Arvixe vs. GoDaddy

GoDaddy and Arvixe are not new names in the hosting world. Both companies have been in operation for many years.

Throughout the years, these two hosting providers have risen through the ranks to offer a wide array of quality web hosting solutions ranging from Windows web hosting, Linux hosting, eCommerce web hosting, and managed dedicated servers.

While both are quality options – especially for beginners, they are not created equal. In this review, we will dive a little bit deeper and see how these two hosting rivals compare in terms of features, performance, pricing, security, and customer support.

But before we set everything in motion, let’s start with an overview of these two companies.

About GoDaddy and Arvixe

Established in 1997, GoDaddy is undoubtedly one of the best-known domain registrars in the hosting market today alongside other companies like Namecheap, Domain.com, and NameSilo.

Aside from domain name registration, GoDaddy is a well-rounded hosting provider that offers a wide assortment of hosting solutions to cater to every type of website – from personal blogs to corporate websites. 

While it’s not clear how many websites its hosts, this hosting titan has a customer base of more than 20 million. It also manages over 80 million domain names.

Who is Arvixe?

Arvixe is a small American web hosting company based in San Luis Obispo, California. The company was founded in 2003 by Arvand Sabetian and was later acquired by EIG (Endurance International Group) in 2014. EIG is the company that owns the likes of Bluehost, Hostgator, iPage, and many others.

Since its inception, the company has been a top choice hosting solutions provider for thousands of businesses around the globe. The company has won various awards – including PCMag’s “Editor’s Choice” in 2015 – and is currently hailed as one of the “fastest-growing hosting companies” by various hosting authorities.

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy Features Comparison

From the above overview, it’s clear that both GoDaddy and Arvixe have earned quite a reputation in the hosting arena. And while both offer impressive tools and features to ensure a smooth website setup process and great overall performance, there is more to this two hosts than meets the eye.

As such, we’ll begin this GoDaddy vs Arvixe comparison review by first highlighting some of the basic features that you should expect when you sign up on a shared hosting plan with either of these hosting providers.

So, depending on the needs of your website, this section should give you a summary of what you should expect. Here’s a quick breakdown.

GoDaddy

• A free domain name for one year once you purchase an annual web hosting plan.
• All plans come with unlimited bandwidth.
• You get the option to host your website on a Linux or Windows-based server.
• Free 1-click WordPress installation.
• Free business email (Office 365) for the first year.
• Easy-to-use control panel.
• 24/7 network security and DDoS protection.
• Database backup and restore.
• Access to over 150 free apps.
• Round the clock customer support.
• 30-day money-back guarantee.

Arvixe

• Free domain registration for one year.
• Unmetered bandwidth.
• Unmetered disk space.
• Free daily backups.
• Support for Linux and Windows-based server configurations.
• Free website builder and online store.
• Unlimited email accounts.
• User-friendly control panel.
• Free website migration.
• 24-hour customer support.
• 45-day money-back guarantee.

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy Performance Comparison 

Whenever we talk about performance, two very crucial metrics come into play. Namely, speed and uptime.

Speed in this case indicates how fast a website responds to web requests. Websites that take more than 3 seconds to load pages are considered slow and are more likely to lose 40% of their visitors to their competitors. They are also likely to lose their position in search engines – eventually impacting the website’s ranking and conversion.

That said, it’s a clear indication that a significant percentage of web users have little tolerance for slower loading websites. To put these findings into perspective, we decided to test the page load speeds of two websites using Pingdom. One hosted with GoDaddy and the other with Arvixe.

To avoid getting biased results, we purchase the most basic shared hosting plans from the two rival hosts and set up a fresh WordPress website with each host. From our Pingdom tests, the site hosted with GoDaddy gave us an average load time of 0.51s (510ms) while the one hosted on Arvixe gave us an average load time of 1.05s. While both results were equally impressive, GoDaddy carried the day. 

Aside from page load speeds, we also monitored the uptime for both hosts. In this context, uptime is the measure of the uninterrupted time that a web server has stayed up-and-running.

Our uptime results for three months showed that GoDaddy recorded an average uptime rating of 100%. Arvixe, on the other hand, gave us an average uptime rating of 99.99% within the same testing period. From our analysis, both hosts met their uptime guarantee ratings and gave an above industry-standard uptime rating. However, GoDaddy did much better.

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy Pricing Comparison

At a glance, both GoDaddy and Arvixe offer a broad range of hosting packages to suit each individual’s needs. However, each company prices its plans differently depending on the features and the duration of your subscription.

To make it easy for you to understand the various shared hosting plans the two hosts offer, here’s a quick breakdown.

GoDaddy pricing

GoDaddy offers four shared hosting plans.

