Vendor vs. Vendor: Hostinger vs. GoDaddy – Who’s better?

It comes as no surprise to anyone that websites are critical in today’s day and age. If you want your business or blog to be successful and for people to find out about it, having a good, fast, and fun website is a must. And for that, you need a web hosting provider.

Web hosting providers are everywhere. There are numerous options available today for users to pick and choose from, and each of them is gunning for the top spot in this field.

So, it doesn’t come as a surprise that many people, beginners especially, have one question in mind: Who should I choose? And when people with no experience base their decisions on what they think is right, many mistakes can happen.

That’s where my Vendor vs. Vendor series comes to the rescue. Making important decisions is never easy, and when we combine that with the future of your business, it becomes even more difficult. So, to make things at least a little easier, I will compare two well-known providers: Hostinger and GoDaddy, in hopes of figuring out which one is better.

Let’s begin!

Some Background Information About the Providers

Let’s start with the senior of the two, GoDaddy. As mentioned, GoDaddy is extremely popular and has a market share of 20 percent as of 2021. It was founded in 1997, and its headquarters are in Tempe, Arizona, United States. GoDaddy has been around for a while, or 24 years now, to be exact. And in those 24 years, GoDaddy has managed to accumulate over 20 million customers worldwide.

It is one of the largest and most well-known web hosting providers in the world. The majority of people are familiar with GoDaddy because of its TV and newspaper advertisements. And, since it has been around longer than most other providers, GoDaddy has a decent amount of experience.

Hostinger is a bit younger than GoDaddy. It was founded in 2004 and is a private employee-owned company with over 29 million users. It has its headquarters in Kaunas, Lithuania, and operates from 178 subsidiaries. The company was first founded as Hosting Media and didn’t change its name to Hostinger until 2011.

In 2021, investors acquired 31 percent of Hostinger’s shares from the employees and became board members. Hostinger is also ICANN accredited and has an average of 20 000 new users sign up every day. So, even though it’s younger than GoDaddy, Hostinger has also been quite successful since its inception.

GoDaddy provides a few different WordPress hosting plans—starting with the Basic plan, which includes everything you need to start with WordPress. The Deluxe plan adds an SEO optimizer and a one-click testing site to the mix. In addition to the other features listed, the Ultimate subscription includes unlimited malware eradication and hacks repair. Finally, the eCommerce plan has unlimited products, appointment scheduling, real-time shipping costs, and free access to the best premium WooCommerce extensions.

GoDaddy also offered web, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting. GoDaddy also offers a website builder, an online store builder, domains, website security, email, and Microsoft 365, among other services.

Hostinger provides Shared Web Hosting, Cloud Hosting, WordPress Hosting, cPanel Hosting, VPS Hosting, Minecraft Hosting, CyberPanel VPS Hosting.  Also, Hostinger offers free SSL certificates for all plans, backups for some plans, built-in caching, and other features. It also provides eCommerce Hosting for online stores.

These are only some of the features that the providers offer. And when I look at the overall features that these two providers offer in their plans, I have to say that Hostinger does a better job including the essentials in their plans. However, before we decide who’s better, let’s look at other important factors first!

Testing Speed and Performance

When choosing a web hosting provider, one of the things that you should look at is its server network. The server network determines the uptime and speed of your website and blog, so your provider’s server network must be a well-oiled machine. When it comes to GoDaddy’s data centers, the provider is not quite forward with the exact location of its servers. It is known, though, that GoDaddy has 37 000 servers spread out across nine data centers, one of which is its own data center in Phoenix, Arizona. The other eight data centers are located in the US, Europe, and Asia. The rest of the information is undisclosed.

When it comes to uptime, GoDaddy guarantees it at 99.99 percent. With a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee, you’ll only experience four minutes of downtime every month. Furthermore, GoDaddy will credit you 5% of your monthly purchase if your website is down for more than four minutes. All you have to do now is ask the provider for credit. GoDaddy has an average uptime of 99.97 percent, which isn’t too terrible.

Cloudflare, a content delivery network, is supported by GoDaddy (CDN). It ensures a high degree of productivity. Furthermore, the Cloudflare CDN lowers latency and increases engagement.

The average load time of GoDaddy sites is usually 341ms which is considered quite good and really fast.

When it comes to the location of its data centers, Hostinger is more transparent than GoDaddy. Hostinger has data centers in seven countries: the United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands, Singapore, Brazil, Lithuania, and Indonesia.

Hostinger also has a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee, and like GoDaddy, its system status is available so that users can check the server uptime. Hostinger also supports Cloudflare CDN, ensuring that the content of your website is delivered fast regardless of geographical location.

The response time of websites hosted by Hostinger is better than what most providers have to offer, being an average of 143ms. This is definitely one of the fastest response times available and is quite better than the industry average of 600ms.

So, the clear winner of this category is Hostinger. And while both providers guarantee a 99.99 percent uptime, Hostinger’s response time exceeds GoDaddy’s by a lot. Also, Hostinger has CDN and SSL Certificates available for all of its plans, which only further ensures stability and speed.

Safety First!

Although speed is essential for your business to function smoothly, it’s not everything. Another crucial factor that you should consider while picking your web hosting provider is the safety tools and backups they offer. This may be even more important than speed because every website must safeguard its data and website against cyberattacks, hacking, and other similar dangers.

Let’s start with GoDaddy. GoDaddy offers a wide range of security options. Its options include SSL Certificates, Website Security, Website Backup, and Managed SSL Service. Any measure of security, however, has a cost. GoDaddy’s SSL protection is not free as well. However, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. It also offers one-click restoration from backups, automated WordPress updates, website backups, malware removal and inspections, and malware removal and checks.

