GoDaddy is the most popular domain registrar globally and has evolved into an all-in-one website solution.

CloudFlare is one of the best content delivery networks (CDN) in the world and now also registers domains.

Whether you are building your website from scratch or need to give your website stats a boost, here’s all you need to know about both networks.

Overall Comparison CloudFlare vs GoDaddy

Winner: GoDaddy

CloudFlare doesn’t provide native hosting but advanced security features an unbeatable server footprint. GoDaddy is the perfect all-rounder for your website. Let’s see what makes each provider stand out.

About CloudFlare and GoDaddy

CloudFlare is a content delivery network (CDN) founded in 2010. The company initially started as an application to find the source of email spam and evolved from there into one of the biggest CDNs in the world. The company provides website caching and security services, VPN, streaming media, identity management among other services and crossed 100 million daily active users in June 2022. The company’s mission is – to help build a better internet.

GoDaddy is an all-in-one website solution – domain registrar, web host, and website builder – founded in 1997. GoDaddy became the world’s largest domain registrar plus largest web host by market share and currently provides services to over 21 million users and hosts over 84 million domains worldwide.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key CloudFlare Features

CloudFlare provides a free SSL on all its plans, and unmetered data storage and bandwidth across its worldwide network. You enjoy state-of-the-art SSD storage and safe data caching.

To start enjoying CloudFlare’s services, you would need to already have a working website running on a CloudFlare-supported host. Setting up CloudFlare is easy under your CDN settings after that.

Key GoDaddy Features

GoDaddy offers unmetered bandwidth on every one of its plans and you can get as much as 2TB SSD storage and 16 TB HDD storage on its dedicated hosting tiers.

You get free daily backups and restore on all plans, 1-click WordPress integration, and if you’re just launching your website, a free SSL for the ‘HTTPS’ bragging rights.

If you don’t have a website at all, GoDaddy has got you covered with the GoDaddy Website Builder that allows you to build a website, use its in-built marketing tools, and manage everything from a single dashboard.

And the winner is… GoDaddy

As we majorly focus on reviewing hosting platforms, I’ll favor GoDaddy for this round. It truly has everything you’ll need to set up your website from scratch. CloudFlare is your next upgrade to expand your website’s online presence and performance.

Round 2:  Prices & Plans

CloudFlare Pricing Plans

CloudFlare doesn’t offer any hosting plans but rather specialized web and application services including a Free plan, Pro plan, Business plan, and customized Enterprise plan. Each plan is best for:

• Free plan – Personal and hobby projects
• Pro plan – More professional websites that are not businesses
• Business plan – For small to mid-sized online businesses
• Enterprise plan – For larger businesses and large-scale web apps

GoDaddy Pricing Plans

GoDaddy has four shared hosting plans, four VPS powered shared hosting plus plan, eight self-managed VPS plans, eight dedicated hosting plans, and four WordPress hosting plans including WooCommerce hosting.

• Shared hosting – Best for small websites and hobby projects
• Web hosting plus – Shared hosting with more power; best for personal service websites, portfolio websites, etc.
• VPS hosting – Self-managed plans for developers, designers, and system admins
• Dedicated hosting – Best for large corporations with IT teams, huge traffic, or sensitive data
• WordPress hosting – Best for WordPress websites
• WooCommerce hosting – Best for WordPress commerce stores
• Reseller hosting – Packages for businesses looking to start their own hosting and domain services

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

In terms of hosting plans and pricing, GoDaddy is the obvious winner here. GoDaddy provides the most popular hosting categories and specialized packages for Ecommerce stores.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Your website’s data and files will reside on your host’s servers so the more consistently they stay online, the more reliably your website will stay up. Also, the faster your host’s servers are, the faster your web pages will load to users.

CloudFlare Uptime & Speed

To test CloudFlare’s performance, I ran the provider’s domain through GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights. These were the results:

CloudFlare had a Time to First Byte (TTFB) of 67 ms and an overall performance of 72% on GTMetrix:

On PageSpeed Insights, CloudFlare had a TTFB of 0.8s and an overall performance of 80%:

GoDaddy Uptime & Speed

I ran the same test for GoDaddy and these were the results:

On GTMetrix, a TTFB of 125 ms and an overall performance of 97%:

While on PageSpeed Insights, a TTFB of 1.7s and overall performance of 81%:

Do note that these values are relative and depend on the location the test is being made from and where your users are searching from. The closer your host’s servers are to your users, the faster your pages will load.

And the Winner Is… CloudFlare

This was an obvious win for CloudFlare. The content delivery network has far more servers than GoDaddy and is in fact, supported by GoDaddy.

Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?

CloudFlare Customer Support

CloudFlare provides 24/7 support but mainly to their customers. They claim to offer live chat but I couldn’t find the option. And when I tried to get more support, I was directed to login as a customer:

They do offer a detailed knowledgebase though, where you can browse answers to question grouped into different categories:

And a help center with all the basic answers you’ll need:

At the top of every page, is an international number you can call for more support.

