godaddy vs ipage

Godaddy vs iPage – Web Hosting Comparison

Godaddy and iPage are two popular names in the affordable web hosting market.

Both the web hosting providers primarily targets customers who either owns a small business, or runs a blog or website.

If you're not very familiar with web hosting, it may be difficult for you to choose between the iPage and Godaddy since both the web hosting companies looks good on paper.

To make your job a bit easy, we have compared both Godaddy and iPage on various features and performance based parameters.

In this Godaddy vs iPage Hosting comparison, we have mentioned everything you as a customer should know before purchasing a web hosting plan from them.

Introduction

Both Godaddy and iPage offers web hosting and domain name registration services to small to medium size of businesses.

Godaddy itself is the name of the parent organisation whereas iPage belongs to the Endurance International group.

Both the web hosts are known for their cheap and affordable hosting plans that provide real value for money.

Godaddy was founded in the year 1997 while iPage web hosting was founded in the year 1998, just one year after Godaddy. So we can say that both the companies are almost two decades old and know the web hosting business pretty well.

Plans and Features Comparison 

Godaddy and iPage hosting, both are US based web hosts and are pretty experienced in their respective fields.

While Godaddy provides a variety of web hosting plans billed monthly or yearly as per the customer’s choice, iPage hosting has only one plan under the shared hosting category which is billed yearly.

Godaddy offers web hosting on both Windows and Linux platforms whereas iPage has only Linux hosting plan in its kitty.   

Here we will compare the plans provided by both the hosts and see which provide better value for money.

Godaddy Hosting Plans

Godaddy Web Hosting Plans

Godaddy’s first shared hosting plan is named as Starter and costs $2.49 /month and provides hosting for one website. The plan comes with 30GB of storage  and unlimited bandwidth. This plan is best suited for the websites which have very low amount of monthly traffic. If you are new to website building or just want to test stuff then this is the best plan for you.

Godaddy has its second plan named as Economy and costs around $3.49 /month. This plan also provides hosting for one website like the starter plan but offer more resources and comes with a free domain name. The plan comes with 100 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. You also get free business email for the first year of subscription and a free domain if you buy the annual plan. This plan is best suited for the websites having low to moderate amount of traffic.

The third plan of Godaddy is Deluxe. This plans costs $4.99 / month and provides hosting for unlimited websites, and comes with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. With this plan also, you get a free business email for the first year and a free domain if you buy the annual subscription. This plan is most suitable for hosting multiple websites having low to moderate amount of traffic.

The last plan of Godaddy is named as Ultimate and it costs $7.99 / month and provides hosting for unlimited number of websites and comes with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. With this plan you get 2X performance as claimed by Godaddy. You also get free business email for the first year, a free SSL certificate and a free domain if you buy the annual plan. This plan is best suited for the websites with high amount of traffic.

iPage Hosting Plan

ipage essential web hosting plan

Unlike Godaddy, iPage hosting has only one plan named Essential, which costs $1.99 / month under the current offer. It provides unlimited storage, unlimited monthly bandwidth and free email accounts. This plan is able to host unlimited number of websites. The plan is only available for yearly subscription and the promotional price is only applicable for the first year, from second year onward, customers has to pay the actual price i.e $7.99 per month.

Considering all the available plan from both the hosts we can say that where Godaddy has a variety of plans available that are designed for different customer needs, iPage only offers one plan, which doesn't seems fit for all size of websites .

Moreover, Godaddy provides further discounts on hosting plans if you buy their plans for more than one year, while iPage offer you discount on the first year subscription only.

Performance Test

The performance of a website is majorly depends on the web host.

The speed, stability, availability, and up time, all are dependent on the web host. 

Therefore before choosing a web host for your website, you should compare the performance of your web host with the other popular web hosting providers in the market.

Here we will do a performance test of two websites, one hosted on Godaddy, and the other one hosted on iPage.

Godaddy Web Hosting Performance Test

Website - Coachella.com

Host: Godaddy

Godaddy Web Hosting Performance

iPage Server Performance Test

Website : myfunlab.com

Host : Ipage

ipage server performance

From the website performance results, we can see that Godaddy got a C+ grade while iPage hosting got only C. The minimum time taken by Godaddy server was 174 ms while the maximum time taken was 340 ms while on the iPage server the minimum time taken was just 74 ms which is lower than that of Godaddy counterpart but the maximum time taken by the iPage server was 594 ms which is above the recommended limit of 200 ms.

