Godaddy vs Dreamhost

Godaddy and Dreamhost, both are big players of Web hosting industry.

Both the web hosting providers offers hosting solutions for all size of business. Their hosting offerings includes shared hosting, virtual private servers, cloud hosting solutions, dedicated server hosting solutions, and specialized hosting solutions i.e WordPress Hosting.

Since more than a decade, both Godaddy and Dreamhost are the pioneers in the web hosting business and they still are good service providers if you ever need to choose hosting for your website.

Choosing any one of the two could be a challenge for anyone. If you're confused between the two, this Godaddy vs Dreamhost web hosting comparison is for you.

In this article, we have compared shared hosting services of both the providers. We have compared them based on the shared hosting plans, server performance, website speed, time to first byte performance, uptime, and customer support.

Introduction

Godaddy and Dreamhost both are US based web hosting companies and both have been in there in the market now for almost 20 years.

This kind of experience in the hosting business is enough for any customer to trust these web hosting giants with their eyes closed.

Though personal choices may differ depending upon the kind of services needed by any individual but considering the broader range, we can conclude that both the hosts are equally capable and good for personal use, as well as for small businesses (Check out more Small Business Web Hosting Providers). 

Here we will compare the plans and services provided by both the hosts side by side so that it is easy for you to decide the best value for money host and plan according to your needs.

Plans and Features Comparison 

The plans provided by both the hosts are on monthly or yearly basis and can be used to host all kinds of websites ranging from personal blogs to high traffic websites.

According to your needs you can buy a suitable plan from the host that you think matches with your hosting requirements.

Here we will compare all the shared hosting plans provided by both the hosts, and give you the details about what each plan has to offer.

Starting with Godaddy, it provides its basic plan named as Starter, at a minimal price of $2.49/mo and allows you to host only one website with a storage limit of 30 GB with unlimited bandwidth. All the plans on Godaddy have support for PHP 7.0 and 7.1. Dreamhost has its basic plan priced at 10.95$ which is billed monthly and provides the facility to host unlimited websites. Though the other plans details are not clearly described on Dreamhost’s official website rather than that it provides ability to install WordPress in an instant without any hassle. This plan also provides free email for the period the plan is bought.

Godaddy Web Hosting Plans

Godaddy Web Hosting Plans

dreamhost web hosting plans and pricing

Dreamhost web hosting plans

Godaddy has next plan named as Economy, which is priced at $3.49/mo and provides allows you to host one website along with 100 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth and free business email for the first year. If you buy the annual subscription of this plan then you also get a free domain. Dreamhost provides its 1 year plan at the rate of $9.95 /mo which is billed $119.40 every year. The major details except the unlimited website hosting ability are also not disclosed on the website.

Special Godaddy Offer

Get Godaddy Economy Hosting Plan for Just $1 per month.

Also get 1 Free domain and professional email.

The next plan that Godaddy provides is what they called the best value for money plan, which is named as Deluxe. This plan costs $4.99 monthly and provides unlimited website hosting along with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. It also give you free business email for the first year and if you buy the annual subscription you also get a free domain. Dreamhost provides its 3 years plan which is billed every 3 years at the rate $286.20 or $7.95/mo. This plan also provides unlimited website hosting and the rest of the details are not provided by Dreamhost.

So according the descriptions of all the plans provided by these two hosts we can clearly see that the plans provided by Godaddy are way more cheaper and feature rich as when compared to Dreamhost.

There is one more plan that Godaddy offers i.e Ultimate plan. This plan offers 2x More Power and Memory and ideal for complex and high traffic websites. It comes with 1 free SSL certificate and free premium DNS.

Web Hosting Performance Comparision

Performance test of a web host is a great way to test its real capabilities. Having cheaper than others plans is not only enough if you are really looking for quality service. Performance test is essential to determine the true potential of the web hosts. You don't want to buy a hosting plan and then regret later on just because your host failed to deliver what it promised to give. Here we will compare both the hosts for their performance and see which host performs better in the test. 

Godaddy Server performance test -

To check how fast Godaddy servers respond to a user request from different locations of the World, we run a test on a website hosted on Godaddy's shared hosting server, In the image below are the results of our test.

Godaddy Web Hosting Performance

Godaddy Shared Hosting Server Performance Test Results

Dreamhost Server performance Test -

Similarly, We run one more test on a website hosted on Dreamhost shared hosting server, below are the results of our test.

Server Performance of Dreamhost Shared Web Hosting

Dreamhost Shared Hosting Server Performance Test Results

As from the test results we can clearly see that there is not much difference between performance of both the hosts. Both the hosts got a C+ with near to similar ping timings from all the different server locations with which they were tested. So we can conclude that both the hosts are similar when talking about their web hosting server performance.

