Why You Should Avoid GoDaddy
Disclaimer
I am not sponsored by any of the companies listed in this post. Prices listed are as of the post date and may not be current.
Table of Contents
- What is GoDaddy?
- Overpriced and Lots of Upselling
- Poor Customer Support
- Controversies
- Alternatives
- Conclusion
What is GoDaddy?
GoDaddy is one of the world's largest domain registrars and web hosts; however, they also spend a lot of money on marketing and advertising, which is a big reason why they have such a large customer base. In addition to those services, they offer email hosting, SSL certificates, and even a website builder. To the average, non-technical person, this all seems great, but when it comes to GoDaddy, all these services come with major drawbacks.
Overpriced and Lots of Upselling
GoDaddy often tries to lure customers with low prices, but these prices are often for lower quality products. In addition, GoDaddy charges for features and services that customers should have for free like SSL certificates.
Below is a comparison of pricing for GoDaddy, DreamHost, and NameCheap for similar services.
| * | GoDaddy | DreamHost | NameCheap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain (.com) | $18.99 | $15.99 | $12.98 |
| Hosting | $143.88 | $155.88 | $58.56 |
| SSL Certificate | $94.99 | Free | Free |
| $71.88 | Free | Free | |
| Total Yearly Cost | $329.74 | $171.87 | $71.54 |
Note that these pricings are the yearly renewal prices as of this posting date and do not include the first-year promotional offers.
Hosting plans sourced:
- GoDaddy Deluxe + SSL Certificate add-on + Email add-on
- DreamHost Shared Unlimited
- NameCheap Stellar Plus
If you just browser GoDaddy's website, you will see offers for products are upgrades that should be included or worthless. For example, GoDaddy offers other services like website backups and "website security", but obviously at a cost.
Poor Customer Support
In the past, GoDaddy received a lot of complaints because of their lack of support. Since then, they have added 24/7 phone support as well as online chat support. This sounds great, but the quality of their responses is subpar. The support agents usually provide very brief scripted or copy and paste responses, so if you are a non-technical person and need a walk-through or full solution, you would be out of luck.
Controversies
GoDaddy has been involved in their fair share of controversies which include but are not limited to the ones listed below:
- Video of founder big-game hunting
- Fraudulent subdomains and security breaches
- Backing of SOPA
- Fake COVID-19 employee bonuses
You can find more listed in this Wikipedia Article.
Alternatives
Below are some listed alternatives that I have found recommended by multiple forums.
I personally use Google Domains for my domain registrar and Vercel and Netlify for my hosting.
Conclusion
Avoid GoDaddy! There are a lot of better options out there.