However, acquiring an SSL comes at a monthly fee with GoDaddy, whereas Hostinger includes SSL with all of their services for free.

Now let’s see what Hostinger has to offer. Mod security, Suhosin PHP hardening, PHP open_basedir protection, and other advanced security modules are enabled on Hostinger’s servers. In essence, they allow the organization to provide the highest level of security currently accessible.

Free SSL, CDN, WordPress Acceleration, Cloudflare, SSH Access, and daily and weekly backups are also included.

Hostinger goes one step further when it comes to security. Aside from having free Cloudflare CDN with all of its plans, Hostinger also offers BitNinja security.

Now let’s see the backup options these providers have. If you want a backup for your website with GoDaddy, you’ll have to pay extra. GoDaddy’s backup options include daily backups, on-demand (scheduled) backups, and fast one-click restores. Website Backup options also include daily virus scanning, ongoing security monitoring, and secure cloud storage. If you purchase Website Backup, you’ll also get file, folder, or whole database backups, downloads to local storage, and 24/7 customer support.

Depending on the plan you choose, Hostinger can perform daily or weekly backups for you. You can then easily download your backup files. So, it would be best if you kept an eye out on the plan you choose and whether it includes backup options.

So, for this category, the crown goes to Hostinger, as it only offers free SSL and CDN with all plans, but it also has superior security features.

Who’s Easier to Use?

When it comes to ease of use, both providers are at the top of the list. Web hosting services must be user-friendly and beginner-friendly because not all customers are tech-savvy or industry experts. Let’s see if one provider performs better than the other or if it’s a tie.

Customers of GoDaddy have access to a reasonably simple control panel. It also has an in-house drag-and-drop website builder. As a result, if you’re a novice, the constructor will simplify the process for you. The setup process is simple, and everything you’ll need is right where you need it. GoDaddy uses cPanel, which provides a graphical user interface and a server administration interface through its Web Host Manager. The former is more user-friendly for beginners, while the latter is better suited for experienced programmers.

Hostinger uses hPanel, which is its own custom control panel. Its Site Manager, like cPanel, includes a graphical user interface for beginners and a server control interface for developers. hPanel is an easier-to-use variant of cPanel that is more comfortable, intuitive, and beginner-friendly than cPanel. Your WordPress dashboard and plugins are accessible with a single click.

For this category, it’s a very close call. However, because Hostinger uses its own hPanel, which is better suited for beginners than the cPanel, I have to give the win to Hostinger.

Customer Support

In most cases, good customer service can be found. On the other hand, excellent customer service is what you should be looking for when choosing a provider. Being able to contact your provider via different channels at all times is what makes customer service excellent. In addition, your provider should be patient with you and patiently answer all of your questions.

For our two providers of the day, it’s a close call when customer support is concerned.

Hostinger offers 24/7 support through live chat and email. Also, Hostinger has a very well-organized and extensive knowledge base that includes tutorials and a blog.

However, for this one, GoDaddy has the upper hand. Not only does GoDaddy offer live chat and email support, but it also has a phone call option available for its customers. Additionally, GoDaddy has an extensive knowledge base, detailed help section, tutorials, a community forum, and a blog.

So, the winner here is GoDaddy, as it has more channels open for communication available to their customers.

A Quick Financial Analysis

It’s time to look at the financial components of the two providers now that we’ve reviewed the basics, performance, and technical factors. In the case of these two providers, the number of plans available and the features included are different. For simplicity, let’s look at the providers’ shared hosting plans.

GoDaddy has four shared hosting plans with three-year subscriptions. In addition, if you want to renew your subscription, the prices spike, almost doubling. When you check at each of GoDaddy’s plans, you’ll notice that they’re all reasonably expensive for the things they provide. If you’re set on GoDaddy, though, the Economy plan is the most cost-effective option.

Now for Hostinger. Hostinger offers three shared hosting plans with promo prices for first-time users. An important thing to know is that the prices change when you renew your subscription, and they go up by almost double the promo price. However, even with the higher prices for renewals, the features that Hostinger offers are pretty good for the price you pay for them. Also, Hostinger has multiple payment options available for its customers, such as PayPal, credit cards, and cryptocurrencies.

So, overall, when it comes to prices, Hostinger takes the crown as it has both lower prices and more discounts than GoDaddy. Also, it has more benefits for lower prices.

When it comes to refunds, GoDaddy offers a standard 30-day money-back guarantee for annual plans, which you must request by contacting customer service on your own. If you purchase a monthly plan, however, the money-back guarantee is only 48 hours.

Hostinger also offers the standard 30-day money-back guarantee.

Now let’s look at how you can make money by joining the affiliate programs of these providers. You can earn a good commission as an affiliate with GoDaddy’s affiliate program. You have a choice of 100 sites to advertise and sell as an affiliate. You can sell domains, websites, Web hosting, SSL security, WordPress, Microsoft 365, and Professional Email, among other things.

With Hostinger, you can earn money by referring to successful sign-ups like web hosting sales. The sign-up is free, and it’s speedy and easy.  All you have to do is make an account and fill out a form, and then wait to be verified. After you’re verified, you get a referral link that you use to promote Hostinger products. The commission that Hostinger pays its affiliates is relatively high when you’re starting, which is considerably higher than GoDaddy’s. Also, commissions are even higher once you start making 15-20 sales per month.

When the two affiliate programs are compared, it is easy to see that Hostinger’s program is better, as it offers a higher commission per sale with the option for that commission to rise.

In general, when I take prices, refunds, and affiliate programs into consideration, the clear winner is Hostinger, as it has lower prices, better value for money, and a better affiliate program than GoDaddy.

Key Features

Now, let’s put the essential features of today’s competitors side by side.

Overall Summary of Categories