddy is that their basic plan does not include a free SSL certificate which is something you’ll need to buy if you want website visitors to trust your site.
HostPapa Key Features
Similar to GoDaddy, the features you get with HostPapa will change based on the price you pay. Regardless of the plan you choose, you’re going to get attractive features. The free features include 100 email addresses, support on one website, free domain name registration, 100GB of storage and a free SSL certificate.
On top of those features, all tiers offer a website builder for those who want to get their website up running quickly and easily. The website builder tool includes professionally designed templates that customers can customize to fit their website’s needs.
If you choose a higher tier, you can receive support on unlimited websites, have access to a business-level website builder and get a free Wildcard SSL certificate which has the value of $99.99 per year. What’s more, the premium tier offers one-on-one training for HostPapa services.
When it comes to the features the winner is HostPapa. Although both hosting providers have great features that come with any plan, it’s the free SSL certificate and the numerous attractive advanced features that tip the line for us.
Winner: HostPapa.
Speed Compared
Speed is essential in the modern internet world. When a user comes to your website, they make a request that the webserver has to answer - how long it takes to return the data depends on the hosting provider. No website users want to see a website load, so the faster your site is, the better it is.
GoDaddy Speed
GoDaddy has reported impressive speeds on website tests. This is likely due to the number of servers they have around the world. Recent reports state that GoDaddy has over 37000 around the globe, with data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia.
These data centers and server locations help dictate how fast a website can load as the closer a server is to your physical location, the faster speeds you’ll get.
By testing how fast the first byte - a small piece of data - is received by the website after a request shows the potential load speeds. GoDaddy reports between 0.7 seconds and 0.1 seconds, depending on the physical location of the test.
For overall load time - how long it takes a web page to load - GoDaddy reports between 2.5 seconds and 5 seconds.
HostPapa Speed
While GoDaddy has servers all over the globe, HostPapa has a smaller reach. Most of their data centers and servers are located in North America, and reports show that they have a little over 100 servers.
As a website owner, if most of your clients are in North America, this will not be a problem as shown by the speeds below.
The first-byte test proved that HostPapa may have some deficiencies in speed as it reports a wide range starting at 0.45 seconds all the way up to 3 seconds. However, the overall page load speeds are impressive.
Scores have come in between 1.7 seconds and 6 seconds. While load speeds may be impressive, it all depends on where the test is conducted as a 6 second load time is nothing to write home about.
As you can see, the speed of a web hosting provider can fluctuate greatly. If speed is your primary concern, we suggest GoDaddy as this web hosting provider has more data centers and server locations that can better serve your website visitors.
Winner: GoDaddy.
Customer Support Compared
The customer support of any service you pay for is important as you never know when you’re going to run into a problem that only the provider can fix.
You wouldn’t pay for an insurance policy from a company that only offered a chatbot for communication, and the same is true of web hosting providers! Check out the customer support comparison below.
GoDaddy Customer Support
GoDaddy has been around for a long time - the company was founded in 1997. This has given the company plenty of time to work on its customer support, and as a result, they’ve developed numerous contact channels.
On top of being able to contact customer support through various means, GoDaddy has developed a community forum where users can interact. Here, you can search questions, post questions and talk with other GoDaddy users to troubleshoot issues you may have.
As a customer, you can contact GoDaddy via an online chat option, you can open a ticket online, or you can call them through a 24/7 phone line. What’s more, GoDaddy has an extensive set of resources, guides, and frequently asked questions that can aid clients who want to look for a quick answer to a question without having to get in touch with support.
The downfall of the GoDaddy customer support services is that customers frequently complain about wait times. Whether you’re reaching out via the online chat, calling a support line, or opening a ticket, there is a good chance you may wait longer than you’d like to get the help you need.
HostPapa Customer Support
Although HostPapa is a newcomer to the web hosting industry, it’s built a strong reputation for having great customer support. You will get the standard channels of contact such as support via phone, live online chat and email. Each of the contact channels is available 24/7/365 as well.
Where they shine in customer support is the availability. Current customers rave that support staff are readily available and eager to help. They provide more personalized attention and go above the expectations of customers to offer as much helpful information as possible.
Another strong selling point of HostPapa’s customer support is the free training session which was briefly mentioned in the features section above. They provides a one-on-one 30-minute training section, so customers can get a feel for the system and ask any questions they have.
While both have solid customer support options, it’s clear that HostPapa has the better overall customer support. Greater availability, eagerness, and the added training session make the support more attractive option.
Winner: HostPapa.
GoDaddy vs HostPapa Pricing Compared
When you’re committing yourself to a new service, you want to be sure you’re getting the best value for your money. This is a thin line as it can be just as easy to underpay and receive poor benefits as it is to overpay for below-par features. Check out the pricing plans compared between HostPapa and GoDaddy to see.
GoDaddy Pricing
GoDaddy offers its clients four main pricing tiers to choose from. The economy plan starts at $4.19 per month and includes all the basic features previously mentioned. From there, the plans move up to $5.99 per month for the deluxe plan, $11.99 per month for the ultimate plan, and $19.99 per month for the maximum plan.
They recommend the ultimate plan for websites that receive high traffic. This may be a business website, a well-read blog, or an entrepreneur who’s expecting to receive high traffic in the future.
As you’ll pay more for the ultimate plan, you get added benefits. These include increased processing power, unlimited website support, a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage and an unlimited number of databases.
The downfall of GoDaddy pricing plans is that none of them include daily website backups. Instead, you must pay an additional monthly fee to get that service. What’s more, to get these prices, you have to sign a three-year term and when you renew, the monthly fee will be raised.
HostPapa Pricing
Similar to GoDaddy, HostPapa offers various pricing tiers. The basic plan, called the Starter, costs $3.95 per month and includes everything mentioned in the features section.
Moving up the tiers, there is the Business plan that also costs only $3.95 per month and the Business Pro plan that costs $12.95 per month.
The Business plan is the recommended and the most popular plan. It’s mostly used by businesses (hence the name) who receive more traffic and need greater services to handle that traffic.
With this tier, customers get unlimited websites, unlimited email addresses, unlimited storage space, unlimited addons and unlimited MySQL databases. Plus, these customers get double the CPU resources for their websites.
Similar to GoDaddy, and also a downfall, if you want automated website backups, you’ll have to pay an additional feed.
Comparing the pricing options, one thing is clear: one definitely has cheaper options. The recommended plans from each provider cost $7.99 for GoDaddy and $3.95 for HostPapa.
Winner: HostPapa.
Final Verdict
Both great options for anyone searching for a web hosting provider. The basic tiers of each serve as a great starting point for those who are beginner website owners.
Looking at the speeds of each hosting provider, it’s clear that GoDaddy wins overall. However, if you and your website users are in North America, both providers are likely to operate at similar speeds.
When it comes down to it, we would choose and suggest HostPapa as the best provider. This Canadian web hosting provider offers cheaper plans with better features.
Not only that, they also offer the better customer support of the two which is something that cannot be overlooked as a beginner website owner or as a business website owner.
