Key Points:
- According to the website’s speed test, WP Engine’s server gave an average load time of just 2.43 seconds, while GoDaddy’s came in at 2.94 seconds for the managed plan and 3.02 seconds for the shared plan.
- WP Engine offers 24/7 live chat support on their website for all plans. Both managed and shared hosting from GoDaddy come with live chat assistance Monday through Friday and 24/7 phone support.
- GoDaddy offers affordable prices, whereas WP Engine offers higher rates due to its advanced features and services.
With the advent of the web, it has become extremely easy for anyone to set up a website. However, choosing the right web host can be confusing, especially if you’re new to website development. Many factors come into play when choosing your web host, and those can change depending on what type of website you plan to build.
A hosting service should be reliable, and its support team should be responsive and helpful if you ever need help with your site. GoDaddy and WP Engine are both excellent hosting providers. Both offer a variety of hosting options and features which set them apart. But which is better?
This comprehensive GoDaddy vs. Wp Engine guide will answer that question in great detail. If you’re considering one of these services to host your site, this article will help you decide which one to use based on your specific needs and preferences.
GoDaddy vs. WP Engine Hosting: Side-by-Side Comparison
| GoDaddy | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Founding | 1997 | 2010 |
| Storage Space | 10-30 GB, depending on the plan | 10-20 GB, depending on the plan |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days | 60 days |
| Free Domain Name | Yes, for annual plans | No |
| Support | phone, 24/7 email support, live chat during working hours, knowledge base | Phone and email support, 24/7 live chat |
| Website immigration | Free migration on managed WordPress | Free automated WordPress migration |
| Pricing | Starts at $4.99 per month | Starts at $20/month |
| Free CDN | Support for Cloudflare | Yes, built-in |
| Servers | Los Angeles, Chicago, Virginia, Amsterdam, Singapore, Arizona, Ashburn, Phoenix | Europe, North America, Asia/Pacific, London |
GoDaddy vs. WP Engine Hosting: What’s the Difference?
There are many similarities between GoDaddy and WP Engine — both have comprehensive support teams that are available 24x7x365 and offer free migrations from other hosts to their service. But here is what sets them apart.
Performance
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Both hosts offer SSD storage and high-speed servers, but the difference in performance is noticeable. According to the website’s speed test, WP Engine’s server gave an average load time of just 2.43 seconds, while GoDaddy’s came in at 2.94 seconds for the managed plan and 3.02 seconds for the shared plan.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it does affect how fast your site loads when visitors access it; especially if there are several pages on the site with images or videos embedded within them.
WP Engine offers more powerful servers for better performance and faster load times. If performance is critical to you, you should probably go with WP Engine.
WP Engine is more expensive than the two GoDaddy plans we compared. So you’re not receiving that extra performance for free. You must determine whether you appreciate faster WP Engine performance enough to spend the extra money.
Additionally, there doesn’t appear to be much of a performance difference between that plan and GoDaddy’s less expensive shared plans.
Pricing
GoDaddy offers a number of different plans that range from $3 per month up to $13 per month, depending on how much space you require and how often you want to transfer files between your website and its hosting provider (they have unlimited transfers).
In addition, the company makes it extremely simple for beginners, bloggers, business owners, and others to sign up for a shared hosting package. You may select a GoDaddy hosting plan based on your precise requirements, with various options for storage space, email, processing speed, and other resources.
If your site expands to the point where it requires scalable and/or dedicated resources, the company’s team makes the transfer simple. With most plans offering unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth, you should have plenty of room.
WP Engine’s pricing model is more straightforward. It offers four plans and an additional custom plan. Their cheapest plan costs $20 per month. They do not include the free domain in their plans. As you can see, WP Engine is more costly than GoDaddy, which may be enough for some users to shun it completely.
That said, don’t assume that GoDaddy is the better option simply because it is less expensive. Value might be a much greater predictor of which option you should choose. However, when evaluated only based on pricing, GoDaddy is far more economical.
