Best GoDaddy Alternatives for 2023: Top Solutions Reviewed

In this post we'll explore some of the best GoDaddy alternatives, which boast rivaling hosting capabilities and top-of-the-line website builders. We'll explore each in turn, more specifically, we'll cover each of their features, pros and cons, and pricing

There's lots to trawl through, so grab a cup of tea, and let's get into it!

Whether you're a pro web developer, considering launching your first site, or have no interest in the subject, there's a good chance you've seen GoDaddy’s advertising somewhere or the other.

But just because GoDaddy's one of the most famous domain name registrars, web hosting services, and website building platforms…it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best choice for your business needs. 

What Are the Best GoDaddy Alternatives?

There are several GoDaddy competitors worth a second glance, most notably:

• Shopify
• Squarespace
• Web.com
• Siteground
• Hostinger
• WP Engine
• Bluehost

Shopify – Best GoDaddy Alternative for Creating an Online Stores

For those in the market for a new ecommerce website, Shopify is undoubtedly at the top of many people’s lists. 

It isn't just a domain host. It's a wholly fortified website-building package. With fantastic ecommerce features, Shopify is a leading eCommerce platform in the US, currently catering to more than two million websites. 

But what makes Shopify one of the most popular ecommerce builders on the planet? And, more importantly, is it a good host for your site?

Well, to start with, Shopify plans include the following:

• Full hosting – You don't need to source web hosting from a third party. Instead, your website's fully hosted, with unlimited cloud storage and built-in site security. 
• Website builder – You can’t talk about Shopify without mentioning their 100+ official customizable themes and site templates. Of course, tons of third-party developers have also built Shopify themes- on ThemeForest, you can find over 1500 options! Once you’ve settled on a theme, you can use its website builder to drag and drop content blocks, and customize copy, colors, layout, etc., to build a unique site design. 
• Integrations – Shopify has thousands of apps you can download and use to extend the platform’s functionality.

Yep – you get a lot with Shopify. On top of everything above, you aren't charged extra transaction fees using their payment processor, Shopify Payments. Not only that, but its suite of features enables you to manage near-on all aspects of your online store- everything from inventory to shipping to blogging and content. In the case of shipping, you can offer customers different kinds of shipping rates – flat fees, free, or calculated rates depending on an item’s weight and/or shipping zone. You can also assign inventory to retail stores, warehouses, pop-ups, or wherever you store products.

But how does Shopify compare to GoDaddy? 

It's important to understand that you’ll have less control over your hosting with any self-hosted platform. Why? – because Shopify owns the servers your site is hosted on. This means they can effectively take down your store at their discretion (though this is very unlikely unless you breach their contract). 

In contrast, with GoDaddy, you can opt for a self-managed dedicated server that gives you complete control over your hosting for $129.99 a month. Alternatively, you can plump for a virtual private server at just $4.99 monthly. Alternatively, GoDaddy's shared hosting starts at just $5.99 a month, and you can start using their website builder free of charge for up to 30 days.

But don't be misled. With GoDaddy, as soon as you want to start selling online, the price quickly jumps to $20.99 a month. Moreover, the site builder gives you less control over layout and design customization. For example, although GoDaddy offers an impressive selection of themes (over 100), it doesn’t boast drag-and-drop functionality. Instead, you’re restricted to editing the template’s pre-determined sections from a sidebar – you can’t just drag and drop new elements onto the page. 

The same goes for eCommerce features in general. For example, GoDaddy doesn’t offer a dedicated store management page where you can set up several store policies and manage customer payments and taxes- whereas Shopify does. 

While GoDaddy does allow you to add these features separately, it's not as simple as Shopify. To explain, first, you need a subscription to their digital marketing suite. Then, you have to go into the editor and add specific policies as a section in your store. For example, for taxes, you go to store settings and add categories, regions, and rates separately. In contrast, with Shopify, you can find all these on your store management page. Here you can use their tax calculators, add policies and view customer payments from one localized space.

