Web hosting is the powerhouse behind your website. For this reason, your choice of web host is crucial to ensuring reliability, performance and security. In this post, we compare two leading web hosts, GoDaddy, the world’s biggest web hosting provider, based in the US, and Webhosting UK, an independent British web host which has been providing innovative hosting services for over two decades.
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Range of hosting solutions
While the vast majority of websites start out on shared hosting plans, as businesses grow and their online presence expands, they may need to upgrade to bigger, more powerful hosting solutions, like virtual private servers (VPS), dedicated servers and the cloud. Given that moving from one host to another can be complex and sometimes require downtime, choosing a host that offers the full range of solutions can help you avoid the need to find a new provider.
When it comes to solutions, there is a distinct difference between what’s on offer at GoDaddy and Webhosting UK. GoDaddy specialises in the needs of smaller businesses, offering two main types of solutions, shared hosting and VPS. These are ideal for the vast majority of businesses, especially those that just run websites. Webhosting UK, while offering shared and VPS, also provides dedicated server and cloud hosting solutions. These more powerful options are essential for businesses with large, busy websites or which run applications like AI tools, automation, big data analytics, customer-facing apps and so forth. Indeed, as the world becomes more digital and new technologies evolve, more small businesses are making use of dedicated servers and cloud hosting to stay competitive and meet customer demand.
There is also a difference between the two providers when it comes to specialist hosting. Both offer Website Builder plans (for those who want an easy way to build a website) and WordPress hosting, which is designed to provide better performance, reliability, security and ease of use for WordPress websites. GoDaddy, additionally, provides a Managed WordPress E-commerce solution, which includes some premium Woo-Commerce features. Webhosting UK, meanwhile, offers managed services on all its hosting options and provides dedicated hosting solutions for Joomla, Magento and Drupal, all popular alternatives to WordPress. It also offers reseller hosting for developers who wish to host their own clients’ websites.
Unsure what managed hosting is? Read: 7 Biggest Benefits of Managed Services
Hosting features
Though it is vital that a web host provides the hosting solutions your website needs, the features that come with the hosting plan can often be important when choosing a host. Of course, different types of solutions come with different features, so it is important to compare individual hosting plans carefully. To give a like-for-like comparison, here we look at the similarities and differences in the features of GoDaddy and Webhosting UK’s shared hosting plans.
GoDaddy’s shared hosting solution is available in eight options, while Webhosting UK offers four options. Two similar options are the GoDaddy Maximum and the Webhosting UK Developer plans. The main features of the Maximum plan include hosting for up to 50 websites, 100GB of NVMe-SSD storage, a free domain, free email hosting and free SSL certificates for your sites. The plans also come with the excellent cPanel control panel and free daily backups, which are essential for recovering your site if you suffer a disaster. In terms of reliability, the company offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee for websites.
The Developer hosting plan from Webhosting UK is very similar, both in price and features. It also offers 99.9% uptime, free daily backups, free SSL certificates for all sites, a cPanel control panel, unlimited email accounts and 40 GB of SSD storage. While the storage is smaller with Webhosting UK, it is still sufficient for hosting many websites and unlike GoDaddy, there is no limit on how many websites you can create.
Looking across the wider range of solutions, both companies have the extensive range of features that you would expect from leading hosting providers. Although not identical, there are lots of similarities.
For more read: 10 Must-Have Features of the Latest Shared Hosting Plans
Performance
Website performance covers areas such as website loading times and uptime, and how well websites perform when the server is busy. These are crucial for ensuring your site stays online, maintaining customer confidence and boosting SEO.
For the majority of their solutions, both providers offer uptime guarantees of 99.9%. The exception is Webhosting UK’s cloud hosting which delivers a staggering 100% uptime, making it ideal for websites and other critical applications that need to remain online all the time.
The performance of a server is directly linked to the quality and capacity of its hardware components. On the shared hosting plans, both providers make use of superfast SSD storage. GoDaddy doesn’t mention any other types of hardware it uses, so it is difficult to comment on how well it performs. Webhosting UK, however, uses clusters of Intel Xeon-based servers which are renowned for their high-performance capabilities. It also uses automatic data caching which helps your website to load even faster.
Security
Security is vital for all websites given the growing number of threats and attacks. For this reason, you’ll find GoDaddy and Webhosting UK have invested heavily in security talent and tools.
Both companies offer free SSL certificates and free daily backups on shared hosting plans. Similarly, they use state-of-the-art systems to monitor sites around the clock, including advanced firewalls that detect and block hacking, malware and DDoS attacks. Webhosting UK also offers a raft of other security tools and protections, including password-protected directories; advanced cloud backup solutions that schedule automatic, encrypted backups at the frequencies customers need; email encryption certificates (email SSL); the Imunify360 Linux Security tool; advanced SSLs and SpamExperts spam filtering. Customers on its more advanced solutions also have the opportunity to use next-gen FortiGate firewalls.
Stay informed, read: Web Hosting Security Threats 2024 – How to Keep Your Website Protected
Customer support
Technical issues can happen at any time and for countless reasons. Getting them fixed promptly is vital to ensure websites work properly and remain online. For this reason, the support given by a web host is a crucial aspect of its service and something that needs to be considered when choosing a provider.
Both GoDaddy and Webhosting UK provide customers with 24/7 technical support, and both can be accessed via phone or chat. This means that whatever the issue, there will be an expert there to assist you. The only difference is that with a wider range of hosting solutions, like dedicated servers and cloud hosting, the technical team at Webhosting UK will be able to provide the higher levels of support needed for these advanced technologies.
At the same time, both companies provide assistance with finding the right solutions, GoDaddy has its GoDaddy Guides which you can contact online, while Webhosting UK has its sales and consultancy team that can be contacted via phone, email or through online chat. As Webhosting UK offers bespoke hosting solutions and caters for a wider range of customers, its advisors will have a detailed understanding of finding the right solution for individual businesses.
Additionally, both companies offer plenty of online advice in the form of informative blog posts and helpful knowledgebases.
What customers think
It’s always a good idea to check out what other customers think about a hosting company before choosing them. Both GoDaddy and Webhosting UK are registered on Trustpilot and have thousands of reviews between them. When it comes to specific ratings, Webhosting UK has the edge with an overall rating of 4.9, compared to GoDaddy’s 4.7. Drilling down, 91% give Webhosting UK a 5-start rating, while for GoDaddy, it is 84%. At the other end of the table, GoDaddy has twice the percentage of 1-star reviews as Webhosting UK .
Conclusion
Overall, GoDaddy and Webhosting UK are two excellent web hosting providers. The key difference between them is that Webhosting UK provides the full range of hosting solutions, shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server and cloud hosting, while GoDaddy only offers shared hosting and VPS. This may be of significance to companies that want to grow with their web host and develop long-term relationships. In terms of features, security and customer support, they provide a similar range of options.
Looking for a web host that can fulfil all your long-term needs? Check out our fast, secure and high-performance Shared Hosting with cPanel plans.
