Media Temple vs. GoDaddy (2023)

By: Ryan Frankel

Editor: Lillian Castro

11/3/2023

Ryan Frankel Hosting Expert

“We tested Media Temple & GoDaddy — The winner is Media Temple!”

If these web hosts graced the cover of a mid-2000s tabloid, the headline would read “Fast, Reliable, Super-charged Hosting at Affordable Prices.” And unlike traditional tabloid headlines, this headline would be accurate. Media Temple and GoDaddy offer pretty gossip-worthy hosting plans to suit various needs. Whether you’re looking for a simple website builder, VPS, dedicated, or shared hosting, you can find a solution with one of these providers. Check out our host comparison to see which provider impresses you the most.

Overall Rating

4.8/5.0 ★★★★★

"Personal" Plan: $20.00/month »
"Pro" Plan: $30.00/month »
"Elite" Plan: $60.00/month »

Visit Media Temple »

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

Economy Plan: $2.99/month »
Deluxe Plan: $9.99/month »
Ultimate Plan: $14.99/month »

Visit GoDaddy »

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Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

You've heard all the buzzwords: VPS, the cloud, clustered architecture — it all started here! If site performance and reliability matter to you, look no further than Media Temple's Grid hosting service. Considered the first public cloud host, Media Temple is the benchmark by which all other hosts are measured.

Interested in what makes Media Temple's Grid so exceptional? How about its exclusive cluster of redundant, blazing-fast SSDs. That means your database will never slow down your site, regardless of the amount of traffic you take in. Other features that make your site scream are pre-installed PHP with FastCGI and the TrueSpeed CDN by SiteLock.

For the novice users, please don't let the jargon scare you. The best part about all those features is they are there automatically, allowing you to focus on the other details that make your website great. Automatic data backups and security mean that your data is always safe. All of that is wrapped up nicely in an extremely easy-to-use interface built by the experts at Media Temple.

The company provides award-winning 24/7/365 live support via phone, chat, email tickets, and Twitter. If you are ready to take your website to the next level, there is no better host to consider than Media Temple.

One-of-a-kind, clustered Grid hosting platform
Maintains speed, regardless of traffic
SSD database storage and scalable bandwidth
Best-in-class support via, phone, chat, email, and Twitter
Custom-built control panel and 20+ app installs
Get started on Media Temple now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

20 GB SSD - 250 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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

25 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 3.0/5.0

If site performance and reliability matter to you, look no further than Media Temple's unique Grid hosting service. Ranked lower on our list of cheap hosts because of the high price tag, the performance value of Media Temple’s service is hard to fully appreciate when compared with the crowd of bargain-basement hosting providers.

The company's forward-thinking shared hosting platform is built with cloud-grade scalability and redundancy — this is not an average shared hosting plan. Media Temple clusters servers with blazing-fast SSDs to provide top-notch reliability and room to grow.

Despite the complicated, high-priced services, Media Temple excels at providing a positive, streamlined user experience. The custom-built control panel seamlessly directs you to the adjustable resources and tools you need to succeed, all while the company's team of support agents is constantly on standby to help. Media Temple's award-winning service is available 24/7/365 via phone, chat, email tickets, and even Twitter.

If you are ready to take your website to the next level, no matter the cost, there is no better host to consider than Media Temple.

Unique platform powered by clustered servers
One-click scalability for ultra-fast speed
Ample SSD storage and dedicated containers
Live customer support available 24/7/365
Around-the-clock monitoring and DDoS protection
Get started on Media Temple now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

20 GB SSD - 250 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

#10 out of 10 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 70% OFF by signing up today
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

25 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

Are limitless server resources and a clean neighborhood invaluable to your business? If you answered "yes," look no further than Media Temple’s dedicated hosting. While not for everyone because of the higher-than-average pricing, there is no arguing the impressiveness of this enterprise-level server.

Offering self-, semi-, or fully-managed options, Media Temple’s dedicated servers have boundless flexibility to go with their power. First, start with your choice of Linux operating systems pre-installed for you. Then, if you are on the self-managed plan, the sky is the limit with full root access (the stuff geeks dream about). If you opt for the semi- or fully-managed solutions, you get to choose between the always-familiar cPanel or Plesk control panels, or even receive the assistance of one of the company's system administrators. Those customers enjoy performance monitoring, daily backups, operating system and application updates, constant security, and regular malware scanning.

