When you start searching for the best web host provider, we suppose you know what aspects you are most interested in. The choice narrows down depending on what kind of web host you look for. However, the choosing part is the most challenging step you need to make. Yes, you’ve read that right. There are hundreds of web hosts that offer similar services, so you need to pick the best of the best. If you are looking for a web host which is an excellent domain register, you are in the right place. Continue reading our GoDaddy vs. Namecheap comparison and choose wisely.
Winner Snapshot: Check Out This Summary Table to Quickly Compare These Two Providers
GoDaddy | Namecheap | |
Features | One-click installs, top-quality website builder, various shipping and payment methods, discounts and coupons, and marketing tools | Domain privacy, free domain for a year, free email address, website builder, one-click installs, backups, and a bunch of other tools |
Support | Live chat, phone, help center, how-to guides, and community. | Live chat, ticketing system, help center, and knowledge base |
Performance | An uptime of 99.9% | Uptime of 99.9% |
Ease of use | cPanel with Sotaculous installer | A straightforward cPanel with Softaculous installer |
Security | Protection against viruses Fraud Spam protection Email privacy SSL certificates (free only with the two most expensive plans) DDoS protection | Leech Protect CodeGuard Virus scanners Hotlink prevention Whois Domain Privacy Protection SSL Certificates Two-factor authentication VPN service Personal privacy Browsing protection TOTP – Time-based One-Time Password feature PremiumDNS DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) |
Server location | It has three available data centers – North America (USA), Europe (Netherlands), and Asia (Singapore) | It is located in Los Angeles |
Free migration | No | Yes |
Winner: Namecheap
Even though GoDaddy has more server locations, Namecheap easily outshined the biggest domain register. Namecheap has incredible security features and better support options, and it comes with free migration. If we got your attention, and you are ready to learn more about the two web host companies, read our GoDaddy vs. Namecheap comparison and see why Namecheap is better than GoDaddy.
About GoDaddy and Namecheap
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| GoDaddy is the biggest domain registrar, which was founded in 1997 by Bob Parsons. Over the years, it managed to get more than 82 million domains under its management. More precisely, it has more than 20 million customers globally. GoDaddy provides incredible services that I can definitely confirm as I have a previous experience with it. In fact, 1 in 20 websites worldwide is hosted by GoDaddy. |
![]() | Namecheap is a Los Angeles-located company, which is a bit newer than GoDaddy. This web host was founded in 2000, and since then, it has hosted nearly 13 million domain names. It is an affordable web host provider that has received a few awards for its fantastic customer service and simplicity of use. There are many Namecheap competitors on the market, but this provider proves why it is the best choice you can make. |
GoDaddy vs. Namecheap: A Side-by-Side Comparison
To compare these two giants, we went from the biggest thing that they have in common; they are both considerable domain registers. But although they may seem like they provide the same services, there is a huge difference in the quality. For example, GoDaddy is better than Namecheap because of its server locations, but when it comes to support, security, and features, Namecheap is much better than GoDaddy.
But this doesn’t mean that GoDaddy is not worth it. GoDaddy comes with a few hosting plans that offer different features and services, but it comes with a weak security package. Its SSL certificates come as add-ons, and that is something that almost every web host has for free.
On the other hand, Namecheap works hard to prove that it is better than GoDaddy, and after many years, it looks like it finally managed to do so. It is affordable, has a variety of features, and personally, its best segment is the security features, which are absolutely fantastic.
Since we broke down these two web hosts into more details, I think that it’s time to go more in-depth and check out the features, performance, prices, customer support, ease of use, scalability, security, and server location of both provider, and see which web host in which round is better.
