InMotion vs. GoDaddy (2020)

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PJ Fancher Hosting Expert
“We tested InMotion & GoDaddy — The winner is InMotion!”

Consistently among the most reputable and well-known hosting providers in the game, InMotion and GoDaddy both provide great services to a massive number of customers. GoDaddy is great for budget-minded shared, domain, and email hosting customers, while InMotion caters to consumers looking for reliability, performance, and support. GoDaddy’s ultra-affordable hosting plans don’t scrimp on features, but InMotion backs even their base-level shared hosting package with top-notch Dell servers and SSD drives. Keep scrolling to evaluate how these two hosts might meet your needs.

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InMotion review
Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit InMotion »
GoDaddy review
Overall Rating
4.7/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit GoDaddy »
Compare: Overall | Cheap Hosting | Dedicated | VPS | WordPress | Site Builder | Conclusion

Overall Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware,... read more +

Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware, always-there support, and mass scalability for all hosting needs.

InMotion Hosting has nice SSD drives on its shared plans, which give an added speed boost to your site. The company's customer service and reputation are excellent in the shared space, though InMotion tends to be a bit higher priced than some competitors. If a little extra speed is worth a few dollars more a month, then InMotion is a good choice for you.

In testing InMotion servers and account backends ourselves, there are a few things InMotion does that we especially appreciate. First and foremost, we like to see free and automated backups included with each plan, as data security is vitally important. The company also offers zero-downtime site transfers, which makes switching to InMotion or between its hosting plans a breeze. Finally, multiple datacenters and the ability to choose which will house your site appeals to speed freaks like us.

Regardless of your hosting needs, InMotion seems to have your bases covered. If you value great hardware and support, all at a reasonable price, we highly recommend InMotion as your next host.

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  • FREE SSD drives included with all hosting plans
  • Zero-downtime website transfers and migrations
  • FREE data backups, SSL certificate, and DDoS protection
  • Choice of East Coast or West Coast datacenter
  • Multi-language support, including PHP, Ruby, and Perl
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
GoDaddy review

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... read more +

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. The company makes the upgrade 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. All of this can be easily accessed and secured with your GoDaddy login info that you receive upon sign-up.

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 support tickets and emails 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While they're on hand to talk you through any issues, they're also keeping an eye on your server (as well as other clients sharing your server). The company'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 name when you sign up for a year-long plan. It's a great hosting deal, particularly for first-timers and small businesses owners, at a really great price point.

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  • 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)

Cheap Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

#7 out of 10 in Cheap Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan. While carrying a higher price tag than some other cheap hosts, it has a very nice list of features to help justify the extra cost. ... read more +

InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan. While carrying a higher price tag than some other cheap hosts, it has a very nice list of features to help justify the extra cost.

For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages. You’ll also appreciate the 20-times faster speed, which comes from all-SSD storage and your choice of datacenter locations. You needn’t worry about data security, as InMotion plans include automatic data backups.

For the rest of us, we can appreciate the convenience of the free website transfers and 24/7 US-based support. A free domain registration and WordPress website builder with eCommerce support are also appealing.

The overall package and business-class hardware make InMotion’s shared hosting a great choice for businesses or those looking for a little higher-end hardware. And, as one of the few remaining independently owned hosting providers left on the market, InMotion has taken every effort to remain cost-competitive.

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  • FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
  • FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
  • FREE SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster!
  • FREE security suite including SSL and hack protection
  • Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
GoDaddy review

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

A major pull factor for GoDaddy's hosting services is certainly the cost. It's hard to beat web hosting for a dollar per month, especially when the company includes a free domain name, control panel, and... read more +

A major pull factor for GoDaddy's hosting services is certainly the cost. It's hard to beat web hosting for a dollar per month, especially when the company includes a free domain name, control panel, and impressively fast load times. The company makes it not only affordable but super easy to get started — 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 storage, 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. 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. That power and peace of mind — at such a low price point — is quite a value deal.

