Domain.com vs GoDaddy – One Clear Winner in 2021

I’m always cautious when it comes to companies like GoDaddy and Domain.com, that claim to be a one-stop-shop for all your hosting needs. What tends to happen is that they’re spread so thin that everything they offer is average at best rather than having one or two stand-out services. Is that the case with these hosts?

I signed up for WordPress hosting with both GoDaddy and Domain.com, used online tools to compare their performance, and tested out their customer support – and while I’m still not sold on the “we offer everything for everyone” approach, if I had to choose one of the two, it would be GoDaddy.

That said, I probably wouldn’t choose either of these hosts for my own website. I’d go with Hostinger, which offers excellent performance for a great price. Click here to see Hostinger’s latest deals, or read on to see if one of these two hosts might be the right choice for you after all.

1. Performance

Domain.com Fails to Meet Google’s Recommended Page Loading Speeds

When a host claims to be “powerful and reliable” like Domain.com does, I like to put those claims to the test. One of the main aspects of performance that I always test is page loading speeds – since slow page loading speeds not only cause over 50% of website visitors to click away, they can also affect your position in search results.

I consider several performance factors. These include:

• Fully loaded time. This is the time it takes for the webpage content and all scripts to be fully loaded from the host server. Google has issued guidance that your web pages should load within three seconds to avoid a high bounce rate (visitors leaving your website before it loads).
• Time to first byte (TTFB). TTFB shows how quickly the server sends the first byte of data to your visitors’ browsers. This is the point at which the page actually begins to load. Slow TTFB times may indicate overloaded or poorly configured servers.
• Contentful paint. This is the point at which your web page content is visible to your visitors – although any content that’s controlled by javascript may not yet be visible. Your visitors can see your webpage but it’s not fully loaded and will only be fully functional when all scripts have loaded.

You can see how GoDaddy and Domain.com performed in my tests in the screenshots below.

The website hosted on Domain.com failed to meet Google’s recommended page loading speed – although its TTFB and contentful paint times were not much different from GoDaddy’s.

As well as page speed, I also look at the reliability of web hosts to assess performance. Reliability is measured in uptime – and while GoDaddy offers the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, being compensated for downtime doesn’t make up for potential lost business during downtime. An uptime of 99.9% still allows for 43 minutes of downtime per month. Domain.com doesn’t even have an uptime guarantee!

GoDaddy, in my tests, proves to be more reliable than Domain.com, with its average monthly uptime rarely falling below 99.95%. Domain.com, however, has a lot more instances of downtime (perhaps due to overloaded servers) and fairly frequently has average monthly uptime scores of less than 99.85% (including one recent month with 99.42% uptime).

Both GoDaddy and Domain.com have their issues with performance. This is why I prefer Hostinger – its shared hosting plans provide some of the fastest loading speeds I’ve seen, and its uptime record is excellent.

2. Domain Registration

GoDaddy’s Domain Features Are Simply More Extensive

Yes, I know this is a web hosting comparison, but since GoDaddy and Domain.com were established as domain registration services before they expanded into web hosting and more, it would be foolish not to look at this part of what they offer.

GoDaddy often claims to be the best domain registrar – and since nearly 19 million people have bought domain names from it, it must be doing something right! What makes GoDaddy superior for domains compared to Domain.com is the range of domain-related features it offers.

Domain.com’s domain hosting features are adequate – you can search for your ideal domain name, there’s a variety of domain extensions to choose from, and you can purchase domain privacy protection – but compared to GoDaddy, these services seem rather basic.

3. Plans and Features

Domain.com Has Simple Pricing and Provides Features GoDaddy Charges For

With shared hosting, you tend to find very similar (or even identical) feature lists and hosting plans. I’ve put the details of what Domain.com and GoDaddy’s hosting plans include in an at-a-glance table below.

There are a couple things to note about the differences between the two hosts. First, Domain.com doesn’t use promotional pricing or have pricing that changes depending on whether you pay upfront for a year, two years, or three years. The price is the same no matter the length of your plan.

