GoDaddy and Liquid Web are two solid contenders if you’re looking for a hosting provider for your new website or to migrate to.

GoDaddy is one of the oldest hosts around and has evolved from a big-name domain registrar into a full-blown host with some of the best services today.

Liquid Web, on the other hand, even though a smaller host, focuses almost entirely on providing tailored scalable resources for businesses and enterprises.

In this data-backed review, I compared each hosting provider, and GoDaddy came out on top by a close margin. But still, depending on your kind of business, Liquid Web may still be the better host for you. So, read on and decide for yourself!

Overall Comparison GoDaddy vs Liquid Web

Winner: GoDaddy

Overall, GoDaddy provides more versatile hosting packages, affordable plans, and more out-of-the-box features than Liquid Web. Read on to see what makes each host stand out.

About GoDaddy and Liquid Web

	GoDaddy, officially the largest domain registrar in the world, was founded in 1997. Over time, the company started to add new offerings to its services and now provides a full suite of web solutions for webmasters at every level. Today, GoDaddy offers shared, VPS, dedicated, and WordPress hosting to its over 20 million customers and also serves over 80 million domains.
	Liquid Web was also founded in 1997 like GoDaddy with the mission of providing niche services to web and cloud professionals. The company currently provides cloud, dedicated, VPS, WordPress as well as other more technical hosting packages to over 45,000 customers and 500,000 domains worldwide.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key GoDaddy Features

GoDaddy’s core plans – shared, shared plus, VPS, dedicated and WordPress all feature unmetered bandwidth to accommodate your data request demand. You enjoy a hybrid of HDD and SSD storage you can pick from – up to 16 TB HDD and 2 TB SSD on its dedicated plans.

To keep your website secure, you get free daily backups and restore of your data, plus a free SSL certificate out-of-the-box for a security seal. Installing popular apps like WordPress is also just one click away. GoDaddy also gives you a free website drag-n-drop builder to help you create your website’s front end from scratch conveniently.

Key Liquid Web Features

Liquid Web provides managed WordPress, VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans, with its VPS plans optimized for Linux and Windows. On its basic managed WordPress plans, you get up to 800 GB of storage and 10 TB bandwidth.

Liquid Web boasts high-performance SSD storage, free daily backups and restore, and seamless WordPress integration. You also get a free SSL on every site you order on the platform, free migration, plus the Beaver Site builder to build your website from the ground up.

And the winner is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy offers more hosting plans, more bandwidth, and storage than Liquid Web… even though the latter shines with its free site migration.

Round 2:  Prices & Plans

GoDaddy Pricing Plans

GoDaddy has a very varied suite of hosting plans and each package is best suited for:

• Shared hosting – Shared server resources best suited to small websites or new websites that have few pages
• VPS hosting – Expanded shared hosting plans where pseudo-dedicated environments are created on the same server
• WordPress hosting – Plans that are specifically designed to make businesses with WordPress websites get the most value
• Dedicated hosting – Fully dedicated server resources for large websites or high-sensitivity businesses
• Reseller hosting – Plans optimized for new hosting businesses and affiliates

Liquid Web Pricing Plans

Liquid Web, on the other hand, does not offer shared or cloud hosting. The plans being offered and who they are best suited to include:

• Managed WordPress plans – Liquid Web’s basic and most affordable plans are centered around WordPress websites
• VPS hosting – Virtual private servers on the same physical server for affordable, yet scalable resources
• Cloud hosting – Expanded pay-as-you-go resources
• Dedicated servers – Full control over your server and protection from mass attacks

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy wins this round because the host provides more hosting plans that are also more affordable than Liquid Web’s.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Your host’s servers are your servers and how they perform is how your website performs… and how well business does. It is important that you consider your host’s uptime and speed when making a decision.

Your host’s uptime is how consistently their servers stay up and running while the server speed is how quickly your host’s servers send data to your users going through your website. It’s a no-brainer that you want your host to have a very quick response time and an uptime as close to 100% as possible.

To test each host – GoDaddy and Liquid Web – I ran each of their domains through GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights, two popular website performance tools to measure their response times (time to first byte) and overall performance.

These were the results:

GoDaddy Uptime & Speed

On GTMetrix, GoDaddy had a very impressive time to first byte (TTFB) of 125 ms and an overall performance of 83%:

While on Google PageSpeed Insights, GoDaddy had a TTFB of 1.9s and an overall performance of 90%:

Liquid Web Uptime & Speed

Liquid Web performed exceptionally well and had a TTFB of 160 ms and an overall performance of 98%:

On Google PageSpeed Insights, Liquid Web also performed impressively with a TTFB 0.8 s and an overall performance of 99%:

And the Winner Is… Liquid Web

Both hosts performed excellently well in the speed tests but I’d go with Liquid Web for this one as it had a rather impressive overall performance.

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

GoDaddy customer Support

First up is GoDaddy, a premium host with all you’ll need. The host provides 24/7 support through a busy hub of support great for you whether you need help or prefer figuring things out on your own.