All of that comes with a pretty hefty price tag, but the next-level services and computing power goes a long way toward justifying the investment. If you already use the company's VPS options and are in need of something more, you’ll be pleased to hear that it is a seamless, zero-downtime transition to a dedicated server.

Finally, Media Temple offers a 99.99% service uptime guarantee on the company's dedicated products. If the company falls short, you get 20% of your monthly hosting fee back for each 20 minutes of downtime that month.

Your choice of fully, semi-, or self-managed service
Multi-core CPUs, 128GB RAM, and 1TB SSDs
Scale up instantly from VPS hosting
99.99% network, hardware, and infrastructure uptime guarantee
Choice of Linux OS with optional cPanel or Plesk
Get started on Media Temple now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

1 TB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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 22% off of your first term
Get started on GoDaddy now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

500 GB SSD - 16 TB HDD (RAID-1)

Domain Name

New or Transfer

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

Although Media Temple is more expensive than most hosts, the company's managed VPS hosting is second to none from a performance perspective. With an incredible amount of hardware for the price and fully-managed virtualized servers, Media Temple offers serious VPS hosting for serious people.

In today’s online world, speed matters. Whether it’s website conversions or search engine exposure, how fast your site loads dictates a lot. That is where Media Temple’s VPS shines. The company's all-SSD servers, guaranteed resources, and instant scalability mean you are ready for anything.

Beyond straight speed, what you are truly paying for with Media Temple is reliability. The company boasts a ridiculous SLA that guarantees a 99.99% uptime, or less than an hour of downtime for the entire year.

We love ourselves some awesome modern hardware, but our favorite part about Media Temple has always been the team's support and luxurious managed services. At a fraction of a dedicated IT team, offering assistance by phone, chat, email, or Twitter, the company's award-winning support staff is standing by no matter the issue.

All-SSD servers, guaranteed resources, and auto-backups
1-click installations of hundreds of scripts and applications
Above-average 99.99% uptime guarantee
Choice of Plesk or cPanel plus root access
Managed services with performance and security monitoring
Get started on Media Temple now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

30 GB SSD - 600 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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

20 GB - 400 GB NVMe SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.7/5.0

Media Temple has long been one of our favorite web hosts for luxury managed hosting, and the company's WordPress offerings are no exception. If you value cutting-edge technology, do not overlook Media Temple. Having helped pioneer cloud technology, the company has taken its knowledge and applied it to an exceptional WordPress-focused plan.

Web developers will love Media Temple's fully integrated tools, such as one-click staging, site cloning, and standard Git integration. SSH, SFTP, and phpMyAdmin access are also appreciated additions. Everyone can appreciate the company's modern load-balanced, all-SSD hardware.

Media Temple’s interface is incredibly approachable and easy to use, and the company's support is truly second to none. A quick setup wizard gets you going and automated daily backups, core updates, and 24/7 uptime monitoring remove the stress of any maintenance.

Starting at $20.00 per month for two sites, Media Temple is a moderately priced managed WordPress host. With features comparable to other WordPress-specific packages elsewhere, the company's modern hardware and exception support make Media Temple a strong consideration for anyone serious about their website’s performance.

Picked as a top WordPress host among developers
Preview changes with custom staging environment
Automatic WordPress core updates
Blazing-fast servers, SSDs, and built-in caching
WP Easy Mode suggests themes and plugins
Get started on Media Temple now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

50 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

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

30 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ N/A

Media Temple does not currently offer this type of hosting. We would not recommend choosing this host for this hosting category.

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

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 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

Unlimited

Domain Name

New or Transfer

Media Temple vs. GoDaddy - Our Conclusion

Ryan Frankel Hosting Expert

“We tested Media Temple & GoDaddy — The winner is Media Temple!”

Media Temple pulled out all the stops today in this comparison. We find that its higher price tag is worth the modern hardware and redundant infrastructure. Users don’t need to worry about having enough space or speed when they choose Media Temple. But GoDaddy impressed us, too, for its well-rounded hosting plans that let users keep more of their hard-earned cash. The value this host brings to the table is undeniable. If you’re still unsure which web host is right for you, take a second look at our comparison.

Overall Rating

4.8/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit Media Temple »

Overall Rating

4.7/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit GoDaddy »

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 a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida, 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.