Website Speed Comparision

Website speed test helps to determine how fast your website will run on a web hosting server. This is an important part of any web hosting service since slow hosts results in longer website opening times and thus taking longer for the website to get fetched to the users device. Slower websites results in loss of visitors since people don't want to visit websites which are slow. Because of this, it is very much essential to have your website hosted on a host which can send receive data at faster speeds. Here we will compare the speeds of both the hosts

Godaddy Speed Test

To determine how fast a website will run when hosted on a Godaddy shared hosting server, we run a simple website speed test using the tool Pingdom. Below in the image are the results of our test. 

Godaddy Speed Test

Website Speed Performance Hosted on Godaddy Server

Dreamhost Speed Test -

Similarly, We run one more test for a website hosted on Dreamhost server. Below in the image are the results of our test.

dreamhost website speed test

Website Speed Performance Hosted on Godaddy Server

The results show that Dreamhost performed way better than Godaddy in this case. Where Godaddy scored a D grade with 62 points, Dreamhost scored a B grade with 86 points which is way better than Godaddy. So we can conclude that Dreamhost has proved to be slightly over the edge for Godaddy.

Time to First Byte (TTFB) Performance Comparision

Time to first Byte is the minimum time required by the host to transfer or receive the first byte of data. The minimum time it takes to receive the data the faster the host is considered to be. If the host takes anywhere more than 200ms for the transfer of first byte of data, the website can be considered as a slow website and it needs improvements. Here we will do and compare the TTFB test for both godaddy and Dreamhost.

Godaddy TTFB Performance

Below are the results of TTFB test that we run on the website hosted on Godaddy shared hosting plan.

We run this test on our own website which is hosted on Godaddy Asia data center.

Godaddy Time to first byte performance

Godaddy Time To First Byte Performance Test Results

Dreamhost TTFB Performance

Similarly, We run a test on a website which is hosted on Dreamhost shared hosting server.

For this test we used a website which is hosted on Dreamhost USA data center.

Below are the results of our test.

dreamhost time to first byte test

Dreamhost Time To First Byte Performance Test Results

We can see from the TTFB tests that both the hosts took almost the same time to transfer the first byte of data. From the server located at Dallas location, Godaddy took .427 ms to transfer the first byte, and Dreamhost took .450 ms for the same. So we can conclude that both the hosts are equally good as far as data transfer speeds are considered.

Godaddy Vs Dreamhost : Uptime Comparision

Uptime is the period of time or the range of time over which a webhost is online and properly functioning. While choosing a webhost, uptime should be one of the top most priorities since you wouldn’t want your website to be inaccessible just because your web host failed to deliver the promised uptime or wasn’t functioning properly. Here we will compare the uptimes of both Godaddy and Dreamhost side by side so as to get a better idea of both -

Godaddy Uptime History

Godaddy Average Uptime

Godaddy Average Uptime Comparision With Other Major Web Hosting Providers

Godaddy uptime history

Godaddy Uptime History

Godaddy Shared Web Hosting Recent Uptime Report

Godaddy Recent Uptime Performance

Dreamhost Uptime History

Dreamhost Uptime Comparision

Dreamhost Average Uptime Comparision With Other Major Web Hosting Providers

Dreamhost Uptime History

Dreamhost Uptime History

Dresmhost Recent Uptime Report

Dreamhost Recent Uptime Performance

We can see from the results that where, Godaddy had only one downtime that too was only for 4 minutes on 21 oct in the past few months , Dreamhost had many downtimes during the same period. The maximum time for which Dreamhost was down was for 346 minutes that roughly translates to 6 hours of downtime which can be potentially very much harmful for people with websites who have huge user base.

So from the statistics we can conclude that Dreamhost failed pretty badly in the uptime test and it is strictly not recommended anymore if your prime concern is continuous accessibility of your hosted website.

Godaddy and Dreamhost Customer Support Comparison

Customer support is also an important aspect to look at before buying a hosting solution since it helps to decide that how quickly can you get your issues resolved when you raise a support request.

Godaddy provides a huge variety of modes of communication with their customer support staff. You can directly call them via phone to seek support or you can get involved in an online chat with the customer care representative or you can just raise a ticket regarding your troubles and they will resolve your issue in minimum time possible. Godaddy also provides customer support and payment methods in regional languages and currency respectively which is a major advantage of using Godaddy over any other web hosting provider. If English are not your first language, there are chances that Godaddy can provide you support in your local language if they have their local presence in your country.

Dreamhost also provides 24/7 customer support to its customer via support ticket but the payment options are limited and you can't pay in your local currency which can be a drawback for some people if they don't have a credit card to pay. Dreamhost also don't offer customer support via mobile. Their voice support is chargeable which is again a big setback for many customers who prefer to talk with a customer service executive during any emergency.

Godaddy Limited Period Offer

Buy Godaddy Economy Hosting Plan for Just $1 per month.

Which One Should You Buy? Godaddy or Dreamhost

Taking a look at all the factors we can conclude that the plans offered by Dreamhost are costlier when compared with the plans of Godaddy. Moreover the uptime of Dreamhost is not at all impressive and the lack of good customer support can also be a downer for many. So we will recommend you to go with Godaddy whenever you need to choose between these two hosts.