GoDaddy vs InMotion Hosting

• GoDaddy
• InMotion Hosting

Having been in the web hosting business for over 15 years, InMotion Hosting has grown to become of the foremost names around. They are one of the few hosts who have gained a five-star review from WHSR and are a true one-shop hosting shop. Their business model caters to almost anyone – from the single, small-time blogger to large businesses.

Started back in the 90s, GoDaddy has come a long way and today is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Its business ranges across three main areas – domain, hosting and business applications. In web hosting alone, it holds almost 20% of the global market share.

InMotion Hosting has a Strong Edge in WordPress Hosting

InMotion has a huge range of offerings that span not just the usual hosting types, but they have even edged into a specialized category for WordPress sites. This isn’t just rebranded shared hosting like many hosts tend to do, but they have put a real focus on this popular CMS application.

Their WordPress accounts feature themes and plugins by BoldGrid, which offer users a strong inventory of extra features to bolster the performance (and looks) of their sites, even at their entry level WordPress Hosting plans. As plan prices increase, so do features such as the inclusion of JetPack Personal or Professional.

Of course, they also have the rest of everything including dedicated servers that some hosts shy away from offering due to the sheer prohibitive cost narrowing the market demand by so much. After all, not many customers would be able to buy in to their premium dedicated hosting plan at more than $500 per month – yet the option remains with InMotion Hosting.

GoDaddy = Cheaper

GoDaddy plans are very affordable for the most part – for less than $2.30 per month you get very decent specifications on hosting. It also boasts an uptime of 99.9% – which isn’t the best but is still well in line with industry standards.

Due to the sheer size of their business, GoDaddy is also one of the few major web hosts that can compete with InMotion Hosting on an even playing field in terms of product offerings. Aside from hosting, it is the world’s largest domain name registrar and even has a domain marketplace for those interested in that area. It blends all its services into a neatly streamlined experience.

It is unfortunate though that there has been little specific focus that GoDaddy has put into WordPress hosting, given its popularity nowadays.

Performance-wise, InMotion has been tested to be able to stay above the industry standard of 99.95% uptime. It also has good speed results and can field sites that boast Time to First Byte (TTFB) of below 450ms. The only downside to their hosting seems to be the fact that you don’t get your account instantly activated when you sign up for a plan.

GoDaddy though seems to be a bit more of an enigma as it has shown to come up with random errors on hosting sometimes. It also has some major issue with WordPress, such as not allowing caching.

Verdict

If you were looking for hosting for a large company or site, wither one of these hosts should be able to offer you a good range of options. WordPress specific sites would likely do better with InMotion Hosting due to GoDaddy’s issues there.

GoDaddy is a better choice for smaller sites, or those who simply want some form of digital presence. Their prices – and performance both lend weight to this argument. The dividing line is clear and it’s a good case of Apples versus Oranges here.