GoDaddy vs. FatCow (2023)

Written by: Ryan Frankel

Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro

Updated: October 11, 2022

Ryan Frankel Hosting Expert

“We tested GoDaddy & FatCow — The winner is GoDaddy!”

“Luke…I am your father” — that’s how we imagine the folks at GoDaddy answer the phone. Known for its legendary customer support, GoDaddy’s always-there reputation, extensive online help center, and internal ticketing system attract millions of first-time site owners. But for customers in the market for a white and black spotted host, FatCow has been making potential customers smile with their whimsical website touting feel-good services since the early 2000s. Let’s see whether a mammalian or a parental host suits you better.

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

"Economy" Plan: $2.99/month »
"Deluxe" Plan: $7.99/month »
"Ultimate" Plan: $11.99/month »

Visit GoDaddy »

Overall Rating

4.6/5.0 ★★★★★

36-Month Plan: $7.99/month »
24-Month Plan: $8.99/month »
12-Month Plan: $9.99/month »

Visit FatCow »

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Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

GoDaddy is exceptionally well-known in the hosting space, typically serving as site owners' introduction to the world of web hosting. The company makes it incredibly easy and affordable for folks to choose a domain name, sign up for hosting, and start building their online business or personal web property. While known for its domain, email, and shared hosting services, GoDaddy offers options for virtual and dedicated servers as well. Pre-built templates come with the hosting company's basic WordPress offering, or upgrade to managed WordPress services for top support or help with your online store. The company makes the migration process as seamless as possible, so you shouldn't shy away from scaling your site as your business needs grow; GoDaddy is a hosting home that will grow alongside you. The user control options are pretty popular in the hosting space: your choice between the easy-to-use cPanel or Plesk control panels, plus root (administrative) access for more tech-savvy customers. If you're particularly interested in webmail, GoDaddy offers an intuitive interface for keeping up with the unlimited email accounts you have available to you as a customer. Each email account comes with 256-bit encryption and enhanced privacy protection. Customer support has been a focus of the GoDaddy team of late. Today, the team has an award-winning collection of experts on staff, readily available to handle customer phone calls and messages 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Luxury services like WordPress Premium Support and Website Security also add support ticketing functionality. While GoDaddy is on hand to talk you through any issues, the team is also keeping an eye on your server (as well as other clients sharing your server). The hosting provider's around-the-clock security monitoring enables GoDaddy to guarantee uptime rates of 99.9% or better. This uptime rate is by no means outstanding in the industry, but for most end users, it's all that's required. The bottom line is this: GoDaddy is a go-to domain web host for millions of users worldwide for a reason. The company maintains an ever-expanding network of users by offering blazing-fast load times, award-winning security and support, and a free domain registration when you sign up for a year-long plan. It's a great hosting deal, particularly for first-timers and small business owners, at a really great price point.

Industry-leading load times
Award-winning support and security
World's #1 Domain Name Registrar
Choice of cPanel or Plesk included
99.9% uptime guaranteed
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

100 GB - unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

Having some of the most affordable shared hosting out there, plus plenty of extras, warrants FatCow be on our list of top web hosts overall. Their customer service, performance, and focus on environmental responsibility leave you feeling good about yourself and your website.

Though their hardware isn’t super modern like some of the other hosts, speeds are decent and very reliable. 24/7 phone and email support is there for you every step of the way, should you run into any issues.

Don’t be fooled by their lower price, their feature-rich offerings are adequate for many users, particularly first-timers. Website builders with eCommerce and a free domain get you started quickly and easily; unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and emails give you room to grow.

If you are looking for a low-priced web host with a good feature set and you love cow puns, look no further than FatCow.

FREE domain name
Included point-and-click website builders
24/7 support
Unlimited disk space, bandwidth, emails, and databases
GREEN: Powered 100% by wind energy
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

#7 out of 9 in Cheap Hosting reviews

A major pull factor for GoDaddy's hosting services is certainly the cost. It's hard to beat web hosting for just a few dollars per month, especially when the company includes a free domain name, control panel, impressively fast load times, and unlimited websites with most plans.

The company makes it not only affordable but super easy to get started on a shared hosting plan — for first-timers, bloggers, business owners, and others.

You can choose a GoDaddy hosting plan based on your exact needs, with a range of options for disk space, email, processing power, and other resources.

If your site grows to need scalable and/or dedicated resources, the company's team makes that transition easy — but with most plans coming with unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth, you should have plenty of room.

Virtual and dedicated servers can be provisioned in minutes, with root and cPanel access, and no re-provisioning is required for upgrades.