Round 1: Hosting Features – Key Hosting Features and Services
Hosting Feature | GoDaddy | Namecheap |
Free daily backups and restore | No | Yes – twice a week |
high-performance SSD storage | Yes | Yes |
Free WordPress installation | Yes | Yes |
Free site migration | No | Yes |
Free website builder | Yes | Yes |
Free domain-associated email | Yes | Yes |
Email accounts | One free Microsoft 365 account for one year | 30 – unlimited depending on the hosting plan |
Disk space and bandwidth | Unmetered bandwidth | Unmetered bandwidth |
Built-in caching system | No | Yes |
Free CDN (content delivery network) | Yes | Yes |
Webspace limit | 100 GB to unlimited, depending on the plan | 20 GB, 50 GB, or unlimited, depending on the plan |
free SSL | No – only as an add-on | Yes |
Sub and parked domains | Yes – up to 500 subdomains | Yes – up to 30 subdomains |
Option to add multiple users | Yes | Yes |
Free custom domain name | Yes, only for the first year | Yes, only for the first year |
Easy staging sites | Yes | No |
Git and SSH access | Yes | Yes |
Key GoDaddy Features
GoDaddy comes with a relatively wide range of features that include almost everything one web host needs to have. Is GoDaddy a real Namecheap competitor? Let’s find out. Among some of the best GoDaddy features are:
- GoDaddy website builder
- Marketing tools
- Online store builder
GoDaddy Website Builder
This web host comes with a straightforward website builder that allows you to create a website by using one of the hundreds of templates. The best part is that they are divided into categories, so you won’t waste any time on this. GoDaddy’s website builder is a drag-and-drop one, which significantly eases your job.
Marketing Tools
Another great addition to GoDaddy is its marketing tools. The provider comes with three tools – GoDaddy InSight, Search engine visibility, and Email marketing. GoDaddy InSight compares and scores your website’s performance to other sites in your space. It also includes metrics (social media engagement and site views), and it lets you select a few business goals. The second tool, Search engine visibility, suggests keywords and phrases and populates your metatags and page titles. Lastly, the Email marketing tool is included in all hosting plans.
GoDaddy Email
GoDaddy includes a professional email that will help you send and receive emails from your domain. Due to this feature, your website will get a more professional look, and you will definitely gain more page traffic.
Online Store Builder
Personally, this might be the best GoDaddy feature. The customers can develop their online store quickly, with many beneficial tools for free. What a fantastic feature!
It looks like GoDaddy has decent features that will boost your website, but what about Namecheap?
Key Namecheap Features
Namecheap is definitely in competition for a GoDaddy alternative. It provides a lot of fantastic features that will boost your hosting experience and will result in more frequent page traffic. Let’s check out the best Namecheap features to get a clear image of what we’re talking about.
- Namecheap Website Builder
- Messages
- Bulk action
- Usage statistics
Namecheap Website Builder
Namecheap comes with a drag-and-drop website builder that is best for a cPanel dashboard. Due to the simplicity of the builder, the users may create an entire website in no time, without any technical knowledge or coding. Plus, they will get a lot of beneficial tools that they can use for their websites.
Messages
One of the best Namecheap features is the messages feature. This amazing feature enables you to see all notifications for your account just by one click on the envelope in the top right corner.
Bulk Action
Another extraordinary feature that Namecheap has included is the bulk action. By opening this section in the Domain list, you can choose from the following actions:
- DNS/Host Records – manage DNS/Host records in bulk
- Email Redirect – set up email redirects for domains in bulk
- Renew Expiring – renew expiring domains in bulk
- Domain Contacts – update domain contact details in bulk
- Auto-Renew – auto-renew the needed domains in bulk
- Domain Privacy – configure Domain Privacy protection in bulk
- Add Category – create different categories for your domains for a more straightforward navigation
- Transfer Out – transfer out domains in bulk
- Verify Contacts – resend verification emails in case some domains need domain ownership confirmation
- Export CSV File – download a list of domains from the Namecheap dashboard
Usage Statistics
Last but not least is the usage statistics feature that allows you to monitor the statistics of your chosen hosting plan.
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! We must say, this round was really equal, but Namecheap managed to win with a slight advantage. Although GoDaddy has some superb features, Namecheap looks like it has worked hard to bring something not so basic to the market. Are you ready to check out the other categories?
Round 2: Website Performance (Uptime & Speed) – Who Offers Better Performance?
Do you want a slow-loading website or a website that will immediately show its results? We suppose that no one wants a slow website, so choosing a web host that provides fast loading speeds and incredible performance is essential. According to Google, if your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, you may lose customers.
Another crucial thing is the uptime. Be careful in your web host search, as the uptime must be close to 99.9%. Why this metric is so important is because if your uptime is lower than 99.95%, you may face issues with the availability of your website. Having a lot of downtime is the worst scenario you can imagine.
But there is one more important factor – the location. Depending on the server location, the customers worldwide get some kind of performance. Of course, if you are closer to the server, you will get faster speed, and if you are further away, you must search for a web host that includes a content delivery network (CDN).