Support
©History-Computer.com
Support is one of the most important aspects of any hosting company. If you can’t get help when you need it, then your business won’t be able to function properly. That’s why choosing a hosting company that offers great support if needed is important. WP Engine offers 24/7 live chat support on their website for all plans.
The chat support is easily accessible on their dashboard. You don’t have to spend time searching through the site for help—it is readily available. Both managed and shared hosting from GoDaddy come with live chat assistance Monday through Friday, as well as 24/7 phone support.
Although the live chat feature isn’t available from any place in your dashboard, they do make it simple to discover with a specific Contact Us page. GoDaddy also provides a knowledge base where you can find answers to your questions about WordPress or web hosting in general.
Security
Security is an important aspect of hosting as well. You don’t want your site to be hacked or compromised in any way because this could result in identity theft and other problems with your business’s reputation.
Although security ought to be a key priority for web providers, many view security as a means of increasing revenue. Instead of including security in their plans, they provide protection as an add-on that can be purchased at checkout, sometimes increasing the monthly costs.
WP Engine’s plans include some very robust security measures, such as firewalls, virus scanning, intrusion detection, and brute-force attack avoidance. Additionally, throughout the checkout process, you have the option to purchase even more extensive security features. WP Engine also employs disk write protection to ensure that malicious code cannot infect your website.
GoDaddy, on the other hand, is one of those hosts that wants you to pay extra for security. All plans include basic malware screening, but unless you choose the Ultimate plan, you must either remove any malware manually or pay extra for the Website Security add-on.
The fact that automatic malware eradication is only available in the higher-tier plan is concerning, considering that GoDaddy has repeatedly been listed among the top 5 hosts with a lot of malware issues (by URLhaus).
GoDaddy Hosting: Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 30-day money-back guarantee | The response from the support team is relatively slow |
| 24/7 customer support | Uptime not fully stable |
| Since the company started in 1997, it has become one of the largest domain registrars on the internet | Limited features on the economy plan |
| The plans are more affordable compared to WP Engine | |
| Has flexible payment methods | |
| GoDaddy offers unlimited bandwidth on all of its packages | |
| User friendly |
WP Engine Hosting: Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 24/7 support | Pricey |
| fast loading speeds | Impossible to install plugins and themes |
| 60 days money back guarantee | Only for WordPress platforms |
| Free daily backups | |
| Provides a staging area | |
| Automatically installs WordPress updates | |
| Managed WordPress hosting available |
GoDaddy vs. WP Engine Hosting: 5 Must-Know Facts
- GoDaddy offers affordable prices, whereas WP Engine offers higher rates due to its advanced features and services.
- Having been established in 1997, GoDaddy is older than WP Engine, which was founded a decade later.
- GoDaddy has a money-back guarantee of 30 days compared to WP Engine, which offers 60 days.
- WP Engine is far more dependable and consistent, whereas GoDaddy has a significantly larger margin of error.
- As of August 2022, WP Engine had over 185,000 customers in more than 150 countries, and GoDaddy had 21 million customers worldwide in the same period.
GoDaddy vs. WP Engine Hosting: Which One Is Better? Which One Should You Use?
GoDaddy is a popular hosting provider with a long history of reliability and great customer service. It allows you to set up your own domain name for free and can also provide other services, like email accounts and unlimited bandwidth. While this may seem like it would make GoDaddy more expensive than WP Engine, it actually isn’t as costly as many people assume.
On the other hand, WP Engine offers more than just hosting—it also provides tools for SEO and website speed optimization that help you build high-converting websites that rank well in search engines. It also offers managed WordPress hosting on its cloud servers, which means that when a site goes down or gets hacked, it can fix downtime quickly.
These two companies offer different features and benefits depending on what kind of business you’re running. If you’re building a more personal website, like a blog or online portfolio, and you don’t have much money to spend on hosting, GoDaddy may be right for you. If your site needs speed and security above all else, then WP Engine is probably better suited for your needs.
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The image featured at the top of this post is ©Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash.