Similarly, Shopify has hundreds of payment gateways, whereas GoDaddy only has 40. Moreover, GoDaddy doesn’t offer a free integrated POS system like Shopify POS Lite. Instead, you have to add this on at $49 upwards. Not to mention, GoDaddy doesn’t have an app store, which makes it challenging to extend upon its limited eCommerce functionality. 

Pricing

As you would expect, Shopify’s pricing plans are geared towards eCommerce. However, on their Starter plan, you can create a simple store for just $5 a month. The program will set you up with a basic hosted storefront, a Shopify checkout page, and access to Shopify’s app store. The downside is that you don’t get access to theme editing with their website builder or blogging capabilities.

To create a fully-fledged eCommerce store complete with a blog, you'll need the Basic plan priced at $29 a month. Using the Shopify Lite POS system, you can also integrate your online shop with a brick-and-mortar store. You'll also have access to Shopify’s drag-and-drop website editor, marketing tools, and omnichannel selling capability – to name a few!

After that, there's the Shopify plan at $79 a month. This lets you register up to five staff members to help you manage your store. You also unlock professional reporting on orders, retail sales, and profit. 

Lastly, there’s an Advanced plan for $299, which features all of the above, plus – a custom report builder and up to 15 staff accounts.

Who is it Best For? 

Shopify is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives if you're looking for a one-stop shop for online retailers and business owners who want a reliable way to sell online and integrate with physical stores to boot. It's geared towards ecommerce and has many advanced features that GoDaddy doesn't offer. 

Squarespace – Best GoDaddy Alternative for Building a Website

Like Shopify, Squarespace is another heavy hitter in the website-building market. Similarly, all Squarespace plans are fully hosted and maintained on the platform's cloud. In addition, they promise unlimited bandwidth right out of the box and will set you up with a free custom domain for the first year. 

Of course, you get all this with GoDaddy’s Economy plan, too, so what's different about Squarespace? 

Unfortunately, with Squarespace, you get less storage space. For instance, Squarespace’s lowest tier plan gives you 20GB for $23 a month. In contrast, GoDaddy provides 25GB for a fraction of the price – at just $5.99 a month. 

However, when it comes to building your site, Squarespace takes the medal. It has over 100 customizable site templates, all of which have been meticulously crafted by web design professionals.  

These templates are divided into Squarespace’s two most recent versions: 7.0 and 7.1. 7.1 templates add extra flexibility. For instance, when laying out your content, you can switch between overlapping content, a grid style, and background layers with just one click. You can also add animations and move content sections (like images, banners, etc.) fluidly around any page on your site. 

In comparison, GoDaddy's site builder is quite basic. You can choose a template and add content within the theme's exact structure. You don't have the same fluidity to arrange content. 

In terms of eCommerce, Squarespace again takes the cake. It comes with all the standard inventory, order, and product management features. But you can also handle shipping, tax settings, and customer payments from one place, which is something GoDaddy doesn’t do. 

Squarespace is also heavily content-centric. You can set up a professional blog, use built-in SEO (I.e., sitemaps, redirects, and HTML indexing, etc.), and create email campaigns. Email functionality is built-in, and some features are free, including building email mailing lists, creating draft campaigns, and sending up to three trial blast campaigns. You’ll have to pay extra if you want more email features. 

GoDaddy also allows you to create a blog and comes with a built-in SEO tool – but this is nowhere near as advanced as Shopify’s. Instead, GoDaddy just helps you find keywords to optimize your site, allows you to edit your website’s meta description title, and encourages you to insert keywords into your website’s content. GoDaddy also enables you to create email marketing campaigns with each plan. Still, depending on your chosen pricing tier, there’s a monthly limit to how many you can send. 

It’s also worth noting that Squarespace integrates with all the major social media platforms and offers 31 official extensions. For eCommerce, you can add tools like Printful, Shipstation, and TradeGecko to help manage fulfillment. This is only possible with GoDaddy if you have a developer to install them via API.

Lastly, Squarespace’s analytics are pretty comprehensive. They provide in-depth insights on traffic, engagement, sales, and more. You can view metrics from the convenience of your Squarespace dashboard via desktop or mobile. With GoDaddy, you can add Google Analytics to your site to give you a precise idea of who visits your site, where visitors come from, and how they navigate around it. 

