Comparison Details
SiteGround and Go Daddy's main differences are who they market plans towards, how they host Joomla, and how they handle support.
1. Company Info
SiteGround
SiteGround has been around since 2003, they are located in Sofia, Bulgaria, and they have over 50 employees. They host around 300,000 domains and have around 400,000 customers. Their datacenters are located worldwide in the U.S., Europe and Singapore.
SiteGround markets towards new website owners and technically advanced website owners.
Go Daddy
Go Daddy has been around since 1997, they are located in Scottsdale, Arizona, and have over 3400 employees. They host around 55 million domains and have around 11 million customers. Their datacenters are located in Arizona, Iowa, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and India.
They market to new website users and domain name buyers. There are more technical plans offered by Go Daddy, but you have to look deeper into their website to find them.
2. Plans and Prices
The difference with the plans and prices between SiteGround and Go Daddy are the features you get with each. SiteGround is about the same price but comes with more features inside of cPanel. Another plan difference is SiteGround offers cloud hosting instead of VPS hosting.
SiteGround
Shared Hosting
- Startup - $3.95/Mo. 1 website, 10GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email accounts, free domain name.
- GrowBig - $7.95/Mo. Multiple websites, 20GB storage, priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored. unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email, domain name. Priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored.
- GoGeek - $14.95/Mo. 30GB storage, priority support, SuperCacher, and 30 versions of backups stored, less accounts on server, advanced hardware, Joomla and WordPress staging. Multiple websites, unlimited bandwidth, databases, ftp accounts, email, domain name.
Cloud Hosting
- Entry plan Cloud 1 - $68.95/Mo. 2x2.0GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 40GB space, 1TB bandwidth.
- Top plan Cloud 4 - $138.95/Mo. 4x2.0GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, 150GB space, 5TB bandwidth.
Dedicated Hosting
- Entry plan Server $229/Mo. - 4GB DDR3 RAM, Quad Core Processor, 500GB space, 5TB bandwidth.
- Top plan Enterprise Server - $429/Mo. - 16GB DDR3 RAM, Hexa Core Processor, 1GB space, 5TB bandwidth.
Go Daddy
Shared Hosting
- Economy - $2.99/Month unlimited bandwidth, 1 website, 100GB, 10 Databases, 100 Email Addresses.
- Deluxe - $4.49/Month unlimited bandwidth, websites, and disk space. 25 databases, 500 email address.
- Ultimate - $9.99/Month unlimited bandwidth, websites, disk space, databases, and email address.
VPS Hosting
- Entry plan Economy - $23.99/Month 40GB storage and 1TB bandwidth.
- Top plan Ultimate - $149.99/Month 240GB storage and 8TB bandwidth.
Dedicated Hosting
- Entry plan Economy - $89.99/Month 160GB storage and 5TB bandwidth.
- Top plan - $249.99/Month 1 TB storage and 15GB bandwidth.
Discounts for longer commitment
- Shared Hosting 50% OFF
- VPS: 10% Off 12 Months, 20% Off 24 Months.
- Dedicated: 10% Off 12 Months, 20% Off 24 Months.
3. Control Panel and User Experience
SiteGround uses cPanel which is a common hosting control panel. Go Daddy uses a custom control panel which is only used by Go Daddy.
SiteGround
The benefit of using cPanel is it popular with other hosting companies. So, if you are coming from another hosting company which used cPanel, than the transition is easier.
The design is well executed. You have all of the important features listed on tabs in the top menu and all the other tools separated into sections like, databases, email, FTP, etc…
Go Daddy
There is no clear advantage to using Go Daddy's control panel. You can do all the necessary tinkering that you need to do, but you don't get all the extra tools that cPanel has.
The design looks good, but the layout doesn't isn't the easiest to navigate compared to SiteGround. This is because most of the apps have to launch a separate control panel that is different from the main control panel.
4. Installing and Managing Joomla
SiteGround uses Softaculous for one-click Joomla installation and Go Daddy uses Hosting Connection. Softaculous is a 3rd party developed application that has a lot of open source software available to install. Hosting Connection is a Go Daddy developed application that installs different open source software.
SiteGround
Using Softaculous at SiteGround is very easy and works well. I prefer installing manually which also works well. Joomla does not run into any server compatibility errors during installation.
When I use Joomla at SiteGround the page speed stands out to me. Navigating the backend and saving content is quick and responsive.
Go Daddy
You can use Hosting Connection or Softaculous to install Joomla. You will not run into any server compatibility issues.
5. Performance
SiteGround performs very well with Joomla installed on it. We have not installed Joomla on Go Daddy's server yet so we do not have evidence of good or bad performance.
SiteGround
With SiteGround I host a Joomla site with around 100 pages of content. The average response time is 842ms and the uptime is around 99.77% over a six month period. This is means that Joomla performs fast and the site doesn't experience many outages.
6. Support
Both SiteGround and Go Daddy have 24/7 support. SiteGround has an edge because of their super quick ticket system, but Go Daddy does a great job as well.
SiteGround
SiteGround has live chat, phone, and ticket support as primary methods of support.
Live chat is instant and you will get answers to any support questions you have. They show you a picture of the technician you are talking to a long with their title and experience.
Phone support is good but sometimes it's hard to understand the technicians since they are from somewhere in Europe.
Ticket support is the fastest of all the hosts I know. They take less than 10 minutes to reply. You can solve many issues this way and you don't have to wait as long as Go Daddy.
Go Daddy
Go Daddy has the same available technical support except live chat.
Phone support is all english speaking and they are very helpful.
Ticket support is slower than SiteGround but faster than other hosts. It took me around 13 hours to get a response from the technical support. SiteGround only takes 10 minutes and other hosts can take 24 to 36 hours.
Conclusion
I prefer using SiteGround because I like using cPanel a lot. Also the performance is better than a lot of hosts. Lastly, SiteGround's 10 minute support ticket turn around is superior to Go Daddy's and that should be taken into account if you see yourself needing a lot of support.
