Godaddy has become one of the top web hosting companies with customer count in millions and hosts billions of domain names. Due to their strategic marketing efforts and presence in nearly every country across the globe, the company has managed to rake in customers even from the farthest corners of the globe. However, Siteground and InMotion are relatively smaller enterprises who focus on providing excellent service along with a powerful platform for their customers to build their blogs and businesses. Thus they have managed to remain respectable even though larger organizations like Godaddy have faced numerous lawsuits for bad service and disruption of customer businesses.
Siteground is popular for its excellent customer care and it explicitly supports business of all kinds ranging from startups to large organizations. It provides an excellent hosting platform ideal for any organization to build their respective small business store or web application on top of it without having to run dry of resources. InMotion like Siteground supports all kind of businesses and has a robust architecture that excels at hosting any kind of business application.
Also Read: Siteground vs Bluehost
Plans and Pricing
As shared hosting server configurations consume approximately a definite amount of resources and consumers who tend to consume more are often pushed towards higher plans in virtual private servers or cloud configurations, the price per plan often remains close with each competitor. Unless and until a shared plan comes with additional features that are rarely available in other companies or is very difficult to implement in a shared hosting platform, there is very less difference in the price difference among the plans offered by the companies. Here is a detailed overview of the plans and prices of each of the shared hosting platforms.
Siteground
To support developers and startups, Siteground has effectively created some of the best plans and also comes with additional features that may be required in case of building any type of web application. You can focus directly on running your app without ever worrying about optimization or any other features. However, its server stack is not as optimized but does support major features. It is one of the major web hosting companies and offers powerful hosting capabilities to its users. Some may be disappointed with its control panel, however most of its features are optimized to perform under target requirements. It also provides all kinds of hosting packages but we are primarily focused on its shared hosting plans. The plans under its shared hosting servers are:
- Startup: Meant primarily for early stage web applications, it is one of the best starting plans offered by any company. You can host any small web application on top of the server but it comes with significantly less resources for handling bandwidth and users. You will have to upgrade to higher plans if its allotted quota of 10K page requests per month gets exhausted. It is priced at $3.95/month and comes with 10GB storage that can host only one website. For hosting additional websites, you have to upgrade to higher plans. You also get a free domain name when you register for more than a year. Except for resource usage, all its other features like email addresses, databases etc. come with unlimited access.
- Grow Big: If your website is getting more than 10K visitors/month then this is the plan you upgrade to. It is priced at $7.95/month and comes with additional bandwidth usage that can handle up to 25K visitors. It provides 25GB storage and can easily help you build major web applications that can run on top of its server. It is ideal for most types of growing websites and applications that are consuming resources at a constantly increasing rate. You can build custom applications that can be optimized with the help of the inbuilt SuperCacher which helps in caching web pages for delivery. Although you can use traditional web caching processes like CDN’s but the provided caching mechanism is also as good. Moreover, the plan also includes a 1 Year free SSL certificate that is ideal for most types of web applications like ecommerce sites that take transactions.
- Go Geek: Targeting high performance and development oriented customers, this is one of the most powerful shared plans provided by most web hosting companies. Priced at $14.95/month it comes all kinds of features for suitable for server app development and can assist development greatly with the help of SSH and other mechanisms for deployment. It includes all the features from the Grow Big plan along with additional features like powerful content delivery networks.
Godaddy
One of the largest web hosting companies in the world is also ideal for all kinds of web applications. It offers plans that are ideal for web applications based on consumer requirements. You can easily build any type of major web application but the restrictions on the server resources often tend to restrict you from building customized apps. Here are the details of the plans offered by Godaddy
- Economy: Priced at only $4.99/month, it is the beginner plan for users. You can easily build a static website. It comes with 100GB storage and unlimited bandwidth. It also offers 100 email addresses and a free domain name with a yearly plan. All other services are available for extra charges. You can always upgrade to a higher plan. You can only host a single website on the plan which is quite a restriction when hosting simple HTML websites
- Deluxe: A bit more powerful plan than the previous, it is priced at $6.99/month. It comes with unlimited bandwidth, storage and disk space as long as your consumption is within the hosting agreement. It also comes with 500 email addresses. You also get 25 databases of 1GB each. If your consumption goes beyond the limits, you will have to upgrade to the next higher plan that comes with numerous other additional features like SSL certificates and premium DNS
- Ultimate: Priced at $9.99/month, it is one of the most powerful plans offered by the company. It can easily host all your web applications like WordPress and Joomla and comes with one click setup for all popular web applications. You can run multiple websites on a single plan and have unlimited storage and bandwidth. You also get 100 email addresses along with 2x processing power. The plan also comes with a 1 year SSL certificate that can be used to host any type of ecommerce web application.
InMotion Hosting
Like all hosting companies, InMotion Hosting provides plans for shared, VPS and Dedicated hosting to suit customer requirements. But the shared plan in InMotion Hosting is called business hosting as it is optimized for businesses. There are 3 types of shared plans, each varying in power and features to suit business requirements. The 3 types of plans are:
- Launch: Ideal for beginners and business owners who just want a portfolio site. It comes with enough power and features to handle up to 1000 visitors a day. Each user can host up to 2 websites that can consume unlimited space and bandwidth subject to some conditions. Unfortunately, the plan does not support ecommerce hosting due to the high traffic and disk usage that hurts the performance of other users on the same block. Fortunately, it supports all major programming languages and provides up to 300 apps for quick install and deployment through its 1-Click deployment service. The plan also comes with pre-installed WordPress, Joomla and Prestashop content management systems that allow users to immediately start working on their website without any need for setup or technical know-how.