Pricing

All Squarespace plans come with 24/7 customer service. 

You can choose monthly or annual billing (for a 30% discount) and switch plans whenever you want. Below we’ve based costs on monthly billing. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial with no credit card required. After that, there are four paid plans – the first two impose a 3% transaction fee on all sales.

The first is the personal plan for $23 monthly, which gives you a free custom domain (for a year), unlimited bandwidth, and access to Squarespace integrations and templates. In addition, you can register up to two team members and access basic analytics that monitor site traffic and engagement. 

A step up is the Business plan for $33 a month, which comes with everything above, plus:

• eCommerce features.
• Unlimited team member accounts.
• A personalized Google email (for one year).
• Advanced analytics (sales, conversions, and bookings). 

Next is the Commerce Basic plan at $36 a month. There are no transaction fees on the Commerce plans. It gives you everything above, with POS support and bulk editing tools for inventory, product reviews, and customer accounts. 

Lastly, the Commerce Advanced plan at $65 per month also adds advanced shipping and ecommerce functionality. This includes real-time shipping estimates, abandoned cart recovery, and you can sell subscriptions.

Who is it Best For? 

Squarespace is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives if you want access to stunning templates and lots of design freedom to create a clean and professional business website. In addition, you get a lot of out-of-the-box features like blogging, SEO, and content editing. But for eCommerce stores, you'll need one of the higher ticket plans.

Web.com – Cheapest GoDaddy Alternative

Like GoDaddy, Web.com provides domain registration, hosting, and site-building services/features. 

When it comes to web hosting, you can choose from web, windows, and WordPress hosting options for dedicated virtual servers – I.e., those wholly run and managed by you. 

It's a great choice if you’re a developer or someone with the coding skills to build your site from scratch. However, Web.com also provides options for those with little coding knowledge. Its website builder plans allow you to choose how many pages you need for your site. You’ll then receive a customized price based on your website’s dimensions. 

You can then use the drag-and-drop editor to customize your chosen template (there are over 100 to choose from). Web.com also comes with eCommerce tools like shipping and order management and accepts payments from the likes of PayPal, Stripe, and Payline. 

Concerning pre-made content sections and audio, GoDaddy has better site customization. In contrast, with Web.com, audio must be uploaded via another platform and linked to the page. You can’t do it directly. 

That said, Web.com’s eCommerce tools are comparable with GoDaddy. For example, you can track stock levels and upload products. Also, as with GoDaddy, Web.com permits you to view outstanding orders and decide on your shipping policies. But the process is, again, less straightforward than Shopify's. 

One of the great things about GoDaddy, which Web.com shares, is that you can list your site on all online directories for maximum exposure. For instance, GoDaddy lets you edit your site description as it appears on directories like Yelp and Google business listings. But Web.com takes this further, automatically submitting your site to multiple directories with one click. 

In this regard, Web.com is excellent for SEO. On top of the above, it also scans your site for keywords, broken links, and page titles, enabling you to rectify issues that might hamper your organic reach. Web.com also provides real-time data on competitors' rankings and suggests ways to help you improve with an easy-to-follow SEO wizard.

Finally, where analytics are concerned, Web.com furnishes you with metrics on your site’s performance, visitor behavior, and engagement. 

Pricing

Pricing for Web.com fluctuates according to your needs. For instance, you can purchase a domain, hosting, or an entire site-building package. 

For the site builder package, there are two options. With both, you can create anything from a one-page website to an unlimited number of pages. All plans are billed annually, but you can opt for up to a five-year subscription at a variable discount. Here we'll quote the cost of a one-year subscription for a 25-page site.

First, there’s the Standard Website plan for $6.95 a month. This includes the drag-and-drop builder, mobile-friendly templates, the ability to set up professional business email accounts (up to 25 per account and up to 5 inboxes), a built-in blog, and social media sharing tools. 

Then, there’s the eCommerce Website plan for $18.25 a month. This comes with everything above, plus eCommerce tools like promo code creation, shipping automation, and order management.