From these test results we can conclude that there is not much difference between the performances of both the hosts and therefore we can call it a tie between the both in this test.

Speed Test

To give you an idea, how fast your website will open if you host your website with Godaddy or iPage, we have run a speed test on two websites, one hosted with Godaddy and one hosted with iPage. 

We always encourage our website visitors that they should perform a speed test before they buy a web hosting plan. It helps you determine if the web hosting is fast enough for your website. 

Choosing a slow web host can be a lot of trouble as slow websites tend to drive away even the existing users.

Here we have done a website speed test to check which host is faster among the two.

Godaddy Speed Test

godaddy website speed performance grade
godaddy pingdom test performance insight

iPage Speed Test

ipage website speed test
ipage pingdom speed performance grade

From the test results above, we can see that Godaddy got a performance marks 86 with a performance grade B whereas iPage hosting only managed to get a 70 with a C grade.

Looking at the page load time, we can see that website hosted on Godaddy server, with a page size of 1 mb, loaded in 4.99 seconds, while on the other hand, website hosted on iPage server, with a page size of 687 kB took 3.9 seconds to load.

From the test results above, we can see that Godaddy speed is better since the web page of 1 mb took only 4.99 seconds.

In this test, Godaddy wins over iPage.

Time to First Byte Comparison

TTFB or time to first byte test is basically carried out to check the data transfer speed of the hosts.

The TTFB determine the responsiveness of a web server.

TTFB is the time from a user making an HTTP request to the first byte of a web page received by the user's browser.

The minimum the TTFB, the faster is the responsiveness of a web server. 

Whenever you need to buy a web host for your website always make sure you do a preliminary TTFB test since it is helps to determine how fast the web server can receive a request and transfer data.

Godaddy TTFB Test

Godaddy Time to first byte performance

iPage TTFB Test

ipage ttfb test results

The test results show that Godaddy took 0.182 seconds to establish the connection with the server and took around 0.368 seconds to transfer the first byte of data, whereas iPage hosting took 0.028 seconds to establish the connection and around 0.368 seconds to transfer the first byte of data, which is comparatively lesser than that of Godaddy.

Overall, Godaddy only managed to get a performance grade C, while iPage got an A grade.

In this test, iPage is a clear winner.

Uptime

Godaddy Uptime History

Godaddy Average Uptime
Godaddy uptime history
Godaddy Shared Web Hosting Recent Uptime Report

iPage Uptime History

ipage uptime history

From the statistics above, we can see that while Godaddy has only one instance of downtime on 23 dec 2017,  that too lasted for only 4 minutes while on the other hand iPage hosting had multiple instances of downtime which lasted varying from on 1 minute to approximately one hour.

So from this test, we can say that Godaddy offers a better uptime compared to iPage.

In the uptime test, Godaddy is a winner.

Customer Support

Godaddy has pretty good customer support team and you get a ton of options through which you can contact the customer support.

You can contact the customer support via phone which is open 24/7.

You can also try the online chat option to get your issues resolved.

If nothing works for you, then you can also try E-mailing or ask your question in Godaddy forum. 

Godaddy also offers customer support in many languages other than English, so if you are uncomfortable with English, you can always use this option.

Godaddy also accept payments in many currencies other than just USD. For example, If you're living in India, you can pay in rupees.

Similarly, iPage hosting also provides three ways to contact their customer support team.

You can directly have a telephonic conversation with them, or you can just start a live chat with them or you can also fill out a form regarding your queries and the customer support staff will get back to you in no time.

Since Godaddy offer customer support in multiple languages and allows their customers to pay in their local currencies, this gives Godaddy an edge over iPage.

The Winner: Godaddy or iPage?

Considering all the factors presented above we can say that both the web hosts provide a great value for money but considering the fact that iPage offer only one hosting plan that can not be a fit for all size of websites, Godaddy is a better option if you're planning to scale your website in future. ​

Moreover, better uptime, better pricing, and better performance makes Godaddy a clear winner over iPage.

If you want to pick one between the two, our recommendation would be Godaddy.

So this was the end of our Godaddy vs iPage comparison. If you've any queries or suggestions to improve this article, feel free to get in touch using our contact us page.