All GoDaddy plans are equipped with the user control of cPanel (or Plesk, if you prefer). From cPanel, you can easily install and set up popular web applications for blogging and/or ecommerce.

A big name in the budget web hosting space, GoDaddy is consistently improving the performance of its servers, website, and services to offer a great customer experience.

With cPanel control and 1-click installations for standard web apps, you can get your website up and running quickly. The company's 24/7 security monitoring and DDoS protection allow you the comfort in knowing the professionals are making sure your site is online, loading quickly, and hacker-free.

We do wish the web hosting provider would include a free SSL certificate with each shared plan, however. All in all, the web hosting service comes with incredible power and peace of mind, at such a low price point, making GoDaddy quite a value deal.

Manage your domain and hosting under one roof
Choice of cPanel or Plesk control panels
Up to unlimited bandwidth and storage
Microsoft 365 inboxes included FREE for first year
Get 67% OFF by signing up today
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

100 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

FatCow is one of the better budget hosts out there. They offer great hosting features and server performance for a low price. They are also the feel-good host of the list, with a cute, pun-filled site running 100% on eco-friendly wind power; however, don’t for a second think they aren’t serious about great hosting.

New users will love the inclusion of a domain name, unlimited email addresses, and a website builder with eCommerce support. Included integration with popular merchant accounts get you one step closer to selling online. All of it is wrapped up nicely in a simple-to-use control panel, cPanel.

All users will love what they call the "Script Barn," which allows for 1-click installation of popular open-source apps and scripts like WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, and more.

FatCow is a fantastic budget host, with high-budget features and flexibility with which you can easily grow your site.

Included domain name
CGI, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, and MySQL support
1-click script installs
Access to website builders with eCommerce cart
60% off for joining today
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

GoDaddy dedicated server hosting plans feature managed support options, on-demand resources, and the intuitive user control of cPanel and Plesk. The company offers plans for Linux and Windows users, with a variety of options for operating systems, RAM, processing power, disk space, and hardware choices. As a bare-metal solution, GoDaddy dedicated hosting gives customers 100% control over their server in a single-tenant environment. Unlimited bandwidth is always nice, as is the ability to choose between high-capacity HDDs and high-speed SSDs for storage. Site owners can also choose to host their server in datacenters in U.S. or Europe. With the optional fully managed services, GoDaddy support is not only available around the clock to help you troubleshoot issues with your server but the team is keeping an eye on your server status. The company offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee and premier DDoS protection, anti-hacking services, and other security add-ons. Each server comes with a free year of SSL certificate protection, and GoDaddy fully managed hosting customers benefit from the assurance that the experts will facilitate security patches and bug fixes regularly and on time. Each dedicated hosting plan comes with Panopta monitoring for your server, application, and network services. Users can easily view uptime and system-level metrics like CPU, RAM, storage, or set up alerts and notifications. With resource configurations customized to meet your needs, GoDaddy offers dedicated server hosting that you can grow your business with. The GoDaddy tech support team is available 24/7, guarding your site against malware, hackers, unexpected downtime, and DDoS threats. Meanwhile, the company's support agents are handling any requests that come through the phone lines or chat portal. With on-demand resources and industry-leading page load speeds, GoDaddy is a dedicated host worthy of your consideration.

Dedicated resources provisioned in minutes
Maximum performance and data protection with RAID-1 disk mirroring
Admin control via root access, cPanel, or Plesk
Choose from semi- or fully managed services
Get 45% off of your first term
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

400 GB SSD - 8 TB HDD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.2/5.0

If you want maximum performance and security for your site, and a host with a customer- and environmentally friendly company, FatCow should be at the top of your list of prospective web hosts.

When it comes to dedicated hosting features, FatCow has what you should be looking for: two to four CPU cores, 4GB to 16GB RAM, tons of bandwidth, and tons of mirrored storage. They also offer all these things at a very fair rate.

What really impresses us is the many customer-first policies they have. The first that comes to mind is the "predictable pricing model," meaning they don’t financially penalize you for usage overages, nor simply shut you down. Their servers are built on cloud-based architecture, so there is always room to grow and scale with FatCow as your demands increase. Finally, their monthly billing rates are very reasonable when compared to their yearly, which is great for those who are not ready to make a long-term commitment just to save a few dollars.