Also, for an additional cost (starting at $5 a month), you can add an email marketing suite into the mix that enables you to create, manage and track your campaigns. 

Who is it Best For? 

Web.com is a good choice if you know exactly how many web pages you want to create. That said, customization freedom is somewhat limited. But suppose you don’t have a distinct vision and want to benefit from an easy-to-use interface and website editor. In that case, this shouldn’t be a problem. 

SiteGround – Best GoDaddy Alternative for Hosting

So, unlike the options we've covered thus far, SiteGround is just a website hosting service, pure and simple. It doesn't come with a website builder.

You can host a secure WordPress site at an affordable cost. For this reason, if you're planning on creating a WordPress website or WooCommerce store, SiteGround is a great web hosting option. You get unlimited bandwidth, a 99.9% uptime guaranteed, and you can choose between shared or dedicated hosting. GoDaddy also offers 99.9% uptime with a choice of shared and dedicated hosting, though some users note that security is lax in their low-tier plans.

In comparison, all SiteGround plans have a high level of built-in security, from daily backups to a free SSL certificate. In addition, it's easy to install or migrate an existing site to Siteground as they have an install wizard.

Best of all, you can host multiple sites under one account, which is handy if you’re an agency or freelancer working on numerous websites. 

SiteGround can handle larger sites. Its cloud hosting options provide resources and storage from multiple servers across the cloud to ensure your site has what it needs to scale up. 

Where web hosting is concerned, all this is comparable with GoDaddy, except for one caveat. If we compare both providers’ basic plans – SiteGround doesn't offer a free domain on any of its plans. Whereas GoDaddy offers a one-year domain as standard on its Economy plan (for $5.99 a month). With Siteground, you only get 10GB of storage space on its Startup plan ($2.99 monthly). In contrast, you receive 25GB with GoDaddy Economy. 

But on the other hand, SiteGround is, of course, cheaper, with plans starting at just $2.99 a month. You get everything above plus a business email for a year, a free SSL, and daily backups. Another cool thing Siteground does is renewable energy matching, I.e., they balance how much carbon their servers output.  

Lastly, let's talk about white labeling. SiteGround has tools that enable you to create branded client portals that permit access to the websites you’re making. You can add your logo and brand colors. This is especially useful if you're a developer looking to sell websites. To do this on GoDaddy, you need one of their specialized reseller plans that start from $107 a year. But as you'll see with Siteground, it's way cheaper. 

Pricing

There are three main shared hosting plans. At the time of writing, Siteground has a 75% discount if you opt for annual billing. All plans come with 24/7 customer service, free SSL certification, and daily backups. Siteground also offers dedicated hosting plans with prices starting at $269/mo for 24/7 VIP support, 

The first is the Startup plan for $2.99 a month. It includes hosting for one website and 10GB of storage space. You'll also get a free professional email address that enables you to create unlimited email accounts for your domain. If you need clarification on what these addresses look like, they'll adhere to the following format: [email protected]. You'll have access to these for the duration of your SiteGround subscription. 

Next is the GrowBig plan for $4.99 a month, which gives you unlimited websites, 20GB of storage space, and staging capability (an area where you can run website tests before going live). 

Lastly, there’s the GoGeek plan for $7.99 a month. It gives you everything above, plus – 40GB storage space, a private DNS domain, and client white-labeling. 

Who is it Best For? 

SiteGround is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives for WordPress and WooCommerce users needing a reliable website host. It provides top-notch security, easy WordPress installation, and good customer service.

Hostinger

Hostinger is a well-known domain registry and website hosting provider. However, unlike other hosts, they go the extra mile, offering niche hosting for Minecraft, CMSs, cloud-based web hosting, and much more. 

Of course, they also offer standard shared and dedicated hosting plans, so you can scale your site to suit your needs. In addition, they boast a 99.9% uptime guarantee and have partnered with Zyro to provide a simple website builder.

There are 100+ customizable templates to choose from that you can edit using a drag-and-drop interface for easy and quick site-building. Like GoDaddy, you can pull essential elements like buttons and text and drag them onto sections within the template. 