And now, we’ve come to the exciting part, testing GoDaddy vs. Namecheap. What do you think? Which provider will win this time?
Test | GoDaddy | Namecheap |
Pingdom test 1 (Tokyo, Japan) | 0.9 s | 2.16 s |
Pingdom test 2 (San Francisco, USA) | 0.8 s | 1.26 s |
Pingdom test 3 (Sydney, Australia) | 1.17 s | 3.33 s |
GT Metrix test 1 (Vancouver, Canada) | 0.8 s | 0.5 s |
PageSpeed Insights test | 2.2 s | 3.9 s |
GoDaddy Performance & Speed
According to the tests we’ve conducted and what we can see from the chart above, GoDaddy has some extraordinary speed and performance. Its slowest loading time is 2.2 seconds, which is not slow at all, while its fastest is 0.8 seconds in Canada and the USA. Wow, this was really one great surprise. We’ll wrap this up with GoDaddy’s fantastic uptime of 99.9%. Let’s see how Namecheap did.
Namecheap Performance & Speed
Compared to GoDaddy, this time, Namecheap didn’t do so well. I mean, it still has superb results, but GoDaddy has shown why it’s one of the best on the market for many years. The fastest loading time we’ve come across is 0.5 seconds in Canada, while the slowest speed that Namecheap has is, according to the PageSpeed Insights test, and it is 3.9 seconds. All of these metrics are great, but this time, they weren’t enough.
And the Winner Is…
GoDaddy! In this round, GoDaddy has shown that it comes with better speed and performance and that although it is older than Namecheap, it still has what it takes to be the best. However, this doesn’t mean anything. Let’s see if GoDaddy is better than Namecheap in the pricing and plans too.
Round 3: Prices & Plans
We’ve only passed two rounds, and the tension is incredible. In this round, we’ll compare these two amazing web hosting companies in terms of their hosting plans and prices, so let’s get down to business!
GoDaddy | Namecheap | |
Entry-Level Plan | $5.99/month | $1.88/month |
Middle Plan | $7.99/month | $2.98/month |
Middle Plan | $12.99/month | / |
Middle Plan | / | / |
Highest Plan | $19.99/month | $4.98/month |
GoDaddy Pricing Plans
GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar worldwide, but this doesn’t mean that it only includes domain prices. This company also comes with a few web hosting plans – Shared Web hosting, Business hosting, Windows hosting, WordPress hosting, WordPress eCommerce hosting, VPS hosting, and Dedicated server hosting. In continues, we’ll explain each plan and its prices thoroughly.
The Shared Web hosting plan provides expert hosting support, superior performance, and load time. There are four plan levels available:
- The Economy plan is the most affordable plan with a free matching domain and email. It can be purchased for $5.99/month and renewed for $8.99/month.
- Deluxe will give you unlimited sites with unlimited storage. This plan comes with a price tag of $7.99/month or $11.99/month for renewal.
- Ultimate is the recommended plan for websites with higher traffic offering increased processing power with unlimited sites, storage, and databases. It costs $12.99/month or $16.99/month for renewal.
- Maximum, the plan with maximized processing power and speed, unlimited storage and databases. This plan can be purchased for $19.99/month or renewed for $19.99/month.
Next is the Windows Web hosting, which is recommended for ASP.NET, ASP, Net Core, and SQL Server users. You have three Windows web hosting levels – Economy, Deluxe, and Ultimate.
- Economy – the perfect plan for basic plans. It’s also the cheapest. This plan costs $5.99/month or $8.99/month for renewal.
- Deluxe will give you more space and flexibility for multiple sites. This plan costs $7.99/month or $11.99/month for renewal.
- Ultimate is the ideal plan for complex sites and heavy traffic. This plan comes with a price tag of $12.99/month. The renewal will cost you $16.99/month.
Business hosting gives you the power of a VPS but with an easy-to-use control panel. There are four available business plan hosting levels:
- Launch the most affordable and the perfect plan for multiple primary sites. This plan costs $19.99/month. The renewal price of this plan is $29.99/month.
- Enhance is a plan designed for high-traffic WordPress, Joomla, and other sites. This plan costs $34.99/month or $49.99/month for renewal.