Fully managed servers
RAID 1 mirrored storage for data protection
Cloud-based flexibility and scalability
Predictable monthly costs with no overage charges
3 dedicated IP addresses per plan
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

500 GB - 1 TB

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.2/5.0

If you're looking to grow and scale your website, GoDaddy has you covered. Developers and web enthusiasts will be pleased to hear that GoDaddy offers root access, making it easy to install PHP modules, applications, stacks, and various customizations to fine-tune your virtual server for peak performance via the command line or remote desktop. Plans also include a variety of control panels, led by cPanel and Plesk, so you can easily manage your hosting service with an intuitive graphical interface. The surprisingly powerful virtual servers can have up to 32GB RAM and 400GB of SSD storage that boasts three times faster page loads. In addition to unlimited bandwidth and KVM virtualization, GoDaddy boasts global datacenters on four continents and tons of modern operating systems. Choose from platforms like CentOS, Ubuntu, and Windows Server. Meanwhile, the GoDaddy team will monitor your server 24/7 to alert and ward off traffic with malicious intent. Customers will have to patch their operating system as needed, but GoDaddy provides around-the-clock hardware monitoring with failover solutions and snapshots to minimize downtime. Panopta monitoring is also included with all semi- or fully managed VPS accounts, giving you a window into network and application services via easily configurable alerts and notifications. The GoDaddy name may not immediately bring VPS hosting to mind. Nonetheless, GoDaddy's virtual server offerings include the security, support, worry-free fully managed services, and value combination that embodies the GoDaddy reputation in the hosting space. For those who may not quite be ready to make the jump to a VPS plan, the hosting company's Business Hosting packages combine the best of both worlds: the amped-up power of a virtual private server with the ease and simplicity of shared hosting.

Designed to handle traffic with Linux or Windows
Admin access via root access, cPanel, and Plesk
High-speed SSDs and 99.9% uptime guarantee
Unlimited bandwidth and lots of processing power
Fully or semi-managed servers with optional control panel
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

40 GB - 400 GB SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.3/5.0

FatCow offers very customer-friendly VPS plans with a lot of storage for the price. If you are looking for a reliable host, with great support and a lot of disk space, give FatCow a serious look.

FatCow’s VPS plans are all fully managed and come with cPanel for ease of use. They take the hassle out of installing software like Apache and MySQL and handle the hardware monitoring for you. We also appreciate the plethora of pre-installed scripts.

Arguably the most feel-good host on our list, FatCow’s datacenters and offices are 100% powered by eco-friendly wind power. They also want the best for their clients' sites and do not penalize with overage charges, should your site exceed its limits.

Founded in 1998, FatCow has been in the hosting industry for a long time. Don’t let their cheeky image throw you though; they are committed to providing excellent service and value in their hosting packages. If you are looking for a nice VPS hosting solution with a lot of storage, check FatCow Out.

Instantly deploy and scale
Predictable monthly costs with no overage fees
Guaranteed RAM and resources
Fully managed with around-the-clock monitoring
Anytime money-back guarantee
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

40 GB - 120 GB

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.4/5.0

#8 out of 8 in WordPress Hosting reviews

As champions of low-cost, high-impact hosting, GoDaddy understandably offers a slew of services geared for all levels of WordPress users.

Starting with the company's basic shared hosting services, which start at $2.99 per month, each GoDaddy customer who signs up for an annual plan receive a free domain name and the power to control their site via the cPanel or Plesk control panels.

From either of these interfaces, you can quickly install and set up the WordPress environment in one click at no additional cost. GoDaddy's improved cPanel is configured with CageFS to protect your content and uses CloudLinux to keep your site's resources truly balanced.

While you're busy adding content, photos, or products to your WordPress site, GoDaddy ensures that your web pages are loading quickly.

More serious WordPress users may prefer to step up to the web host's suite of optimized WordPress hosting plans, which feature an automatically installed SSL certificate, backups, and daily malware scans.

Users can create and launch unlimited websites with most of these packages, and you can choose to automatically upgrade your plan as you need extra resources.

Even higher up, GoDaddy Pro Managed WordPress Hosting starts site owners with a delightful onboarding experience and one-click migration tool to make it easier than ever to get started.

Once you configure your free CDN and built-in caching, you can take advantage of daily backups, automatic core updates, pre-built sites, and a staging environment to ensure your WordPress website is picture perfect.

1-click WordPress installs via cPanel or Plesk
FREE domain from the world's #1 registrar
Experience 24/7 expert support
Award-winning security monitoring
FREE year of Office 365 business email services
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

100 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

FatCow is a good, budget-minded option for those looking to host their WordPress site. With two choices (WP Starter or WP Essential), you can choose the hosting package that best fits your budget. With either plan, you are offered a free domain, plus unlimited transfers and disk space, which is nice.

