InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy

Comparing GoDaddy and InMotion hosting providers can be an uphill task. They’re both excellent in different aspects and also come with different disadvantages.

GoDaddy boasts one the biggest name in the web hosting world and has a massive 13 million subscribers – more significant than any other company.

InMotion, on the other hand, is the underdog that has worked its way up to compete with big rivals, like GoDaddy. It is a reputable company that provides first-class services, outstanding performance, and exceptional customer support. GoDaddy caters more to budget-minded people, making it challenging to choose one.

If you’re still on the fence about these two, this review will help you make a final decision. It compares GoDaddy and InMotion concerning various features that matter in web hosting.

Here is all the information you need before deciding what best fits your needs.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Performance Comparison

Assessing performance requires “first-hand” experience. Our performance tests mainly focus on uptime and website loading speeds. A good website hosting should provide an uptime guarantee and ensure that it has the necessary infrastructure to help them fulfill its promise.

That said, both GoDaddy and InMotion hosting promise a 99.9% uptime on their websites, and based on our research both of them have been able to meet those targets in the past.

During our uptime monitoring tests, the average uptime recorded was 99.97% for both hosts meaning that customers on both platforms experience not more than 3 hours of downtime yearly. Both are reliable.

Speed is another vital factor. And here InMotion beats GoDaddy hands down. GoDaddy’s industry-leading speed promise doesn’t compare with what InMotion’s speed-enhancing features provide. From our tests, InMotion’s page load speed averaged had 2.9s while GoDaddy averaged 3.1s which is a small but significant difference.

As mentioned earlier, InMotion has invested in speed-optimization features and infrastructure, something GoDaddy hasn’t thought of yet. For example, it allows customers to choose their server location (East Coast USA or West Coast USA), increasing website loading speeds.

InMotion, therefore, wins the performance comparison both in uptime and page loading speeds. With slightly faster loading speeds and a 99.97% uptime average (Like GoDaddy), InMotion is an excellent pick for reliability. Its value-added features and reliability enhance the customer experience.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Pricing Comparison

At a glance, deciding which of these two has better pricing can be challenging. Although GoDaddy may look cheaper, InMotion offers better value and (we will explain that shortly). Whether working on a budget or not, web hosting pricing is a critical feature to consider.

GoDaddy provides various features under different plans for diverse budgets. For shared hosting, you can choose the Economy, Deluxe, Ultimate, or Maximum plan. Conversely, InMotion has the Launch, Power and Pro plans for shared website hosting, all with unique features.

You can also get WordPress hosting on either host with different features. GoDaddy’s WordPress offer comes with automatic malware scanning and removal features. You also enjoy daily backups with storage available on the provider’s cloud for a small fee.

InMotion too provides specialized WordPress features. It comes with a staging area and easy, one-click WordPress installation features. You also get automatic security and convenience updates regularly to keep your website in a perfect state.

What’s more? You need to consider renewal terms for both hosting providers. GoDaddy charges 50% more than what customers pay initially. However, the amount differs depending on the length of your initial subscription.

InMotion customers enjoy a relatively low renewal fee. You’d pay the same amount as your initial subscription if you paid for a one year term. If your initial subscription term exceeds one year, you’ll pay 20% extra in the subsequent months.

Another thing to consider is a money-back guarantee as it gives subscribers the confidence to invest in a hosting provider. GoDaddy guarantees its customers a 30-day money-back guarantee if they want to cancel their subscription for whatever reason.

InMotion hosting guarantees its customers a 90-day no questions asked money-back guarantee. That means a more generous period to experience its services and rate them.

Overall, InMotion provides all that customers are looking for in a hosting provider. Better value on all plans, a 90-day no questions asked money-back guarantee and slightly lower renewal prices make InMotion our choice for pricing.

GoDaddy Hosting: Plans and Pricing

InMotion Hosting Plans and Prices

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Customer Support Comparison

As a beginner, you need a hand to help you get on board. Even pro users require help at some point, whether it is purchasing a complicated plan or anything else. Thus, good customer support should be a priority when choosing between any two hosting providers.

GoDaddy support is there but minimal as compared to InMotion’s. Despite providing customer support on live chat and phone for its US-based customers, accessing them from other continents isn’t straightforward. GoDaddy live chat and phone are available in places like the UK but are limited to certain times.

A solid onsite knowledgebase is essential for any web hosting provider. GoDaddy has put together textual and visual resources to help you access their services. It is an excellent investment because it reduces the support team’s workload as customers seeking help through live chat and phone reduce significantly.

InMotion, on the other hand, provides reliable support that offers real solutions. You can also reach them through live chat, phone, or email, call 24/7. Their customer support team is highly responsive with live chat averaging 2 seconds of waiting time.

Like GoDaddy, InMotion has invested in a useful knowledge base for their customers. Their website contains resources from video tutorials to FAQs and product guides to help new customers. Besides, they have an info-graphics page explaining their offers and tools to help you do quick and easy fixes.