- Grow fits the needs of advanced eCommerce sites like Magento. It comes with a $44.99/month price; renewing it will cost you $69.99/month.
- Expand is most suitable for photography or resource-heavy sites. This plan comes with a price tag of $59.99/month or $59.99/month for renewal.
Next is the WordPress plan, which is fully managed and reliable and has pre-installed extensions, plugins, and themes. There are four available levels:
- Basic – the best plan to get you started will cost you $8.99/month and $9.99/month for renewal.
- Deluxe – it will help you get more page traffic with an integrated SEO wizard. This plan costs $11.99/month and $14.99/month for renewal.
- Ultimate will give you more storage and security to add online marketing. The plan costs $18.99/month. The renewal price for this plan is $19.99/month.
- Ecommerce will get you a full-featured online store with a fast setup. This plan can be yours for $20.99/month. The renewal price is $24.99/month.
The Managed WordPress eCommerce Hosting contains WooCommerce extensions that will allow you to quickly set up your customizable store for just $20.99/month. The renewal price for this hosting is $24.99/month.
Next is the VPS Server, which will give you total control with full root access and an optional control panel. You have four plan levels with Standard RAM and four plans with High RAM.
- One vCPU with standard RAM will cost you $4.99/month and $9.99/month with high RAM.
- Two CPUs are $19.99/month with standard RAM. This plan with high RAM will cost you $29.99.
- Four CPUs with standard RAM can be yours for $39.99/month. The plan with high RAM is $49.99/month.
- Eight CPUs cost $69.99 /month with standard RAM and $99.99/month with high RAM.
Last but not least are the dedicated servers. GoDaddy provides two options – dedicated servers with HDD drives that have high capacity and servers with SSD NVMe, which are up to 25x faster. Each option has four available plan levels.
- DS-32 with HDD costs $129.99/month and $169.99/month for renewal. With SSD NVMe, the plan will cost you $139.99/month, or $179.99/month for renewal.
- DS-64 with HDD is $169.99/month and $219.99/month for renewal. The same plan with SSD NVMe will cost you $179.99/month or $229.99/month when you renew.
- DS-128 is $299.99/month with HDD and $359.99/month when renewing. With SSD NVMe, it will cost you $319.99/month or $379.99/month for renewal.
- DS-256 with HDD can be yours for $399.99/month and $499.99/month when you renew. The same plan with SSD NVMe will cost you $419.99/month, or $519.99/month when you renew.
Namecheap Pricing Plans
With Namecheap, we have the same case as with GoDaddy. Even though it is a domain registrar, it also comes with hosting plans. More precisely, you will get Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Server Hosting.
Namecheap comes with three different Shared Hosting plan levels – Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. The cheapest plan is the Stellar for $1.88 a month, which provides the lowest storage available of 20GB, and the most expensive one is Stellar Business for $4.98 a month with 50GB of storage.
All shared hosting plans come with unmetered bandwidth, free website builder, domain name and privacy protection, free automatic SSL installation, free Supersonic CDN, 30-day money-back guarantee, and free under 24 hours website migration.
The next hosting plan is the WordPress one with three levels:
- Easy WP Starter – ideal for building your first site.
- Easy WP Turbo – is a perfect choice if you want to grow your website.
- Easy WP Supersonic – specially designed to scale up your website.
The Easy WP Starter is the most affordable WordPress plan, which comes for $24.88. The Easy WP Turbo can be purchased for $48.88, and the Easy WP Supersonic comes for $54.88.
With all WordPress Hosting plans, you will get one WordPress website installed in under 90 seconds, which is hosted on Namecheap Cloud. You will also get three times faster than traditional hosting, support for any domain name provider, seamless scalability as visitors grow, an easy-to-use Dashboard to manage WordPress websites, SFTP and database access, and easy backups and restores.
Furthermore, Namecheap offers three Reseller Hosting plan levels – Nebula, Galaxy Expert, and Universe Pro. The cheapest plan is Nebula for $19.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 25 cPanel accounts and 30 GB SSD. The Galaxy Expert comes for $39.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 100 cPanel accounts and 90 GB SSD. The most expensive plan is Universe Pro for $58.88 a month, and with this plan, you get 150 cPanel accounts, 150 GB SSD, and WHMCS Starter.