Hostinger also provides an AI assistant that can generate copy, edit images, and help organize content, which is something GoDaddy doesn’t offer. In addition, when you make a Zyro website through Hostinger, you'll also benefit from a free domain name for one year. 

Where eCommerce functionality is concerned, you can sell products, manage inventory, and accept payments from 20 different gateways. But if Zyro isn't your preferred choice, Hostinger also supports WooCommerce, Prestashop, and WordPress. 

All sites are secured via Cloudflare firewall, SSL security, and weekly backups. But, even on the cheapest plan, you get a whopping 50GB of storage space.

Lastly, Hostinger has something GoDaddy is yet to offer: free website hosting. GoDaddy allows you to build a website for free, with limited free hosting options on one of its subdomains, e.g., yoursite.godaddysites.com. In contrast, Hostinger offers an entirely free plan for one website. In addition, it includes guaranteed 99.9% uptime, Cloudflare protection, and 300MB of storage space, which is perfect if you want to take Hostinger for a trial run.

Pricing

Hostinger has three paid-for website hosting plans. All plans are optimized for WordPress and come with free site migration tools, 24/7 customer support, and access to Zyro’s website builder.

Single-site hosting starts at just $1.99 monthly (on their current promotion). You'll get 50GB of storage and 10GB bandwidth, one hosted professional email account (linked to your domain name), and weekly site backups. 

A step up is the Premium Shared hosting plan for $2.49 a month. This enables you to host up to 100 websites with 100GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and 100 subdomains.

Finally, we have the Business shared plan at $3.99 a month. It includes everything above and 200GB of storage, website staging tools, and GIT access (version control system). 

Currently, if you subscribe for four years to any of these plans, Hostinger will throw in a free domain. This is a Black Friday deal. The Hostinger home page has a countdown calendar telling you how long the offer is live.  

If you want dedicated hosting, Hostinger offers VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting. There are six VPS plans, starting at $3.49 monthly, with weekly backups, dedicated IP addresses, and more. 

Who is it Best For? 

Hostinger is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives if you need simple and affordable hosting and website-building capabilities. The builder is easy-to-use and AI-fuelled, making it great for beginners and first-time store builders where intuitiveness is the priority. 

WP Engine

WP Engine is another website hosting provider suitable for WordPress and WooCommerce-powered sites. Compared to GoDaddy, their offerings are pretty basic. They don’t provide web domains or website-building tools. Instead, their focus is just on hosting. 

WP Engine is best suited for big or enterprise-level businesses that need reliable and scalable hosting services. They offer plans specifically for enterprises and agencies and a choice of shared and dedicated hosting.

Since they’re a WordPress-centric host, they offer one-click migration, automatic WordPress updates, daily backups, and a high level of security and monitoring. This includes threat detection, blocking, and free SSL certification. 

WP Engine sites also boast a guaranteed uptime between 99.95% and 99.9%, depending on your plan, and claim that users benefit from a 40% increase in page speed right off the bat. Interestingly, if you're a WooCommerce user, they'll boost checkouts with Evercache. Evercache delivers checkout page load times at 2X the speed of WooCommerce’s default load time. They also use Elasticpress to fuel your website’s search box, which means results are shown instantly.

Lastly, WP Engine has extensive self-help documentation on using their services and guides on choosing the right plan for your site.

Pricing

WP Engine has three WordPress shared hosting plans. They also have dedicated hosting, but you need to contact them directly for a quote. 

You can choose monthly or annual billing for the standard WordPress shared plan. The latter rewards you with four months off your bill. In addition, you can select add-ons for each program, such as extra security, monitoring, and updates. Prices for these vary, depending on which plan you subscribe to. For example, the lowest-priced plan for managed WordPress hosting will charge you an added $15 for extra security. In contrast, the higher plan for eCommerce solutions for Woo will charge you $38 for extra security. Similarly, you can add additional sites to your plan for $20 each.

For monthly billing, prices start at $20 a month. You can host one WordPress site, access 10GB storage space, 50GB bandwidth, one-click WordPress installation, automated WordPress updates, and staging.

