Kinsta vs GoDaddy (2021): Which Web Hosting Is Better?

As one of the oldest names in the domain name and web hosting industry, GoDaddy continues to make itself relevant with attractive hosting plans and related services with minimal impact on your wallet. Today we compare its performance with one of the new kids on the block, Kinsta, which is easily one of the top WordPress hosting providers currently. Which web hosting should you choose for your site? Check out our comparison below.

Kinsta vs GoDaddy Web Hosting Comparison Chart

Name	Kinsta	GoDaddy
Pricing	Check Pricing at Kinsta.com	Check Pricing at GoDaddy.com
Traffic Tiers	Starter: 20,000/mo Pro: 40,000/mo Business: 100k to 600k/mo Enterprise: 1m to 3m/mo	Starter: n/a Economy: n/a Deluxe: n/a Ultimate: n/a
Storage Tiers	Starter: 10 GB Pro: 20 GB Business: 30-60 GB Enterprise: 100-250 GB	Starter: 30 GB Economy: 100 GB Deluxe: Unlimited Ultimate: Unlimited
Monthly Bandwidth	Starter: 50 GB Pro: 100 GB Business: 200-500 GB Enterprise: 500-1000 GB	Starter: Unmetered Economy: Unmetered Deluxe: Unmetered Ultimate: Unmetered
Websites	Starter: 1 Pro: 2 Business: 5-40 Enterprise: 60-150	Starter: 1 Economy: 1 Deluxe: Unlimited Ultimate: Unlimited
Hosting Interface	MyKinsta	cPanel
Content Delivery Network	KeyCDN	GoDaddy CDN
Free SSL Certificates	Yes	Varies
Staging Area	Yes	Varies
Free Site Backup	Yes	Paid
Free Site Restore	Yes	Varies
Backup Retention	14-30 days	30 days
Free Domain	No	Economy and up
Free Email	No	Economy and up
Site Transfer	Yes	Limited
Multisite Support	Pro and up	Deluxe and up
Customer Support	24/7 chat and ticket	24/7 chat, phone, ticket
Money Back Guarantee	30 days	30 days

Features

Kinsta specializes in managed WordPress hosting while GoDaddy has flexible hosting options.

Fundamentally, Kinsta and GoDaddy are very different web hosting providers. Kinsta solely focuses on managed WordPress hosting services, and this specialization pays off in optimized performance, expert support and speed. In comparison, GoDaddy isn’t WordPress-specific, so you can use Magento and other platforms, and they also provide more traditional hosting such as shared, VPS and dedicated types.

Another crucial difference between Kinsta and GoDaddy is that Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform exclusively and every site it hosts is in an isolated container so no resources are shared at all. This has tangible benefits in site response times and stability, and it’s available on every plan. Meanwhile, GoDaddy only offers comparable performance in their premium plans or via add-ons that cost extra.

Kinsta includes free premium migrations, SSH access, SSL certificates, and premium CDN in every plan. These are available on GoDaddy depending on the plan you choose. Nearly all require the more expensive plans though and/or have additional fees, so the cheaper plans only have the most basic features. GoDaddy does provide free email and domain (for a year) for non-Starter plans, which can be considerable savings for small website owners.

Like most web hosts, GoDaddy provides cPanel for Linux-based hosting plans, and Plesk for Windows-based sites. However, neither are available on their managed WordPress hosting accounts, which can be an issue if you need control panel access regularly or at a critical time. Kinsta takes a different approach here by building their own user portal called MyKinsta. It’s specially designed for WordPress sites and contains nearly all of the relevant settings you might need to customize and optimize your sites.

Speed

Kinsta is faster than GoDaddy.

Kinsta’s optimized infrastructure and resource isolation ensures fast loading speed for its hosted sites, even during peak times. Moreover, with 24 data centers around the world as well as 34 POPs for its KeyCDN, site visitors from any location will find that pages load faster if hosted at Kinsta. In the 11 geographical locations tested, Kinsta came out ahead each time.

To simulate how each host handles heavy traffic, load impact testing 1 to 1,000 concurrent users in 15 minutes showed that GoDaddy experiences an increase in response time over the period though both are excellent in encountering no errors. Load storm tests (see above image) that illustrate actual real user visits, however, produced far more errors on GoDaddy while Kinsta was noticeably faster on both peak and average response times.

As mentioned, Kinsta includes a premium CDN, KeyCDN, in every plan. This ensures visitors from anywhere in the world will experience fast loading times even if the data center you chose (yes, you can tell Kinsta which region to host your website) is on the other side of the globe. GoDaddy only provides a CDN in their most expensive plans.

Reliability

Kinsta performs regular uptime monitoring unlike GoDaddy.

Both Kinsta and GoDaddy have SLAs of 99.9% uptime, so you should very rarely experience any downtime in a year. Kinsta takes a step further with regular uptime monitoring: they perform uptime checks every 2 minutes so they can take action immediately.

As trusted web hosts, Kinsta and GoDaddy employ strong security measures to keep its hosted sites safe from malicious attacks. They use strong firewalls, DDoS protection, GeoIP blocking and more. It’s worth noting that Kinsta includes all security features in every plan, while GoDaddy charges extra for their full suite of website security plans.

Moreover, Kinsta has automated daily backups, self-healing technology, and free hack-fix guarantee that are all inclusive in pricing. While you can manually backup your sites on GoDaddy, automated backups cost extra.

Finally, Kinsta is well-known for their excellent customer support. They only offer a live chat and ticket system to ensure faster fixes and clear communication. Since they specialize in WordPress, their support team are well-equipped to handle any concern. You can expect a response within 2 minutes of contacting them. GoDaddy has phone and live chat support, though response time is longer and some requests, such as configuring applications and installing SSL certificates, aren’t covered. They offer premium WordPress support for a fee.

Plans and Pricing

GoDaddy offers more affordable plans than Kinsta.

It should be apparent that Kinsta is ahead of GoDaddy in every department, and that’s reflected on their pricing too. Kinsta charges a lot more than GoDaddy; in fact, all of GoDaddy’s shared hosting plans cost less than Kinsta’s lowest Starter plan. Moreover, with unlimited websites, storage, databases and bandwidth, GoDaddy’s shared hosting looks a lot more appealing than Kinsta’s comparably lower figures.

However, with shared hosting, you’ll still be sharing a server with other sites, which can impact performance. Kinsta guarantees resource isolation along with a host of included benefits and features within its pricing. GoDaddy further offers Business and VPS hosting plans for eCommerce, enterprise and other high-traffic websites, which are more in line with Kinsta’s mid and higher tier plans.

Also, be well aware that GoDaddy offers promo pricing only for the first term. These will renew at the higher standard rates, so don’t be surprised when your hosting bill jumps up in a few years.

Verdict

Kinsta is better for high traffic sites while GoDaddy is better suited for growing ones.

Kinsta

Better for bigger businesses

GoDaddy

Better for growing websites

Kinsta outperforms GoDaddy in this comparison, which is as expected given their pricing difference. You receive numerous features and benefits that will typically cost extra at GoDaddy or else is only available in limited fashion. Businesses that rely heavily on their websites for leads or revenue will appreciate how fast their sites are on Kinsta even during heavy traffic. Still, Kinsta only hosts WordPress sites, so you’re out of luck if you’re setting up a different platform.

GoDaddy is much more welcoming to new website owners who simply want to start and build up their online presence. With affordable plans and flexible hosting solutions, GoDaddy offers better value if you’re not dealing with high traffic loads yet. Note that some services will cost extra though, and you’ll likely need upgrades once your site grows over time.

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