Bluehost vs GoDaddy
Read Bluehost’s full Review here
Read GoDaddy’s full review here
When it comes to the top hosting companies, Bluehost and GoDaddy usually appear side-by-side.
They are among the greatest competitors on the market and are known to host millions of websites worldwide.
For a person looking for the best web hosting service provider, choosing between the two can be an overwhelming task. However, there are key factors that can help to make the selection process easier. They include:
- Ease of Use
- Features
- Reliability
- WordPress Integration
- Customer Support
- Popularity
- Pricing
Based on the above-mentioned factors, how do these two web hosting platforms fare in comparison to one another?
Bluehost vs GoDaddy: Ease of Use
A web host platform is only as good as its practicality and this involves ease of use. For convenience, these two platforms are designed with CPanel- a standard control panel in the industry that’s used to control websites.
GoDaddy and Bluehost.com are designed with sleek user interfaces but they are still major differences.
Bluehost’s Ease of Use
A beginner-friendly user interface that enhances ease of use. It’s intuitive and those without any prior experience can quickly navigate through the hosting panel.
GoDaddy’s Ease of Use
It also has an easily navigable host panel. There are basically just buttons in the control panel from the backend. For a newbie, this makes the whole site management process easier.
Verdict: Bluehost’s redesign gives it an upper hand when it comes to ease of use. GoDaddy has simplified its control panel but it still appears to be clunky.
While the control panel appears to be simple, it isn’t as much as intuitive as Bluehost’s. The latter has streamlined everything to ensure that both new and experienced users can easily navigate through the platform.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy: Storage and Backups
What hosting features make these competitive web host service providers stand out?
Storage
There is no doubt that both Bluehost and GoDaddy offer their customers a generous amount of storage. Both providers offer SSD storage drives that are fast. Besides that, they have customized most of their plans, especially those on the higher end to offer users unlimited data storage.
If you were to use GoDaddy’s entry plan, then you would get 100 GB in terms of storage. On the other hand, Bluehost gives you 50 GB for storage.
In case you choose to use GoDaddy for WordPress hosting, you will get:
- 30 GB for basic WordPress Hosting
- 75 GB for deluxe WordPress Hosting
Storage Verdict: GoDaddy has more space in its entry plan as well as more WordPress storage options, unlike BlueHost.
Backups
If you are going to use Bluehost, then you have to go an extra step to ensure that your data is backed up. They have a hands-off approach in this area and if you are a heavy user with lots of critical information, then this should be a source of worry.
The service provider won’t be fully responsible for your woes in this case. However, the brand normally offers free data backups even though it normally happens at irregular intervals. So, you can never be too sure.
GoDaddy has a good backup system, but you need to pay for this. You have to part with around $2.99 per month in order to secure your website.
Verdict: It’s difficult to give either of these two service providers a round of applause when it comes to data backups. This is one of the most critical aspects of web hosting and they have both failed miserably.
If Bluehost isn’t offering regular backups, GoDaddy is charging you extra money to secure your data.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy: Reliability
The reliability of a web host service provider is determined by both the Uptime and Downtime. These are important metrics because they help to indicate the number of hours a web server will be up in a year.
Alternatively, they indicate the period your website is expected to be offline in a year.
Understand that if you are running a business, you will definitely want your site to be always online. This is because a single downtime episode would mean that you will lose customers and consequentially revenue.
Bloggers need to be always online because users usually access their content from different parts of the world at different times.
So, a web host that normally results in frequent downtimes would be frustrating to your loyal web users.
Most web host service providers have the Service Level Agreement (SLA). It usually features an outline of the web host service provider policies including an explanation of downtime and uptime. The industry standard used to determine the effectiveness of reliability is an uptime is 99.99%.
GoDaddy’s Uptime
GoDaddy’s SLA indicates that its uptime is 99.9% however reviews show that its average uptime is 99.98%. It should be noted that the hosting provider will only reimburse its customers for the period that the server went offline and not full credit for the whole month.
Bluehost review Uptime
In terms of reliability, Bluehost web hosting is also dependable since it has an uptime of 99.98%. However, this web host service provider doesn’t usually indicate the amount of reimbursement a customer is eligible for in case the servers go offline. So, refunds are usually issued on a case-by-case basis.
It should be noted that this isn’t a great policy since the reimbursement needs to be publicized for all customers to be aware if they are getting the same services.
If you choose to terminate your hosting due to downtime issues, understand that Bluehost hosting won’t compensate you for the remaining money in your unused portion of hosting.
Verdict: Both Bluehost and GoDaddy have great levels of reliability. An uptime of 99.98% indicates that these sites only have around 45 minutes of downtime every year. Understand that no site can have an uptime of 100%.
A 45-minute annual downtime indicates that these websites usually go offline for 7 seconds every day. GoDaddy is a winner in terms of reliability but it only slightly edges Bluehost. The lack of a clear refund policy is what makes Bluehost lag behind.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy For WordPress Integration
For starters, WordPress is a free open-source management system for content that’s used to create a blog or website. The publishing software is popular because it allows users to easily create websites in a couple of minutes.
It has extensive server resources that provide a predictable kind of support, making it the best option for content creators.
