When the time comes for you to build a website, you’d want options. You want versatility, speed, and an elegant front-end design to catch the eye of your target audience. More than anything, you want it all for a reasonable price. There are vast amounts of options on the market which makes choosing the correct web host an equally overwhelming and important process.
In order to take some of the stress away from the decision, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to analyze the differences between two of the more popular options on the market: Bluehost and GoDaddy. At the end of this analysis, our goal is to furnish you with adequate information so you can make an informed and confident decision over which web host to use.
GoDaddy’s History
Where did it all begin for GoDaddy?
GoDaddy was founded back in 1997 by Bob Parsons and grew at a fairly rapid pace. With a considerably racey approach to ads, its initial send-off was a particularly crowd-shocking Super Bowl ad back in 2005 that distinguished it from competitors. Its eye-catching approach has raked in nearly 19 million customers and 75+ million domain names.
GoDaddy’s Selling Points
You should only choose what’s right for you after doing some research.
GoDaddy is a multi-service web hosting domain. It handles everything from email management to accounting. GoDaddy walks its users through the process of buying domain names, selling domain names, and even building the websites.
They have different plan levels with various perks and most times have promotions available for discounted rates on their services. Their websites are designed with an SEO focus, which increases your website’s and the business’ chances of reaching the top of the list on web searches.
GoDaddy also has thorough security measures through an SSL certificate that provides a secure and protected connection between a user’s web browsers and a website’s server. All this, plus over 20 years of experience on the market, make GoDaddy one of the OGs of the web hosting market.
Bluehost’s History
Learn more about one of the largest web hosting providers, Bluehost.
Bluehost first arrived on the market in 1996 under its previous name, 0catch, but renamed to Bluehost in 2003. Bluehost wanted to offer affordable options to customers looking for a solid web host. Their focus was to offer unlimited options to their clients, meaning unlimited bandwidth, email accounts, and storage. They were also among the first of web hosts to offer one-click installations of WordPress. Today, Bluehost boasts hosting over 2 million websites worldwide.
Bluehost’s Selling Points
Bluehost claims it powers millions of today’s websites.
Bluehost places its entire focus on web hosting. Their goal is to be the best at web hosting and they have, indeed, refined their services to be very fast and capable for their clients. Bluehost is ranked as one of the top WordPress providers with 24/7 support, and access to high quality marketing tools.
Drawing Comparisons
In a battle between two top website hosting providers, who wins?
If you’re in the market for a web host, and you’re looking at all your options, you’ll find a lot of information, statistics, and every company telling you I’m the best. The most common factors for comparison are bandwidth, uptime, speed, price, and customer service. Let’s take a look at how these factors compare between these two web hosts.
Bandwidth, the maximum amount of data transfer across a network, is a very important statistic to follow when it comes to customer satisfaction. You want those visiting your website to have a seamless experience, no lagging while waiting for the site to load. When it comes to bandwidth, Bluehost and GoDaddy are an equal match. On either site, you can customise your bandwidth preference by upgrading or downgrading your hosting account.
Although both web hosts match in bandwidth, the same can’t be said for their speed. Bluehost is a faster service than GoDaddy, with webtests averaging a 3.3 second load time as opposed to GoDaddy’s 5 second load time.
Bluehost also averages higher uptime (a measure of system reliability) and has a maximum server response time. This means that they are more reliable than GoDaddy when it comes to keeping your website up and running on the web, and they ensure their servers can only wait a certain amount of time before responding to a query. GoDaddy doesn’t have a maximum server response time; so, although their servers respond quickly, they don’t necessarily guarantee that quick response.
Enough about your clients, let’s talk about you as the client. You are the customers to these web hosts, and you want to know they will take care of you. When it comes to your care, these companies rely on their customer support teams to make sure your experience is smooth and easy. Customer support is a more subjective topic, because it often depends on if your rep is having a good day. The best method for review is just focusing on what customers receive consistently.
In the case of GoDaddy, customers consistently receive adequate service. They often find themselves waiting a noticeable amount of time for the reps either over the phone or email. You will almost always receive what you are looking for, but they do tend to place more care into their domain clients rather than their web host customers.
Bluehost consistently ranks higher in customer service than GoDaddy. Because, while GoDaddy’s is consistently adequate, Bluehost’s is consistently excellent. Customers report Bluehost’s customer service team as both solid and prompt. Bluehost offers support 24/7 in all forms, including (but not limited to) phone, chat, ticketing system, and email. They even allow you to choose which area of the web hosting with which you’re having troubles.
Lastly, let’s talk about price. Both companies offer regular promos, so it’s hard to nail down a direct price for you to expect. With that being said, we can take a look at the least expensive options, as well as the most expensive options, which both sites tend not to include in their promos.
Bluehost’s cheapest plan sits at $2.95/month. This price includes a domain name, 50GB storage, a free SSL certificate for data protection, and 25 subdomains. The idea behind this plan is basically to give you the bare necessities to get started.
Meanwhile, GoDaddy’s cheapest option sits at $5.99/month and grants you a free domain name with 99.9% guaranteed up time and standard performance. The price will also get you 100GB storage and free Office 365 email. This makes the extra $2 for GoDaddy’s entry-level plan well worth your money!
However, as we take a look at the premium plans, things begin to shift. Both plans offer unlimited websites, storage, and bandwidth. They also both come with an SSL certificate.
However, Bluehost also throws in a site backup, and unlimited parked and subdomains for a cheaper price than its rival. Right now, GoDaddy offers their most premium web hosting service under their Maximum plan for $20 a month for 36 months. Bluehost offers their Pro plan for even less at $14/ month for 36 months. With this price range, Bluehost’s premium plan is the premium option.
The Final Say
Ultimately, it all boils down to your specific needs.
GoDaddy and Bluehost are the same age, well-designed, and both are wonderful web hosting services. However, when it comes down to strictly web hosting, Bluehost takes the win. Bluehost offers consistently excellent customer support, better pricing, and the websites they host generally run faster than GoDaddy. Their plans offer the same as GoDaddy or more for less, and therefore, if you are looking simply for a web host, Bluehost is your greatest option.
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This, however, does not discredit GoDaddy from the market. GoDaddy offers more outside services than Bluehost, such as professional email handling, and accounting and marketing services. While they’ve compromised some of their web hosting abilities in order to add these features, it may be exactly what you are looking for from your web host.
Overall, your choice will depend on the outcome you’re seeking for. For a fast and reliable web host that will always be there to help when you need it, Bluehost will take your hand and guide you toward the best website you’ve created to date for a clean, cheap rate. However, if you’re looking for a service to help you manage your emails and push a little weight for marketing, GoDaddy may just be worth that few extra dollars to get what you need. Take a step back, review your vision and expectations, and then jump in to create the website of your dreams.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