- Power: It is a value for money plan and is ideal for businesses that already have a website but want more power to manage their growing users. Users can host up to 6 websites on one account and also deploy ecommerce applications that can handle up to 2500-3000 users per day. If you are using another hosting company but are dissatisfied with their service or if your monthly expenses towards your website is exceeding your income, this is an ideal plan for your requirements. It can handle sudden bursts of traffic while preserving data and bandwidth during low usage periods.
- Pro: Meant for the tech savvy developers who like to try and test on the server, this is an ideal plan for all users who want to make the most out of their web hosting plan. As your business grows, the plan grows according to your rising requirements while providing all essential resources for consumption. You can host as many websites as you need and deploy any kind of application depending on your requirements. Moreover, as the plan is targeted towards developers, it supports all necessary developer tools including SSH access to facilitate development. Surprisingly, the CPanel maintains the same ease of user even for non-technical users who just want better resources for their growing website. Unlimited subdomains and parked domains allow users to have full control of their web applications.
Also Read: A2 Hosting vs. Hostgator vs. SiteGround
Performance And Reliability
In all my years of hosting and running powerful applications and websites with the hosting companies, I have come across dozens of web hosting companies both small and large. However only a few are capable for hosting resource oriented application while maintaining necessary performance benchmarks. Of the three hosting companies, Godaddy & Siteground performance is the best while InMotion is just average. I personally find Inmotion Hosting performance slow compare to the other two and I faced couple of downtime as well with them. While I never face such problems on Godaddy and Siteground. The awesome interface and usability provided by Siteground makes even the tough tasks seem easy. Therefore, if you would be hosting any website that has a CMS like WordPress, Drupal or others, you should definitely go with either Siteground or Godaddy.
Also Read: A2 Hosting vs Godaddy vs Hostgator
Page Speed
I have a habit of running page speed tests for every host the moment I host a website on it. Godaddy own one of the largest data center and use global CDN that is why websites hosted with Godaddy loads fast from all over the globe. On the other hand, Siteground supports Google recommended page speed apache module. Although there are claims of website instability due to the module usage, it is quite functional once it has been properly setup. You can also setup page speed module in InMotion. Therefore, Siteground, Godaddy and InMotion, all are good when it comes to Page speed.
Also Read: Namecheap vs Godaddy
Server Uptime and Downtime
I’ve been hosting majority of my websites with Godaddy. I have been a Godaddy’s customer since more than 3 years. I don’t remember if I ever had a downtime except the one which I had faced almost 6 months back. That was almost 30-40 minutes long. As their data is spread across multiple locations, they can easily provide higher uptime as compared to other companies which is obviously a better feature. However, InMotion and Siteground prove worthy competitors. Siteground takes its server down at least once a month for maintenance and same is the case with InMotion. However, they notify by all means to each of their hosting user, sometimes weeks before their maintenance downtime. If you are running a high traffic website on their server and their downtime interfered with your scheduled high traffic period, this may let you face some problems. However, you can always contact their customer service and expect them to help you in some ways.
Also Read: Bigrock vs Godaddy
User Experience and Customer Service
All three hosting companies provide a pleasant UI interface for managing their CPanel or hosting plans. However, Siteground and InMotion have a cleaner interface. Sometimes you will notice Godaddy links redirecting to unexpected pages while you are navigating through your account. The hosting panel is also a bit crowded as compared to the other two hosts. Siteground provides the best experience of managing your website from the backend. With easy to use options and tooltips for nearly everything, they make website management easy even for beginners. InMotion is meant mainly for advanced users who have prior experience hosting their own website.
When it comes to support, Siteground and InMotion provide a live chat feature that is always at your disposal with a customer service agent on the other side. Godaddy allows you to call them for any queries but often you will be kept waiting in a queue that may last up to hours. Thus if you are a beginner, then you would definitely need help setting up your website. Therefore, Siteground is the ideal option for your requirements. InMotion has a good customer services but them after sales support is only meant for advanced users who know a little bit about hosting.
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Upgrades and Migration
All the three web hosting provide enough options for upgrading or migrating your existing website from your existing host. However, you will be showered with discounts and numerous deals if your website is on Godaddy or if you are planning to move to Godaddy. Just sign up you your email, add items to your cart and then discard them. Soon your inbox would be filled with numerous deals all trying to get you on board. While this is not the case with Siteground or InMotion, they do have provide quality service with whatever their plans offer. Therefore, you may either want a good migration or opt for a cheaper migration plan only to face numerous problems with your hosting configuration.
More Reviews: Dreamhost vs Godaddy & Siteground vs Hostgator
Extra Features and Offers
Godaddy is filled with all kinds of offers and plans for all kinds of businesses. You can sign up for their newsletter and they would keep sending you discount codes and plans to buy, upgrade or migrate to their services. Although the plans the quite attractive, it often begs the question: Which one do I select? The tragedy is that all the codes and plans tend to give you the same amount of resources and features that you would have bought without opting for them in the first place. Therefore, you can opt for a discount code to feel better about landing a hosting plan at half the price but would eventually pay higher the next year while renewing your plan.
On the other hand, Siteground & Inmotion Hosting also gives you a very good discount if you’re a new customer. Although at the time of renewing your services, both of them charge you the actual price.
If you really would like to save money some money, sign up for multiple years in advance.
Also Read: Wpengine vs Bluehost
Conclusion
Although I have been hosting my website with all the three companies, I was only satisfied with the plans and services provided by Godaddy & Siteground. Their wonderful customer support and their easy to manage web hosting dashboard makes managing your website a breeze. Therefore, I would also recommend you to either go with Godaddy if you are beginner or opt for Siteground if you have enough experience with hosting your own websites.