All plans also include these benefits – unmetered bandwidth, free cPanel/WHM, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Next on our list is the VPS Hosting plan. Namecheap offers two VPS plan levels– Pulsar and Quasar. Both are simple, reliable, and come at an affordable price.
Pulstar is cheaper, and it comes at $9.88 a month. With this plan level, you get 2 CPU Cores, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD RAID 10, and 1000 GB Bandwidth. The Quasar plan level comes at $17.88 a month. With this plan, you get 4 CPU Cores, 6 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD RAID 10, and 3000 GB Bandwidth.
Both VPS plan levels have full root access and Operating System (OS) selection, the highest security standards, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and total flexibility.
Lastly, Namecheap comes with a Dedicated Server Hosting. This plan is the most powerful and reliable you can use.
Namecheap included six Dedicated Hosting plan levels – Xeon E3-1230 v5, Xeon E-2236, Dual Xeon Silver 4208, Xeon E-2234, Xeon E-2236, and Dual AMD EPYC 7282. The cheapest is Xeon E3-1230 v5 for $47.88 a month, and the most expensive is Dual AMD EPYC 7282 for $279.88 a month.
With these plans, you will get a same-day setup, free migration, and excellent uptime.
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! We had a hard time deciding who should be the winner in this round, but from what we could see above, Namecheap comes with more or less the same hosting plans, with incredible features and much cheaper prices. Although GoDaddy is a tough Namecheap competitor, Namecheap managed to win once again.
Round 4: Customer Support – Who Offers the Better Support System?
Type of Support | GoDaddy | Namecheap |
24/7 support | No – the live chat is available Monday-Friday | Yes |
Phone Support | Yes | No |
Live Chat | Yes | Yes |
Email Support | No | No |
Ticket support | No | Yes |
Forum Support | No | No |
Video guides | Yes | Yes |
Knowledgebase | Yes | Yes |
Customer support is one of the most important aspects of any web host provider. That’s why it is crucial to choose a web host for your business website that provides at least decent support, so your customers can easily solve their issues. Without reliable customer support, your customer may disappoint with the services they receive, and, unfortunately, you’ll lose them.
But what should you consider when choosing a web host? What kind of customer support should one web host offer? Every web host should include live chat, phone support, knowledge base, and ticketing support. Of course, there are other kinds of support, but these are the key ones. Let’s see how our competitors handled customer support.
GoDaddy Customer Support
GoDaddy provides some decent support features that are pretty beneficial and can help you solve any issue relatively easily. But let’s get more into details and see how each support option works. First, we should mention that GoDaddy comes with live chat, phone support, video tutorials, a help center, and a GoDaddy community.
We’ll start off with the live chat option that is the most disappointing in their support. You probably wonder why, so we won’t leave you without an answer. Although GoDaddy has a live chat option, its live chat is only available Monday to Friday. You can’t connect with an agent for the weekends. On the other hand, this web host includes phone support that is available 24/7/365, which means you can contact them by phone for an instant answer.
There are hundreds of GoDaddy competitors in this industry, but we don’t think that any web host comes with a better help center than GoDaddy. Its amazing help center can guide you from scratch to success. In the help center, you will find Account Management, Domains, Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy, Websites+Marketing, SSL Certificates, Linux Hosting, Managed WordPress, Workspace Email, etc. However, if you can’t find something or you are in a hurry, you can always enter your question in the search box and see what kind of results GoDaddy will provide.
If you are a visual learner, GoDaddy provides tutorial videos that are actually courses containing hundreds of lessons that can help every user. The best part is that these tutorials are explained by experts, and they also come in high quality.
Last but not least is the GoDaddy community that many users love. This community allows you to ask another GoDaddy user for their personal experience. You can also find announcements, discussion topics, groups such as GoDaddy Pro and WooCommerce users, events, and an inspirational section in the community.
Overall, GoDaddy’s support is one of the best. They just need to add a ticketing system and email support.
Namecheap Customer Support
One of the best GoDaddy competitors is Namecheap. This web hosting company has included some fantastic customer support options that make your hosting experience drastically better. We’re talking about 24/7 live chat support, phone support, knowledge base, help center, guru guides, video tutorials, and ticketing service.
To reach the live chat support, you’ll need to enter some basic information, such as your name, email, and department.