Their WP Essential plan, the more expensive of the two plans, benefits from an all-SSD infrastructure, which provides greater speeds than their WP Starter package. Enhanced security from SiteLock is also added, which virtually eliminates malware. 24/7 phone support is included on this plan, so if you find yourself needing a little help now and then, I would consider this package over WP Starter.

For the brave or the capable minds on a budget, the WP Starter plan may work for you. Though lacking some of the extras and support of the bigger package, their WP Starter plan is one of the least expensive WordPress hosts you can find. Both plans come with pre-installed plugins and curated themes to get your site up and running sooner.

FatCow is a great budget WordPress web hosting solution. They offer great hosting features and decent server performance for a low price.

Curated themes and pre-installed plugins
Unlimited disk Space, bandwidth, and email accounts
Choice of two value-based hosting packages
Premium plan formore speed, security, and support
FREE domain with registration
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

Anytime

Disk Space

Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

#4 out of 10 in Website Builder Hosting reviews

GoDaddy uses a custom website builder and easy access to dozens of content management systems to offer a user-friendly site-building solution to customers.

Most of GoDaddy's hosting plans include these options at no additional cost. Plus, if you sign up for an annual hosting plan, this world-leading domain name registrar will include a GoDaddy domain for free.

The company's Websites + Marketing plans combine the GoDaddy website builder with built-in marketing tools to seamlessly integrate your website, social media, and online reviews to attract the most visitors.

Even better, you can get started for free! To unlock the full publishing power, though, plans start around $10 per month.

You can save money by signing up for a shared hosting account, which will point you toward easy-to-use content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. You'll still get a lot of options for customizations and one-click installations but not quite the same drag-and-drop simplicity you'll find on most site builders.

Regardless of which you choose, the GoDaddy team is working around the clock to ensure your site will remain online and performing speedily while you worry about making your website beautiful and professional-looking.

The company's award-winning security team keeps an eye out for downtime, hackers, and other security threats.

The end result is their uptime guarantee of 99.9%, which does the job for most users.

The bottom line is that you can get started with multiple GoDaddy's website builder options for a dollar or less per month and choose from hundreds of theme options to start designing the site of your dreams.

Get started for FREE, no credit-card required
Easy-to-use interface with tons of customization
GoDaddy InSight™ provides tailored action plans
99.9% uptime with an award-winning support team
Built-in marketing tools and expertise
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

100 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

#9 out of 10 in Website Builder Hosting reviews

Aimed at the low-budget customer, FatCow gets you online in only a few minutes for only a few dollars. While pretty limited at their lowest price, if you need a very simple website with only a few web pages, it’s hard to argue with FatCow's value.

Using the CM4All drag-and-drop website builder, you can get a site online pretty quickly. Though their base plan is limited to only six pages, their other plans, with more support, are still very reasonable. Each plan comes with a free domain name, which saves you the trouble of purchasing one separately and waiting for name servers to propagate.

For those looking for a little more, FatCow offers support for popular blog and CMS software such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and others. Integrated galleries and forums are also available. Finally, FatCow give you advertising credits towards sites like Google, Bing, and Facebook to get the ball rolling on your site’s exposure.

If you are on a budget and in need of a small, simple webpage today, with options to grow in the future, check out FatCow’s site builder offerings.

Easily build a 6-page site
CM4All drag-and-drop website builder
FREE domain name
Compatible with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and others
$250 in advertising credits
Get started on FatCow now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

2 GB

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

GoDaddy vs. FatCow - Our Conclusion

Ryan Frankel Hosting Expert

“We tested GoDaddy & FatCow — The winner is GoDaddy!”

If you’re looking for the best domain registrar, you can’t go wrong with the leading web host, GoDaddy. The GoDaddy team backs roughly 84 million domains and supports happy website owners on every continent. But FatCow is your best option for an affordable, no-frills hosting solution. And for a low starting cost and a money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose by trying it out. The good news with either contender is you’ll get a host with a longstanding reputation in the industry. Best of luck as you pick your provider.

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit GoDaddy »

Overall Rating

4.6/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit FatCow »

About The Author

Ryan Frankel has been a professional in the tech industry for more than 20 years and has been developing websites for more than 25. With his background in integrated circuit design and digital signal processing, he has a fundamental understanding of hardware systems and the software that runs them. Ryan now sits as the CTO of Digital Brands Inc. and manages all of the server infrastructure of their websites, as well as their development team. In addition, Ryan has a passion for guitars, good coffee, and puppies.