It should be noted that there are companies that have created their own hosting plans featuring custom resources and add-ons for WordPress, these are what are called WordPress Hosting Plans.
Bluehost
Bluehost web host is one of the best platforms for WordPress integration. Even WordPress themselves usually recommend Bluehost alongside two other hosts. It’s considered to be not only the best but also the “brightest” among its competitors.
The integration process in WordPress takes just one click. This means that if you are using Bluehost you can easily end up with a well-functioning blog site in a few minutes.
The way Bluehost and WordPress integrate is like they were meant for one another.
GoDaddy
On the other hand, GoDaddy web hosting also has a strong integration game. However, you have to first understand how this web host works if you want to effectively install WordPress.
Verdict: the fact that WordPress itself recommends Bluehost makes it outrightly the winner.
It should be noted that WordPress has recommended Bluehost since 2005 and the effectiveness of this web host isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon.
GoDaddy vs Bluehost: Customer Support
All web host providers have to offer constant customer support regardless of your pricing. It’s one of the most invaluable features because anything can go wrong at any time and even a person with IT skills may not be able to figure things out.
When it comes to customer support, both web host providers tick the right boxes. They provide their customers with knowledge centers where they can easily find answers to common problems.
Besides that, they also offer live chat options as well as 24/7 customer service support.
Bluehost Customer Support
Its knowledge center is more comprehensive and covers even the minutest issues that you are likely to encounter. Besides that, this web host also offers customer support tickets.
GoDaddyCustomer Support
Its knowledge is quite helpful but not as thorough. It should be noted that GoDaddy doesn’t offer support tickets, which otherwise helps to enhance user efficiency.
Verdict: Both GoDaddy and Bluehost offer excellent customer support. There are several options available that you can use to reach out to the customer representative.
But the fact that Bluehost web host offers a comprehensive knowledge base center in addition to support tickets makes it stand out.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy: Popularity
GoDaddy hosting is currently hosting more than 5 million websites while Bluehost currently hosts more than 2 million websites. It should be noted that the latter has more than 200K live websites while the former has more than 800K live websites.
GoDaddy’s Popularity
GoDaddy is a web host that has been around for quite some time. It uses a mega technology system that powers more than 5 million websites globally. Well, this is due to the fact that it also offers domain buying services, a high-quality website builder in addition to a dozen other products.
Bluehost’s Popularity
Bluehost’s popularity among users is quite low. It powers over 2 million websites even though it still provides world-class products and services to its global audience. This normally includes domain name services and hosting plans.
Verdict: numbers don’t lie and in this case, GoDaddy is the most popular web host. It has an audience that’s almost two times the size of Bluehost.
Bluehost vs GoDaddy: Pricing
Everyone wants a web host platform that will give them value for money. Their current pricing plans are not similar and here’s how they fare in comparison to one another:
Bluehost Pricing
- Basic-$8.99 per month
- Plus: 11.99 per month
- Choice Plus (Recommended): $16.99
GoDaddy pricing
- Basic: $12.29 monthly
- Standard: $18.44 monthly
- Premium: $24.59 monthly
What’s the difference between their pricing plans?
From the pricing overview above, it’s clear that GoDaddy’s price is quite high. On the other hand, Bluehosting normally offers regular discounting to its customers. So, if you choose to renew your subscription, you will save more money.
It should be noted that user reviews indicate that GoDaddy normally caps user databases, especially those who are on cheaper price plans. However, you still stand a better chance of getting more database storage space.
Generally, you might not even notice the capping unless you are installing multiple software products simultaneously or you are uploading photos of high quality.
On the other hand, normally offers an SSL certificate for each shared hosting plan. This is an important feature for any website.
When it comes to data backups, you will have to part with a few more extra coins if you are using GoDaddy. However, if you have subscribed to Bluehost’s expensive plans, then you will automatically get data backups.
Bluehost Go Pro: this is an additional premium subscription plan by Bluehost. It normally costs $26.99 per month but you get everything that’s available in all the other pricing plans in addition to:
- SSL Certificate
- Site Backup
- Domain Privacy and Protection
- Dedicated IP
Verdict: in terms of pricing plan, Bluehost prices are the most ideal, especially if you are looking for a web host that has greater short-term pricing options. The discount you will get is generally amazing.
There is also an advantage of the bundled SSL option and Bluehost’s normal pricing is marginally cheaper compared to GoDaddy’s pricing plans.
Bluehost or GoDaddy: Who is the Winner?
Both of these web hosting providers are at the same level when it comes to reliability and storage options. However, GoDaddy web host is ahead of its competitor when it comes to popularity and entry storage options.
Meanwhile, Bluehost offers an excellent level of ease of use, customer support, pricing plan, and WordPress integration.
It’s not easy to outrightly state who the winner is since these two providers thrive in different areas. But based on objective factors and quality of delivery of services, Bluehost would be the most ideal option.
Related article: Bluehost vs Siteground
Also read: Bluehost vs Hostgator


About Ross
Ross is the founder of Hostingwhich, a free resource site where you can learn about Starting your own Blog & also find out about Web Host Services. Click here to learn more if you want to start a blog.