GoDaddy customer Support

GoDaddy also provides 24/7 support with a heavy focus on phone support which I personally like. You get numbers you can call for every region and many countries around the world:

And of course, they provide more support through their help center and vast knowledgebase:

They also have a rather impressive gallery of video guides for visual learners like me:

They don’t offer live chat and email support though. GoDaddy, however, has a thriving community and forum where you can find answers to most questions you’ll need from other people using the platform:

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy outshines CloudFlare in the amount of support it provides to everyone – prospective and existing users. CloudFlare only provides extra support to its existing customers.

Round 5: Ease of use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?

CloudFlare Ease of use

Getting onboard CloudFlare from their main website is as easy as it gets. Straightaway, you get to see all their features, products, company info, etc. from the homepage:

The CloudFlare dashboard is pretty easy to use. Login and see your domains being powered by CloudFlare, apps, analytics, threat control, and advanced settings:

GoDaddy Ease of use

GoDaddy provides an incredibly intuitive user interface and if you’re new on the platform, you can see everything you’ll be getting right from the homepage and plan details:

And once you are a customer, the GoDaddy account management dashboard will allow you control every hosting shenanigan in a familiar colored UI:

Navigating to the industry-standard cPanel is just one click away if you’d like to make more back-end tweaks:

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy is the more specialized hosting provider between the two services so it makes sense that it is easier to use thanks to a user-friendly UI, pretty dashboard, and modern cPanel.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

CloudFlare Security

CloudFlare provides advanced security features to its customers running from a free SSL out-of-the-box to help boost rankings to a WAF that protects websites from hacks. On every plan, you get unmetered DDoS protection, malware scans, and automatic backups.

CloudFlare isn’t integrated with SiteLock security. However, you get high-level security defenses with the paid CDN packages.

GoDaddy Security

GoDaddy provides the security essentials out-of-the-box like a free SSL and DDoS protection. You get daily backups and restore, malware scans, and can also integrate your GoDaddy-hosted domain with CloudFlare.

Unlike other hosts, GoDaddy isn’t on good terms with SiteLock Security as there’s been an ongoing lawsuit. However, the company provides its own WAF, CDN, and other niche security packages:

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy offers more security features out-of-the-box and you can integrate CloudFlare into your website while hosted on GoDaddy, so it’s a no-brainer.

Round 7: Server locations

How many servers your host has and how widespread they are directly affects your website’s performance. More data centers around the world mean your website loads faster and more reliably to a worldwide audience.

CloudFlare Server locations

CloudFlare has servers located in over 100 countries across North America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Mainland China, Latin America & the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Oceania:

GoDaddy Server locations

GoDaddy has servers located across North America, Asia, and Europe in Phoenix, Arizona (USA), Scottsdale (USA), Mesa (USA), Los Angeles(USA), Chicago (USA), Ashburn (USA), Virginia (USA), Amsterdam (Europe), AND Singapore (Asia).

The awesome thing about GoDaddy is they allow you to choose where you want your data to be stored for the best performance for your target audience:

And the Winner Is… CloudFlare

CloudFlare is the clear winner here because the company’s main service is acting as a content delivery network to its worldwide centers. You can install CloudFlare into your GoDaddy hosting packages, however.

CloudFlare vs GoDaddy: final recommendations

When to Choose CloudFlare

CloudFlare is one of the best content delivery networks (CDN) in the world and helps websites expand their footprint. Go for CloudFlare if:

• You already have a website and host
• You are targeting a worldwide audience
• You want to expand your online presence for free
• You have a host that is already CloudFlare-compatible
• You want extra protection against DDoS attacks

Go for GoDaddy if you:

GoDaddy is one of the best hosting platforms in the world for good reason. Go for GoDaddy is:

• You need all the tools to build your website from scratch
• You need a host for your domain
• You want a CloudFlare-compatible host
• You need Reseller hosting packages

The Bottom Line

CloudFlare and GoDaddy are winners in their own rights and categories.

CloudFlare helps websites load more reliably worldwide and provides extra security.

GoDaddy provides all you’ll need to build a website from scratch or boost your website (a domain, SSL, hosting service, website builder – amongst other great features).

• We recommend CloudFlare as the content delivery network you should choose if you already have a website

• If you want a new host – we recommend GoDaddy

FAQs

1. Is GoDaddy better than CloudFlare?

GoDaddy is not a CloudFlare competitor as they both provide different services. CloudFlare and GoDaddy are two of the best CDN and hosting providers respectively.

2. Is CloudFlare a hosting provider?

No. CloudFlare is not a hosting provider. CloudFlare is a content delivery network that’s compatible with most top hosting providers.

3. What are some CloudFlare alternatives?

Some good CloudFlare alternatives are StackPath, Google Cloud CDN, Amazon CloudFront, KeyCDN, and CacheFly.

4. What are some GoDaddy alternatives?

Some great GoDaddy alternatives are HostGator, Hostinger, Namecheap, Bluehost, DreamHost and SiteGround.