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  • World's top registrar offers a FREE domain with hosting
  • Industry-leading page load times for your site
  • Unlimited bandwidth with up to unlimited storage space
  • Choose between cPanel or Plesk control panels
  • Award-winning support on hand 24/7
  • Get started on GoDaddy now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
100 GB - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

#7 out of 10 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers amazingly fast and reliable dedicated hosting on market-leading hardware — making it an easy choice for anyone seeking a premium dedicated server host. From free SSDs to a... read more +

InMotion Hosting offers amazingly fast and reliable dedicated hosting on market-leading hardware — making it an easy choice for anyone seeking a premium dedicated server host. From free SSDs to a fanatical support team, InMotion has all the bases covered for both small-scale and large-scale operations.

Unlike some hosts, InMotion gives SSH and root access to its servers. Each plan is fully managed and comes with between two and four hours of dedicated time with a system administrator, which is an excellent help in getting your site configured to meet your needs. Each server is also set up with free cPanel and WHM for easy management.

Plenty of CPU power, RAM, and storage come with each plan, as well as lots of dedicated IP addresses. Perhaps our favorite feature of InMotion is the company's zero-downtime, rebootless kernel updates, which are partially the reason for InMotion's superb 99.999% uptime.

InMotion has a 30-day money-back guarantee on their dedicated plans, which is fairly rare and just another reason you can’t go wrong selecting the company as your dedicated host.

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  • FREE server management and security updates
  • Launch Assist™ gives you 1-on-1 time with a sysadmin
  • 99.999% network uptime via Smart Routing™ technology
  • Tier 1 network with redundant bandwidth at two datacenters
  • Up to 44% OFF for HostingAdvice readers
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
500 GB SSD - 3 TB SSD
Domain Name
New or Transfer
GoDaddy review

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.1/5.0

GoDaddy dedicated server hosting plans feature managed support options, on-demand resources, and the intuitive user control of cPanel. The company offers plans for Linux and Windows users, with a variety... read more +

GoDaddy dedicated server hosting plans feature managed support options, on-demand resources, and the intuitive user control of cPanel. 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.

With award-winning security monitoring, 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. GoDaddy managed hosting customers benefit from the assurance that the experts will facilitate security patches, bug fixes, and site backups.

With resource configurations customized to meet your needs, GoDaddy offers dedicated server hosting that you can grow your business with — starting with scalable resources you won't need to re-provision your server for. 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 chat portal or email system. With on-demand resources and industry-leading page load speeds, GoDaddy is a dedicated host worthy of your consideration.

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  • Dedicated resources provisioned in minutes, not hours
  • Maximum performance and data protection with RAID 1 disk mirroring
  • Total administrative control with root access, plus cPanel control panel
  • Three levels of server management plans available
  • No resource restrictions or re-provisioning as you upgrade
  • Get started on GoDaddy now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
1 TB - 2 TB
Domain Name
FREE (w/ annual plans)

VPS Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

#4 out of 9 in VPS Hosting reviews

Boasting market-leading VPS hardware, slick management software, and free SSD drives and backups, InMotion Hosting offers the most attractive VPS plans you'll find anywhere. ... read more +

Boasting market-leading VPS hardware, slick management software, and free SSD drives and backups, InMotion Hosting offers the most attractive VPS plans you'll find anywhere.

Each VPS plan comes with free SSD storage arranged in a RAID-6 array, which is incredibly fast and secure. Each of the company's plans also come with an awesome amount of RAM for the server cost, so the speed-to-dollar ratio is high with this host.

InMotion’s VPS packages run on the CentOS Linux operating system and all feature a license for cPanel and WHM, making it super easy to resell some unused server resources.

InMotion's reputation for uptime is second-to-none, with a solid track record as a large-scale VPS host and a friendly support team available at any time.

Lastly, InMotion has a 90-day money-back guarantee and offers a choice of datacenters, which are nice customer-centric features. The company's support is top-notch and available via chat, email, and phone. We highly recommend you check out InMotion if you are looking for a VPS with great hardware and reseller options at a low price.