Domain.com does, however, give you a discount on the basic plan if you buy a domain name without adding hosting – but you won’t see this discount on the web hosting sales pages.

GoDaddy doesn’t support the automatic installation of Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates and only provides free SSL certificates on its higher-priced plans. You can use Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with GoDaddy, but you have to install them yourself and reissue the certificate every 90 days (which, quite frankly, I’d never remember to do!). Domain.com will issue and maintain free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for all domains on your hosting account.

4. Security

No Built-In Security Features – But GoDaddy Offers Website Security at a Lower Price

Many of the budget web hosting companies don’t include the kind of security features you really need – such as malware scanning and removal and web application firewalls – within hosting plans. Instead, security is offered as an “optional” add-on (even though there’s nothing optional about keeping your website protected from hackers!).

Both GoDaddy and Domain.com charge extra for security – but there’s a big difference between the two. Domain.com has partnered with SiteLock to provide three optional levels of protection – Essentials, Prevent, and Prevent Plus. Unfortunately, the Essentials add-on only provides the bare minimum of protection (and may double the cost of your hosting on the cheapest hosting plan).

To get protection from DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks and benefit from a WAF (web application firewall) that stops malicious traffic from reaching your website, you need to be on the Prevent plan – which will more than double the cost of the most expensive hosting plan.

GoDaddy’s security features will still cost you – but DDoS protection and 24/7 security monitoring are included with all hosting plans. GoDaddy’s security add-ons are simpler, too. What’s more, the Website Backup add-on doesn’t just include backups – you get basic security (including malware scanning) too. With Domain.com, you have to pay separately for backups.

If you want more security features, you can add Essential Website Security during checkout – at a fraction of the cost of some of the SiteLock plans Domain.com offers. There are more advanced Website Security plans available, but these are primarily aimed at larger businesses. If you need high levels of security, you can opt for Deluxe, Ultimate, or Express Website Security.

5. Support

GoDaddy’s Support Isn’t 24/7 Worldwide – But Domain.com’s 24/7 Support Isn’t Great

I spend a lot of time trying out customer support via live chat and I’ve learned that although having 24/7 support sounds great, if the quality of support is poor, then you’re no better off. A host that doesn’t offer 24/7 but is actually willing and able to help resolve your issues is a much better solution.

GoDaddy is known for having somewhat complicated support availability. If you’re in the US or Canada, you can get 24/7 support via live chat and phone. If you’re in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, India, or Israel, for example, you can get 24/7 support via phone, but live chat is only available during certain hours (often 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday). There’s a whole web page dedicated to phone numbers and availability times for global support.

I’m in the UK and I prefer to test support via live chat, so I can only evaluate GoDaddy on weekdays. At first, that seems like an inconvenience – but then I tried Domain.com’s live chat support and, well, I got better support from GoDaddy’s live chat during weekends (when it’s closed) than I got from Domain.com!

Below is a screenshot of my exchange with Domain.com’s live chat agent. After failing to actually answer my questions properly (just copying and pasting information from the website) and insinuating that I wasn’t looking at the website properly, the support agent simply stopped responding to my questions and the chat window was automatically closed due to inactivity.

GoDaddy Is Better Than Domain.com, but You Can Do Even Better

GoDaddy’s hosting isn’t perfect, and it’s not at the top of my list of recommended hosts, but compared to Domain.com, it’s superior in performance, domain registration features, support, and security. If you’re looking to build your first website for a blog or business, one of GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans could work for you.

But even if you’re just starting out, you shouldn’t compromise on the quality of your hosting. Switching to a different host later on could be a major hassle. That’s why I recommend choosing an excellent web host right from the get-go.

Hostinger’s shared hosting plans are cheaper than anything GoDaddy can offer. They also include better features and provide some of the best performance I’ve seen. It’s no surprise that Hostinger made it to our list of the top web hosting services for 2021.

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