First, the host’s phone directory is rather impressive with a call line for different regions of the world:

Next, for self help, you get email and ticket support plus a really vast, easy-to-navigate knowledgebase with answers to questions you might have that are not an emergency:

And then comes one of my GoDaddy support favorites – video guides. I personally love learning visually as it makes complex concepts easier to grab and if you’re like me, then the GoDaddy video tutorial center is just for you:

Another golden nugget in GoDaddy’s support is that they have a thriving community and forums where hosting experts share their insights on topics that less experienced website owners may have – and everyone’s willing to help!

I couldn’t find GoDaddy’s email lines or the option for a live chat so it’s possible these extra features are reserved for their current customers. But overall, they’re still excellent.

Liquid Web customer Support

Liquid Web is another healthy host in terms of support and customer help. Right from their homepage, you can start a live chat – with a human. I loved that you don’t have to go through a bot first:

For self help you get a vast knowledgebase:

The Liquid Web content hub:

And the Liquid Web blog:

I had to try Liquid Web’s live chat and I was really impressed. Even without giving my name or any other lead resources, the portal opened and an agent joined in less than 10 seconds:

They answered my questions in detail and promptly too, and to be fair, it is one of the quickest live chat portals I have tested in a while.

Liquid Web also has a ‘Webinars’ page with video guides and tutorials on discussions between industry experts:

And the Winner Is… Liquid Web

Liquid Web has a thriving support hub and also live chat even if you’re not yet a customer and the response time is excellent.

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

GoDaddy Ease of use

GoDaddy offers a lot of features and they manage to showcase everything nicely right from their homepage:

From there you can figure out everything else very conveniently even if you’re new to web hosting.

Next is the host’s account management dashboard that carries on the front-end theme and is also incredibly intuitive:

From here, you can manage most of your account’s shenanigans and directly access your cPanel.

And finally, on GoDaddy backend is a modern cPanel that looks great and still retains the familiar cPanel functions:

Liquid Web Ease of use

Liquid Web has a friendly UI that is easy to navigate. You can access all products and essential pages right on the home page. Everything is clearly outlined for your convenience.

Once you become a paid customer, you will have your own account management dashboard. Here you can easily manage all your domains, billing, tasks, and access to support. There is no complication and you can find your way around even if you are a newbie.

If you prefer the old-school cPanel, Liquid Web is your preferred host. You can manage all things backend from right here.

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy has a better-looking and better-structured UI optimized for webmasters at every technical level

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

GoDaddy Security

When you sign up for a web hosting plan on GoDaddy, you get the basic security measures for your website. This includes a free SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and CloudFlare security.

GoDaddy also offers you daily backups on all plans so you don’t lose any vital website data. Its in-house firewall keeps your website safe and the regular malware scans ensure that viruses are found before they can cause any damage.

GoDaddy does not offer SiteLock security. However, they provide specialized security plans where you get to enjoy scheduled cleanups and repairs along with unlimited site cleanups.

Liquid Web Security

Liquid Web also offers extensive security features on its hosting plans. When you sign up on this platform, you get a free SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and CloudFlare security. Your website data is also backed up and restored in case of data loss. All these features are attached to the basic hosting plans.

When you sign up for more advanced plans, you gain access to a web application firewall, periodic malware scans, data protection, and VPNs.

And the Winner Is…GoDaddy

This round was a tough one. However, GoDaddy came out on top because its security features are more available on cheaper web hosting plans.

Round 7: Server locations

In the final round, the final factor to consider is each host’s server locations. A host with a wider server footprint (i.e more servers and data centers around the world) will, in turn, give your website a wider presence and load more quickly.

GoDaddy Server locations

GoDaddy has a very impressive server footprint made of nodes in three continents – North America, Asia, and Europe.

Its U.S. servers and data centers are located in Phoenix, Arizona (USA), Scottsdale (USA), Mesa (USA), Los Angeles(USA), Chicago (USA), Ashburn (USA) and Virginia (USA). The host also has more data centers located in Amsterdam (Europe), AND Singapore (Asia).

One great thing about GoDaddy is you can choose the country or region where you want your website’s data to be delivered from.

Liquid Web Server locations

Liquid Web has data centers across just three locations in Lansing, Phoenix,  and Amsterdam

And the Winner Is… GoDaddy

GoDaddy wins this round by a sound margin as the host has way more data centers than Liquid Web, and across three continents.

GoDaddy vs Liquid Web: final recommendations

When to Choose GoDaddy?

GoDaddy is a wonderful web hosting provider and it can accommodate a wide range of business needs. They offer nearly every kind of web hosting at affordable prices and small businesses can easily start their journey here. So when should you choose GoDaddy? Choose GoDaddy if:

• You are starting your website from scratch
• You are on a budget
• You want more bandwidth and storage space for your website
• You want an easy-to-use UI
• You want multiple web hosting choices

Go for Liquid Web if you:

Liquid Web is an excellent web hosting provider for businesses with more ambitious plans. Schools, hospitals, hotels, and big eComm businesses can find their home on Liquid Web. In summary, you should choose Liquid Web if:

• You are looking for expanded plans from shared hosting
• You want to target a U.S. or Europe-based audience
• You run a medium/large scale business
• You want consistent uptime and super fast server speed
• You want quick and effective customer support