InMotion beats GoDaddy on this feature. As a customer, you need a responsive support team on the other side and various channels to reach them. InMotion has more channels compared to GoDaddy and beats it on response times too. That makes it a better choice both for beginners and experts.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Ease of Use Comparison

Ease of use is one of the factors that big hosting companies use to attract beginners. Many people lack the technical know-how to get the best out of it when starting with websites. Thus, a user-friendly hosting provider comes in handy in making their experience better.

As you would expect, GoDaddy being one of the top dogs has invested in user-friendly features. But that’s not to say InMotion isn’t any better. Below is a run-down of some user-friendly features of these two companies.

• User Interface – GoDaddy uses an uncluttered version of cPanel to simplify its user interface. Its cPanel looks customized but then comes with all the features of a standard one. InMotion’s user interface is relatively easy to use with a mini-cPanel at the bottom. Users can also upgrade to the full cPanel easily.
• Sign-up process – Signing up to either host is straightforward. The signup and the checkout process took us less than 5 minutes. However, we observed that you’ve to be careful not to pay for features you don’t need on both.
• Migration – Website migration is an important thing to consider before picking a hosting provider. GoDaddy isn’t the best in this as they charge $99.99 for a single migration – expensive, right? InMotion transfers websites at $10 per item transferred, for customers with three websites.
• Website builder – GoDaddy provides you with GoCentral, an internal website building tool that will help you develop your online store. InMotion has an advanced website builder and many other e-commerce features to help you build your site from scratch.
• Staging environments – Staging capabilities are essential, especially for new users. Both GoDaddy and InMotion hosting have staging environments available for their users. All WordPress plans on GoDaddy (except basic ones) come with staging capabilities.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Security Comparison

Perfect hosting without security guarantees adds up to nothing. The right hosting provider should come with decent protection for the user and internal data. With the number of hackers and malware on the internet with mischievous plans, you must consider security.

We believe web hosting should protect customers for free, but a few hosting providers don’t think so. GoDaddy provides basic security in the form of SSL certificates. It doesn’t have this on all plans, and you will have to pay about $48 for such a fundamental protection feature.

GoDaddy provides free and paid backup options to protect their clients’ data. With this feature, you should no longer worry about losing your data if someone hacks your account. GoDaddy’s vital protection feature is SiteLock detects and removes malware, among other purposes.

InMotion hosting protects its customers for free. It provides free daily backups, and you could upgrade to payable backups, but that isn’t necessary for a small website. Besides, InMotion’s free website suite works like GoDaddy’s SiteLock in malware scanning, detection, and removal.

InMotion is a better hosting provider for website security. The fact that it doesn’t charge subscribers for essential protection makes it reliable and convenient.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy Features Comparison

A quick run-down comparing GoDaddy and InMotion hosting’s main features will help you decide what works best for you. Read on to see how each performs.

• Free SSL

Price is the difference between GoDaddy and InMotion’s SSL protection feature. GoDaddy’s Ultimate plan customers get a free SSL certificate on purchasing an annual plan. However, customers on other plans have to pay for it. All InMotion customers regardless of their plans, get SSL certificates for free.

• Storage restrictions

GoDaddy isn’t accurate about its unlimited and unmetered offers. These terms sometimes get contravened by the provider, and they restrict users averaging high disk space and bandwidth usage. Besides limitations, such users also risk complete bans without warnings.

• Website builders

As mentioned earlier, GoDaddy uses GoCentral, a critical website building tool that helps users create their sites from scratch. InMotion offers more than a website builder. Its tool is more advanced, with better security and extra tools that make customer management seamless.

• One-click app installation

Every website owner needs easy to use website management tools. With GoDaddy, you can install up to 125 applications with a single click. InMotion, on the other hand, supports the installation of up to 400 applications, making it a better pick because of its diversity.

InMotion Hosting vs. GoDaddy: Our Pick

Picking the best web hosting between GoDaddy and InMotion hosting is challenging. But then, as promised, you will be able to make a final decision by the end of this article.

But before that, let’s quickly have a recap of this review.

• Performance: GoDaddy and InMotion hosting guarantee 99.99% uptime. They also average the same uptime at 99.97%, making them both reliable. However, InMotion has better website loading speeds and thus a better provider overall on performance.
• Pricing: GoDaddy provides customers with lots of choices. They’ve organized their plans properly and attached prices. But then, GoDaddy’s prices look cheaper than they are compared to InMotion hosting.
• Support: GoDaddy has fewer customer support channels compared to InMotion hosting. Besides, their support team isn’t as responsive as InMotion’s.
• Ease of Use: Both providers have easy-to-use interfaces. They’ve cPanel to further simplify their interfaces, but you may have to pay to enjoy the full interface on InMotion, making GoDaddy a winner.
• Security: InMotion hosting provides a free SSL certificate for all their customers. GoDaddy charges some of its customers for the SSL certificate. We, therefore, choose InMotion.
• Features: Overall, both providers have excellent and unique features. However, InMotion hosting has better features as compared to GoDaddy.

Both hosting providers have excellent features. GoDaddy impresses in user-friendliness while InMotion hosting comes top in almost every other factor.

As such, InMotion hosting is our pick for this review. GoDaddy, with its long list of features, can be an excellent alternative to it.