GoDaddy vs Bluehost: Which Provider Should You Choose in 2024?

GoDaddy and Bluehost are among the most popular hosting providers for WordPress sites. Both companies offer beginner-friendly plans at reasonable prices. Therefore, you might find it difficult to decide which host to opt for.

To help you out, we’ve put together a guide to GoDaddy vs Bluehost. By taking a closer look at the differences in features and prices, you should be able to determine whether either of these providers is a good fit for your website – or if you need to consider an alternative.

In this post, we’ll review GoDaddy and Bluehost, paying particular attention to their hosting features and prices. Then we’ll look at what other hosting options you might want to consider. Let’s dive right in!

An Overview of GoDaddy and Bluehost Web Hosting

GoDaddy is a company that offers a suite of web services, which include hosting, domain registration, and a website builder:

Its WordPress-specific plans come with the software pre-installed, as well as a free domain name. 

It’s also worth noting that GoDaddy is one of the few web hosting services that provide a Microsoft 365 email mailbox with their plans, which is free for the first year. This is useful for small businesses that want custom email domains.

As for Bluehost, this is one of three web hosts that are officially recommended by WordPress: 

Bluehost is known for being one of the most affordable hosting solutions for beginners. It automatically installs WordPress for you, and gives you access to a library of high-quality templates to kickstart your site design.

Like GoDaddy, this provider also offers a free domain (although only for the first year). Professional email addresses are available at an extra cost, after a 3-month free trial.

GoDaddy vs Bluehost: Comparing Their Features and Pricing

Now, let’s delve a little deeper into Bluehost vs GoDaddy. In the following sections, we’ll compare these two web hosting providers in terms of features and pricing. 

Key Features

GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting plans are all managed. This means the provider will handle essential maintenance tasks for you, including automated weekly backups and daily malware scans:

With each GoDaddy hosting plan, you’ll also get:

• A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate
• A web application firewall
• Unmetered bandwidth
• A Content Delivery Network (CDN) to help improve loading times
• An AI creation tool that will design a basic website based on your preferences

If you already have a WordPress site, GoDaddy can help you move it to your new hosting account with its one-click migration tool. Plus, the company offers 24/7 support so you can seek assistance at any time. 

Now, let’s look at Bluehost’s managed WordPress plans:

These contain many of the same features that GoDaddy’s web hosting service offers, including an SSL certificate, a CDN, and 24/7 support. However, malware scanning and automated backups are only available with the Choice Plus plan or higher. 

All Bluehost WordPress plans also include:

• Easy-to-follow tutorial videos for creating a WordPress website
• A library of designs and templates, and a free multipurpose theme

As you might have noticed, GoDaddy’s plans prioritize performance and security, with features such as firewalls and backups included in all plans. 

Meanwhile, Bluehost focuses on helping users design their first WordPress websites. It offers a lot of customization tools and tutorials to simplify the process.

Pricing

Budget is key when you’re deciding what web host to opt for. With that in mind, let’s see how Bluehost vs GoDaddy fare in terms of pricing. 

GoDaddy offers three managed WordPress plans: Basic, Deluxe, and Ultimate. One of the first things you’ll notice is that, whichever plan you opt for, you’ll only be able to create one website:

Plans start at $12.99 per month for 10 GB of storage space, and go up to $17.99 per month for 30 GB of storage. 

These prices may seem a little high. However, it’s worth noting that GoDaddy’s plans include five Microsoft email mailboxes with 10 GB of dedicated storage for email, contacts, and a shared online calendar (free for the first year).

Additionally, you get weekly backups on the basic plan, and daily backups on the higher plans. You also receive daily malware scans on all plans. 

In comparison, Bluehost’s Basic plan starts at just $2.75 per month for one website and 10 GB of storage:

This is a lot cheaper than GoDaddy’s equivalent, but it doesn’t include backups and malware scanning. Plus, if you want a professional email domain, that’s an additional $2.49 per month. 

Unlike GoDaddy, Bluehost has plans that enable you to create more than one website on the same account. These start at $5.45 per month with 40 GB of storage space, and include daily backups and domain privacy (both free for the first year), as well as malware scans.

Therefore, Bluehost is the more affordable option, particularly for new site owners creating blogs and personal projects. However, if you have a small business like an online store, GoDaddy might be the preferred option. For a few extra dollars per month, you get five custom mailboxes and essential security features such as malware scans.

NameHero WordPress Hosting: An Alternative to Bluehost vs GoDaddy

As we have seen, both GoDaddy and Bluehost have some limitations and disadvantages. For example, GoDaddy’s plans are a little pricey, and only let you create one website. While Bluehost’s basic plan is a lot cheaper, it lacks essential managed hosting features like backups.

Therefore, you might want to consider an alternative web host with more robust offerings. At NameHero, for instance, we offer a variety of WordPress hosting plans and instant domain registration:

You can browse through available domains using an advanced search function, and choose the option that best fits your preferences and budget. You can then use this domain alongside your NameHero hosting plan.

NameHero Features

So how does NameHero compare to Bluehost vs GoDaddy? To answer that question, let’s look at the features you’ll get with any NameHero WordPress hosting plan. 

First, you’ll enjoy unlimited storage on all plans. This is handy if you have a media-rich blog or an online shop with a large selection of products. You won’t have to worry about running out of space when uploading images and videos to your site.

Every plan also comes with:

• Automatic WordPress installation
• Auto WordPress updates
• Daily backups
• A free SSL certificate that is automatically installed
• A free custom email account
• LiteSpeed caching for increased performance

If you have an account with a different web hosting provider, you don’t need to worry! We offer free website migrations, so you can easily transfer over all of your site’s files and data.

NameHero Pricing

Best of all, you’ll find that NameHero web hosting is very easy on your budget. The Starter WordPress plan begins at just $4.48 per month, and is ideal for personal websites and WordPress beginners.

If you want to create more than one website, you might consider the Plus WordPress plan. This starts at $7.12 per month, and lets you host up to seven websites on the same account:

As you might notice, these prices are slightly higher than Bluehost’s. However, in exchange you get a lot more features, including unlimited storage. On the other hand, GoDaddy’s plans are more expensive, and place strict limits on the number of websites and amount of storage space.

With higher-tier NameHero plans, you also get a free suite of security tools, including a firewall and automated real-time virus scanning. These plans offer unlimited websites, and start at $10.97 per month:

When you opt for the Turbo or Business plan, your site will be hosted on Turbo servers, which are more powerful than traditional Apache web servers. This means your site visitors will enjoy faster loading times. 

Conclusion

Both GoDaddy and Bluehost are leading hosting providers in the WordPress industry. Bluehost is known for its affordable services and beginner-friendly features. Meanwhile, GoDaddy’s plans focus on essential features for e-commerce sites, such as professional emails and backups.

However, GoDaddy is somewhat pricey and restrictive, and Bluehost’s plans can be limited. With NameHero, you’ll get advanced features like LiteSpeed caching and unlimited storage space for very affordable prices. All NameHero WordPress plans also come with daily backups and auto-updates to help keep your website safe.

Do you have any questions about GoDaddy, Bluehost, or NameHero? Let us know in the comments section below!