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  • 63% off the first month with added discounts
  • Real-time redundancy powered by a cloud infrastructure
  • FREE cPanel licenses with enterprise-grade CentOS
  • FREE server management for patches and updates
  • FREE SSDs and SSL certificate for fast, secure hosting
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
75 GB SSD - 260 GB SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
GoDaddy review

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 3.8/5.0

If you're looking to grow and scale your website — you currently need, expect to need, or want the option to require scalable resources on-demand, GoDaddy has you covered. The company has strong options... read more +

If you're looking to grow and scale your website — you currently need, expect to need, or want the option to require scalable resources on-demand, GoDaddy has you covered. The company has strong options for virtual private servers alongside its well-known shared server offerings. Upgrading to any of these options is a relatively seamless process, which extends all the way to dedicated servers.

Dev folks will be pleased to hear that GoDaddy offers root access, so you can install PHP, modules, and proxy servers via the command line with ease. Plans also include cPanel, so you can easily manage your hosting service with a graphical interface. Meanwhile, the GoDaddy team will monitor your server 24/7, including handling patches and backups should you select one of the company's managed plan options.

The GoDaddy name may not immediately bring VPS hosting to mind. Nonetheless, GoDaddy's cloud and virtual server offerings include the security, support, and value combination that together embodies the GoDaddy reputation in the hosting space. The company gives you everything you need to scale your web presence.

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  • Designed to handle traffic with Linux or Windows operating systems
  • Provision your server in minutes, with root access and cPanel included
  • Easy upgrades, with tons of SiteLock security add-ons
  • Unlimited bandwidth and lots of processing power
  • FREE managed services for patching, monitoring, and backups
  • Get started on GoDaddy now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
40 GB - 240 GB
Domain Name
FREE (w/ annual plans)

WordPress Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#1 out of 10 in WordPress Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting, long known for affordable and high-performance shared hosting options, entered the WordPress space with a solid option built upon the company's reputation for great support and... read more +

InMotion Hosting, long known for affordable and high-performance shared hosting options, entered the WordPress space with a solid option built upon the company's reputation for great support and reliability. Costing a small premium over other budget-minded options, InMotion does include some nice features to help justify that cost difference.

Build on an all-SSD infrastructure, the company's speeds are very good. We would have loved to see options like integrated staging included in order to help take full advantage of the nice, modern hardware, but ample server caching tools is still a good perk. The choice of datacenters (East or West) is nice, as well, as it allows you to target your local audience with better load times.

InMotion offers three different levels to its WordPress hosting offerings, which allows you to tailor the hosting to your needs or budget. For those needing eCommerce support, the company's middle or top offerings have you covered, while all three include InMotion's drag-and-drop BoldGrid page editor.

Each hosting package InMotion offers comes with a free domain, unlimited disk space, unlimited emails, and free data backups for data security. If you need it, each plan also has support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, and Python, and includes SSH access.

InMotion Hosting has made a name for itself on support and reliability. While not the cheapest of the budget WordPress hosts out there, the packages offered are solid in performance and feature sets.

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  • WordPress pre-installed with NGINX and PHP 7
  • FREE SSL certificate and unlimited bandwidth
  • Optional automatic plugin, theme, and core updates
  • Features a FREE drag-and-drop WP page editor
  • Premium themes and plugin subscriptions
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
90 days
Disk Space
40 GB SSD - 120 GB SSD
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)
GoDaddy review

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

Upon first getting started with GoDaddy, customers who sign up for an annual plan receive a free domain name and the power to control their hosting via cPanel or Plesk control panels. From either of these... read more +

Upon first getting started with GoDaddy, customers who sign up for an annual plan receive a free domain name and the power to control their hosting via 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 plans with WordPress feature managed services, which means you don't have to worry about tedious details of maintaining the server on which your site is hosted. While you're busy adding content, photos, or products to your WordPress site, GoDaddy ensures that your web pages are loading quickly and attackers are staying away. GoDaddy offers award-winning security practices, including DDoS protection, 24/7 server monitoring, and peace of mind.