At $60 a month, the eCommerce plan for WooCommerce sites is a step up. This includes all the features mentioned above. You can also use the plan on up to three websites and access 15GB storage and 225GB bandwidth.

Lastly, the Advanced plan for enterprises is priced at $600 a month. This provides dedicated technical support and advanced security such as SOC2 and DDOS threat mitigation. 

Who is it Best For? 

WP Engine is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives for sites experiencing high traffic volumes needing high-performance hosting dedicated to eCommerce. It suits large to enterprise-sized businesses who want to power up their WordPress store and stop malicious activities from damaging their site.

Bluehost

So last up, let's talk about Bluehost. This is WordPress’s number one recommended host provider – let's find out why. 

Firstly, Bluehost provides domain registration, hosting, and free SSL certification. They've got dedicated and shared solutions, with hosting plans explicitly designed for WordPress and WooCommerce online stores. While they don't offer their own website builder like GoDaddy, they make it easy to get up and running on WordPress. They provide store creation guides and automatic WordPress installation. 

You also benefit from a free domain name (for one year), automatic WordPress updates, and help to verify your Google business listing. 

When you choose an eCommerce plan with Bluehost, you get free built-in features and plugins from the YITH store, such as wishlists, bookings and appointments, and gift cards. The YITH store is an independent seller of WooCommerce plugins and adds features, as listed above, that doesn't automatically come with your WooCommerce subscription. These plans also include daily backups and allow you to accept customer payments on your WooCommerce store. Not to mention – you get free Wonder theme templates (provided by the YITH store) and Yoast SEO.

Bluehost also makes managing multiple websites easy. You get a localized dashboard to view all your domains, make updates, purchases, etc. You can manage all your sites and clients from one space, create invoices, and launch staging. 

If you're part of a developer team, Bluehost has a Google Workspace plan starting at $3 a month to help you manage your crew. This enables you to create a professional email to match your domain and use the entire Google suite (I.e., the drive, calendar, and office) to collaborate.

Pricing

Bluehost has an extensive range of plans. To simplify, we'll cover shared hosting here, but you can find plans for eCommerce and dedicated hosting on their platform. 

Bluehost plans are billed annually or every 36 months at variable discounts. All plans come with 24/7 customer support. 

Bluehost's shared hosting plans are as follows (based on annual billing):

• Basic – for $2.95 a month. This is hosting for one website, 10 GB of storage space, and a domain name and SSL certificate for one year (in both cases).
• Plus – for $5.45 a month. This unlocks hosting for unlimited websites and 20GB of storage space (including everything in the Basic plan).
• Choice Plus – at $4.95 a month. This provides 40GB of storage space and automated backups for up to one year. 
• Pro – at $13.95 a month. You get everything above, plus: 100GB of storage space and optimized resources where, if you get more traffic on one site, they'll redirect resources from others to give you a boost. 

Who is it Best For? 

Bluehost is one of the best GoDaddy alternatives for WordPress and WooCommerce users who need affordable and secure hosting. Its wide range of plans is flexible enough to meet the needs of small businesses, enterprise-sized organizations, and teams.

The Best GoDaddy Alternatives: Our Final Thoughts

While GoDaddy is an excellent way for people to get started online, as you can see, there's a vast range of competing alternatives on the market. With that said, let's add a few final thoughts about the best GoDaddy alternatives: 

Suppose you’re looking for a great eCommerce store experience. In that case, it has to be said that Shopify is one of the market's most comprehensive and attractive options. The flexibility of its store customization and shipping functionality really make it stand out amongst the rest.

But, if you want to just create a blog or launch a simple WordPress website, then a more basic hosting platform like Hostinger has a better price point and enough tools to give you what you need. Conversely, WP Engine might be the perfect solution if you're a big business and need top-of-the-market hosting and site speed.

That said, ultimately, the choice is yours. Hopefully, this guide has given you a better insight into the best GoDaddy alternatives for your website! Let us know which you go for in the comments box below. Or are you considering a provider we haven't mentioned, like Namecheap, DreamHost, or Hostgator? Either way, speak soon!