When it comes to the knowledge base, the customers will benefit from a wide range of issue solutions. The knowledge base includes Apps, EasyWP, How-To Videos, General & Support, Checkout & Billing, Domains, Domain Privacy Protection, Domain Transfers, Hosting, Email service, SSL Certificates, My Account, Affiliates, API & Resellers, Legacy Products, and PremiumDNS. You can also check out the FAQs section, which can also be helpful.
The guru guides section includes Affiliate Marketing, Expert Advice, Expert Insights, Getting Started, Online Marketing, Parents, Product general, Products, Apps & Deals, Security, Students, and Tutorials categories. The best part is that you can choose whether you are a beginner or an advanced user so that you can have a better experience.
The video tutorials section is best for those who need a visual representation of any issue they have. You can select your product or service and get all the necessary information.
Last but not least is the ticketing service. To leave a ticket, you first need to choose a department, and then enter General Information, User Ticket Creation, Account Ownership Verification, Your Message, tick a few boxes, and click Submit. Afterward, you should enter your domain name, user name, hosting package, Namecheap username, and support PIN.
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! As we go further, we only come across a harder and a harder decision. Both web hosts have showcased as extraordinary in this round, but Namecheap is better than GoDaddy because of some minor options. The main thing is that Namecheap comes with 24/7 live chat support and ticketing service.
Round 5: Ease of Use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?
Sometimes choosing an easy-to-use web host is one of the most important things. By having a web host with a simple and easy-to-navigate platform, you shouldn’t have any issues. It looks like we’ll have a tight battle once again, or should you consider choosing a GoDaddy alternative?
GoDaddy Ease-of-Use
GoDaddy is really one user-friendly web host that is suitable for beginners. Why so? First, it comes with a cPanel that is loved by many, and it has a straightforward dashboard. Another important thing is that creating an account with this web host is fast and easy. You will have your account in a few minutes, and you shouldn’t have any issues, as GoDaddy explains every step of the process. But that’s not all.
GoDaddy also allows you to install WordPress or buy a WordPress Hosting plan. This is another essential thing that makes the web host easy to use, as WordPress is one of the best website builders out there.
Lastly, the users can easily connect their domain for free. What an incredible hosting experience!
Namecheap Ease-of-Use
Another ease-to-use web host is Namecheap. This company also provides cPanel, which means you’ll have a simple and smooth experience.
We’ll start off with creating a Namecheap account. This process is relatively easy, and it doesn’t take much time. You will get instructions the whole time, so you just need to follow them.
Next, you can install WordPress with just one click. You just need to open the Softaculous app icon, follow the steps, and you’ll get your own WordPress account.
Last but not least is domain registration. Namecheap suggests the most popular domains, and it also gives a discount for some of them. The best part is that for registering a Namecheap domain, you get free privacy protection.
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! Once again, we had a battle in which we couldn’t decide the clear winner because both web hosts are beginner-friendly and easy to use, but Namecheap has some extras that make it better than GoDaddy. The only reason why we chose Namecheap is that it gives free privacy protection for registering a domain, which is pretty cool.
Round 6: Scalability – Which Platform Is Better for Growth?
Having a scalable web hosting provider is of great importance as your customers will have a latency-free experience, and your business website will gain bigger page traffic. To avoid any issues like downtimes or latency, you should choose the perfect web host that boosts your business to grow.
GoDaddy Scalability
GoDaddy is the biggest domain registrar in the world, but it might not be the best scalable web host. There are a few reasons that make this company bad in terms of scalability. One of the most important things for business growth is the possibility to integrate different apps and plugins that will meet your customers’ needs. Unfortunately, GoDaddy lacks various apps and plugins, so you might have some trouble with this. Also, if you have an eCommerce website, GoDaddy will limit you to 100 different products for your online store, which is not enough. I highly suggest using the best GoDaddy alternative in scalability, WordPress, so you don’t face any issues with this.
Namecheap Scalability
In contrast to GoDaddy, Namecheap is a bit more flexible and offers many tools that may boost your website and will help you grow your business. This can easily be seen from the great performance of Namecheap under heavy loads.
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! This time we have a clear winner. Namecheap definitely deserved to win this round as it is the better web host when it comes to scalability. This company makes sure your business will grow in no time.
Round 7: Security – Which Platform Is More Secure?