Folks seeking a WordPress website are in need of the WordPress install itself, the domain at which to host the site, and as many easy-to-use features for managing the WordPress site as possible. GoDaddy offers all of the above: the 1-click install, domain, email, security monitoring, and hosting management power via cPanel. Especially for the low cost, GoDaddy is a strong choice for WordPress hosting.

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  • 1-click WordPress installs via cPanel or Plesk control panels
  • Enjoy a 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)

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

InMotion review

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

If you're aiming to build a dynamic, user-oriented website — an active blog, a photo gallery, an eCommerce store — check out InMotion Hosting. The InMotion team is extremely knowledgeable in the... read more +

If you're aiming to build a dynamic, user-oriented website — an active blog, a photo gallery, an eCommerce store — check out InMotion Hosting. The InMotion team is extremely knowledgeable in the hosting industry, and they're attuned to the ever-evolving needs of the end-user — from the ultra-novice to the über-experienced. Evidence of the team's attention to user needs can be found in BoldGrid: the in-house-built website builder platform that was received so well by the market that InMotion decided to spin the web builder off into its own company.

BoldGrid functions on top of WordPress, bringing intuitiveness and ease of use to a content management environment notorious for bringing beginners frustration. With hundreds of templates and a nice WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, getting started with a new site is a fairly quick and easy process. You can play around with the plethora of site templates, preview the site that could soon be yours, and get a feel for which look most closely matches your intended design or brand. Ready to start selling online? Stress-free integration with PayPal, Authorize.net, and 2Checkout makes starting that online store a simple endeavor.

BoldGrid comes free on all of InMotion's shared hosting packages, which come with all the essential hosting goodies and some of the best support money can buy. Each plan offers powerful hardware, a free domain name, and free data backups — that last one being an extremely valuable feature. InMotion does have lengthy signup periods for their best deals, but they offer a 90-day money-back guarantee to help you feel confident that they are the right host for you.

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  • FREE WYSIWYG builder: BoldGrid sits atop WordPress
  • FREE domain, with tons of options to customize and scale
  • 500+ easy-to-edit blog, gallery, and eCommerce themes
  • Choice of WordPress, Joomla, or PrestaShop pre-installed
  • FREE SSL certificate
  • Get started on InMotion now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
Unlimited
Domain Name
New or Transfer
GoDaddy review

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

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... read more +

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 your website's new domain for free.

The company's site-builder and CMS options are easy to use, including a lot of options for customization and one-click installations. While you worry about making your website beautiful and professional-looking, the GoDaddy team is working around the clock to ensure your site will remain online and performing speedily. The company's award-winning security team monitors the server supporting your website — keeping an eye out for downtime, hackers, and other security threats. The end result is their uptime guarantee of 99.9%, which isn't much in the hosting world, but it does the job for most users.

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

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  • FREE site builder included with most hosting plans
  • Easy-to-use interface with tons of customization options available
  • 24/7 expert support via phone, email, and ticketing system
  • 99.9% uptime with an award-winning team monitoring your site and server
  • Step-by-step walkthroughs
  • Get started on GoDaddy now.
Money Back Guarantee
30 days
Disk Space
100 GB - Unlimited
Domain Name
FREE (1 year)

InMotion vs. GoDaddy - Our Conclusion

PJ Fancher Hosting Expert
“We tested InMotion & GoDaddy — The winner is InMotion!”

There you have it. You saw our ratings — do you agree? As with so many host comparisons, you should base your decision on the features that most closely match your needs. If you want a big-brand host that perhaps sacrifices some performance and support to give you feature-rich hosting for a price that can’t be beat, go with GoDaddy. InMotion customers might be a bit more nuanced in their hosting requirements and more likely to value computing power over the number of sites or email accounts they can have.

InMotion review
Overall Rating
4.9/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit InMotion »
GoDaddy review
Overall Rating
4.7/5.0 ★★★★★
Visit GoDaddy »

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