• The Economy plan ($5.99/mo). It includes a free domain name if you sign up for a 12-month plan, 100 GB storage, unmetered data transfer (bandwidth), 1-click installs, free Office 365 Email, 10 databases, and you can only host a single website.
• The Deluxe plan ($7.99/mo). Includes all features that come with the Economy plan but adds a few perks such as unlimited websites and storage.
• The Ultimate plan ($12.99/mo). Includes all features that come with the Deluxe plan but adds more CPU power, a free SSL certificate for the first year, and unlimited databases.
• The Maximum plan (19.99/mo). All the features are the same as those of the Ultimate plan with the only addition being the free-unlimited SSL for all your websites.

Arvixe pricing

Arvixe, on the other hand, offers four shared hosting plans. They include:

• The Personal Class – Linux ($8.47/mo). The plan offers a free domain, unmetered disk space, unmetered data transfer, 6 domains, 24/7 customer support.
• The Personal Class Pro – Linux ($12.10/mo).  The plan includes all the features that come with the Personal Class. The only difference is that you can host an unlimited number of websites.
• The Business Class – Linux ($30.25/mo). The plan offers a free domain, a free SSL certificate for life, unmetered disk space, unmetered bandwidth, and 6 domains.
• The Business Class Pro – Linux ($45.98/mo). Same features as the Business Class but allows you to host an unlimited number of websites.

As you can see, the prices vary between the two providers. For instance, GoDaddy’s Economy plan – which is the most basic plan for low traffic websites starts at $5.99/mo while Arvixe’s cheapest plan – the Personal Class – starts at $8.47/mo.

While there is no huge difference in prices, it’s clear that for you to get a better deal with either of the hosts you need to consider a long-term billing cycle. With GoDaddy it’s 36-months and with Arvixe, it’s 24 months.

Be that as it may, Arvixe’s prices are better than those of GoDaddy in the long-run considering that Arvixe doesn’t hike its prices during renewal. Something that GoDaddy is notoriously known to do.

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy Security Comparison

According to SiteLock’s Q2 2018 report, websites fall prey to malware attacks at least 58 times a day even when properly patched. This means that even with all your plugins, themes, and WordPress core software updated your website is still vulnerable to a cyber-attack.

That said, neither GoDaddy nor Arvixe will blow your mind with their security features. And considering that their plans are pricier than what other hosts such as Bluehost and Hostgator offer, we’d expect at least both GoDaddy and Arvixe to offer a free SSL certificate in all their plans. But that’s far from reality.

GoDaddy, for instance, only offers a free SSL certificate on their Ultimate Plan and above. This means that if you choose to go with the Economy and Deluxe Plan, you’ll have to pay extra. 

Arvixe, on the other hand, used to offer free SSL certificates with all their shared hosting plans, but that’s no longer the case. Today, you have to pay a one-time fee of $25 to get an SSL certificate with the Personal Class plans. Only the Business Class plans come with a free SSL certificate.

Aside from SSL certificates, both GoDaddy and Arvixe offer additional security features to ensure that your site and emails are protected. These features include DDoS protection, Brute Force Detection, WAF (Web Application Firewall), Spam Blocker, Manual Email Filtering, network monitoring, and many more.

In terms of security, there is no clear winner. However, Arvixe gives you value for money because most of these security features are included in the initial cost. GoDaddy, on the other hand, includes some of these features as add-ons.  

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy Customer Support Comparison 

While features, great performance, decent pricing, and security are vital considerations when choosing a hosting provider, customer support is more important.

See, a hosting provider can be offering excellent services – but if the customer support is weak, most customers won’t think twice about switching to the next best option.

Both GoDaddy and Arvixe provide a variety of support methods. GoDaddy offers 24/7 telephone support and live-chat support Monday through Friday. What we liked most about GoDaddy live chat support are the quick response times.

Arvixe’s support, on the other hand, is available through ticketing and via live chat which is available 24/7. Unfortunately, there’s no phone support available which is a huge disappointment – especially if you want to speak to a real human being to explain your website woes. Live chat response times are also slow. We had to wait for about 10 minutes to get connected with an agent.

Overall, GoDaddy’s support quality is top-notch and more reliable compared to Arvixe’s.

Arvixe vs. GoDaddy: Our Pick

When it comes down to it, both GoDaddy and Arvixe offer plenty of desirable features to cater to beginners and veterans alike. However, both hosts still lack in some areas.

For instance, GoDaddy does pretty well when it comes to features, page load speeds, and uptime. However, it falls short when it comes to transparency in pricing.

Case in point – GoDaddy flaunts enormously low prices on their website only for them to include essential features as add-ons during check-out causing you to pay more than was advertised.

Arvixe, on the other hand, has had a turbulent history which could be part of the reason why it’s not so much famous today. Once atop hosting provider, Arvixe continues to be dogged by worrying uptime issues and customer support woes.

While our tests for three months showed some great improvements in terms of speed and uptime, we wouldn’t recommend it for hosting a business website.

Considering everything else – and for the purpose of this review, GoDaddy is the clear Winner.  Most importantly because of its excellent performance and reliable customer support.

However, if you feel that you need a better service provider other than these two, you can check out our comparison reviews page. Also, don’t forget to check out our list of GoDaddy alternatives.