GoDaddy | Namecheap | |
Free SSL certificate | Yes | Yes |
DDoS protection | Yes | Yes |
Cloudflare | No | No |
Daily backups | No – only as an add-on | Yes |
Malware scans | No – only as an add-on | Yes |
SiteLock Security | No | No |
WAF (Web Application Firewall) | No – only as an add-on | Yes |
Security features | Email and privacy protection SSL certificates DDoS protection Firewall and malware protection | Leech Protect CodeGuard Virus scanners Hotlink prevention Whois Domain Privacy Protection TOTP PremiumDNS DDoS protection |
GoDaddy Security
GoDaddy’s plans come with basic security features:
- Protection against viruses
- Fraud
- Spam protection
- Email privacy
- SSL certificates
- DDoS protection
- Firewall and malware protection
However, the SSL certificates are free with the two most expensive shared web hosting plans, and it’s free only for one year.
Namecheap Security
Compared to GoDaddy, Namecheap has definitely drastically better security features:
- Leech Protect
- CodeGuard
- Virus scanners
- Hotlink prevention
- Whois Domain Privacy Protection
- TOTP
- PremiumDNS
- DDoS protection
- Two-factor authentication
- SSL certificates
- Personal privacy
- Browsing protection
And the Winner Is…
Namecheap! Namecheap definitely outshined GoDaddy with its fabulous security features, so it would be weird if it didn’t win this round too!
Round 8: Server Location
It looks like we’ve come to the end of our GoDaddy vs. Namecheap comparison. We only have one more thing to do – compare their server locations. Why this round is so important is because it affects the speed of your website. For example, if you choose a web host with fewer servers worldwide, you may face slower loading speeds and more downtimes. Let’s see which web host is better for this!
GoDaddy Server Location
GoDaddy’s headquarters are in Tempe, Arizona, but they have more than 320.000 square feet of a data center in Phoenix. This web host has three data centers worldwide. More precisely, it has data centers in North America (USA), Europe(Netherlands), and Asia (Singapore).
Namecheap Server Location
This time, it looks like GoDaddy is better than Namecheap. Namecheap has only one data center in Los Angeles, which works pretty well because of the CDN, but it still isn’t enough to be better than GoDaddy.
And the Winner Is…
GoDaddy! The GoDaddy vs. Namecheap ends here, and in the last round, GoDaddy has shown us that it is better than Namecheap. What a tough battle!
GoDaddy vs. Namecheap: Final Recommendations
When to Choose GoDaddy?
GoDaddy is the biggest and most significant domain registrar in the world and is known by many. But you should use it when:
- You want cheap domains – GoDaddy’s hosting plans are more expensive than Namecheap ones, but it has relatively low domain prices.
- You want 24/7 phone support – although their live chat isn’t available on the weekends, their phone number is, so you can get an answer just by contacting them.
- If you are a beginner and you want to test some features out – GoDaddy is the better option for short-term websites
Go For Namecheap If:
Namecheap is the overall winner in this comparison, but it would be best to go for it if:
- You are looking for a longer-term solution for your website
- You have domains hosted by other web host providers – Namecheap provides a very straightforward experience in transferring your domain
- You want advanced security options – Namecheap comes with some of the best web host security features
The Bottom Line
The main reason why we compared these two giants is that they both offer domain registration, so we wanted to check their overall services and decide who is better. From what we could see, Namecheap is overall better than GoDaddy. GoDaddy might be more popular and longer in this industry, but Namecheap did its best to show that that doesn’t mean much. Namecheap is more affordable than GoDaddy, and it comes with better features, both security and support features.
On the other hand, GoDaddy has extraordinary performance and loading times, so the final decision is yours. Choose whatever web host you think will suit your business better.
FAQs
1. Can I transfer my already-existing domain to Namecheap?
Yes, you can. You can even transfer your domain name to Namecheap for free. However, you will have to pay for renewal.
2. What kind of security features does Namecheap offer?
Namecheap comes with incredible security features, such as Leech Protect, CodeGuard, Virus scanners, Hotlink prevention, Whois Domain Privacy Protection, and SSL Certificates. There are also a few more advanced security features that you can benefit from.
3. Which web host provides faster loading speeds?
GoDaddy is better than Namecheap in this segment as it comes with some of the fastest loading speeds on the market.
4. Does GoDaddy have a free website builder?
GoDaddy comes with a website builder, but it is only free for the first year. After one year, you have to pay $10-$25/month.