HostPapa Vs GoDaddy

So you have narrowed it down to Papa and Daddy? HostPapa (review) and GoDaddy (review) are two very well known web hosting companies in the industry but they are very different so let’s have a deeper look each of them.

HostPapa made a name for itself as a leader in the green hosting industry. On the other hand, GoDaddy became very popular with their numerous publicity stunts and appearances during major events such as the Superbowl.

HostPapa has a single one-size-fits-all hosting plan while GoDaddy also offers blog hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers. GoDaddy is also one of the largest domain name registrar around.

I’ve actually got an account with both web hosts for quite some time so let’s see how they compare side-by-side.

HostPapa Overview

HostPapa is a young hosting company founded in 2006 who has grown very rapidly as one of the best green web host. This privately-owned firm as established offices and data centers in Niagara Falls, NY and Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Lately they have opened a third data center in London UK, providing green web hosting to Europe.

HostPapa is powered by 100% Green Renewable Energy.   From their servers, to their office computers, to lights, faxes and phones, HostPapa provides reliable, quality and affordable services through the use of 100% Wind Generated Power.

HostPapa offers a single hosting plan based on Linux with cPanel and PHP / MySQL support.

GoDaddy Overview

GoDaddy is part of the Go Daddy Group which also includes companies such as Wild West Domains, a reseller of domains and domains-related products and services, Domains By Proxy, a private domain registration service, Starfield Technologies, a research and development affiliate and Blue Razor Domains, a membership-based discount registrar.

Founded by Bob Parsons in 1997, GoDaddy is now offering a complete line of services from domain name registration, shared hosting, virtual dedicated servers and dedicated servers. Most of their hosting plans are available on both Linux and Windows plateforms.

GoDaddy Vs HostPapa: Web Hosting Features

Of course if you’re looking for a VPS or a dedicated server, don’t read further: out of these two web hosts, only GoDaddy provides these services.

Disk Space and Bandwidth

While HostPapa offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth, GoDaddy has chosen to put a limit on these features. The Economy Plan does not offer enough disk space in my opinion. If you’re going to host some videos or large files, expect to upgrade to a bigger plan eventually. But with GoDaddy’s Deluxe and Premium Plans, you should have plenty of room for your website.

Scripting Languages

Except for GoDaddy’s Economy Plan, both web hosts support the standard scripting languages: PHP, Perl and CGI. A little advantage goes to GoDaddy here for offering Ruby On Rails support. MySQL is the only database server offered here but that’s enough for most web applications out there.

Website Management

HostPapa earns many points here for offering cPanel, the best control panel for Linux hosting. It has so many features yet it’s so easy to use. It allows you to perform most website management tasks such as managing email accounts, creating databases, downloading backups, etc.

GoDaddy on the other hand provides you with their own Simple Control Panel that’s not-so-simple. First of all, there are three control panels: one for your customer account, another one to manage your website and a third one to install web applications (ie.: GoDaddy Hosting Connection). Going back and forth between these control panels is very confusing as windows are popping up one in front of another.

GoDaddy is also trying too hard to shove additional products down your throat by loading their customer’s control panel with tons of flashy banner ads and whatnot. This makes it very confusing to use.

I also found GoDaddy’s control panel to be very slow. Not only slow to navigate through but also slow to perform some tasks. For instance, creating a MySQL database will take from 5 to 10 minutes once the task is queued. With cPanel, creating a MySQL database is instant.

HostPapa's Control Panel

GoDaddy's Control Panel

Both web hosts provide you with an automated script installer. HostPapa is using the ever-popular Fantastico Deluxe whereas GoDaddy provides you with their own GoDaddy Hosting Connection.

A closer look into HostPapa’s Fantastico Deluxe setup shows that their are over 50 scripts to install. Some of the most popular applications include:

• Blogs: b2evolution, Nucleus and Wordpress.
• Content Management Systems: Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, phpNuke and Typo3.
• Customer Relationship Softwares: Help Center Live, osTicket and PHP SupportTickets.
• Forums and Discussion Boards: phpBB and SMF.
• ECommerce / Shopping Carts: CubeCart, osCommerce and Zen Cart.
• Image Galleries: Coppermine Photo Gallery and 4Images Gallery.
• Polls and Surveys: Advanced Poll and LimeSurvey.
• Project Management: dotProject and PHProjekt.
• Site Builders: SohoLaunch Pro Edition and Templates Express.
• Wikis: TikiWiki and PhpWiki.

Of course there are a lot more applications I haven’t mentionned here but all in all I think this is a great bundle. All those scripts can be installed within a few clicks using HostPapa’s Fantastico Deluxe.

GoDaddy also provides your with a nice set of scripts that can be installed easily. Some of the most popular scripts include:

• Advertising: OpenX and Noah’s Classified.
• Blogs: Wordpress, Geeklog and Serendipity.
• Content Management Systems: Drupal, Joomla, Mambo and Nucleus.
• ECommerce / Shopping Carts: osCommerce and ZenCart.
• Image Galleries: Coppermine Photo Gallery and 4Images.
• Message Boards / Forums: phpBB, Vanilla Forum and Simple Machines Forum.
• Project Management: dotProject and phpCollab.
• Wikis: MediaWiki, PmWiki and TWiki.

Website Builder

If you don’t have a lot of HTML skills and knowledge, you will be happy to use HostPapa’s SohoLauch Pro Edition. It is a great website builder that allow you to create and maintain a professional website easily. You get to choose from hundreds of free website templates and customize it with your own logo.

GoDaddy’s site builder is not included with their hosting plans however you can buy the Website Tonight service separately. However this service cost almost as much as your hosting plan so basically you’re doubling your web hosting costs. I haven’t tried it so far but it seems very easy to use.

Customer Support

HostPapa’s customer support is very friendly and professional. You can reach them by phone on weekdays from 8AM to 10PM and on weekends from 9AM to 6PM. Other than that, you can still get support 24×7 through their support ticket system.

I found GoDaddy’s support to be very good so far (despite a lot of negative reviews). They went as far as calling me back to make sure I was satisfied with their service. They are always willing to improve and your feedback is actually important to them. The only downside is that they don’t have a toll free number.

HostPapa Vs GoDaddy: The Conclusion

I have been hosting a blog on my GoDaddy account for over 6 months now and unfortunately I am about to move it to my HostPapa account. The reason being that their servers are too slow and sometimes I get timeouts when I publish a new post.

The other thing is that GoDaddy has “hidden fees” everywhere. Everytime you need some additional features you gotta pay for it. For instance you’d think that a simple email forwarder would be included with their hosting plan but you only get a couple of these and then you have to pay to have additional ones.

That said, unless you need a VPS or a dedicated server, go with HostPapa. Just use one of our HostPapa Coupon Codes and you’ll get up to 3 months free!

HostPapa

• Pros: fast and reliable servers, data centers in Canada, USA and the UK, great control panel, green web hosting, unlimited hosting, toll free phone number
• Cons: no 24×7 phone support (you can still contact them by phone from 8am to 10pm), no Ruby On Rails support

GoDaddy

• Pros: short-term contracts, cheap hosting packages, 24×7 phone support, Ruby On Rails support
• Cons: no toll free number, slow control panel and web servers, confusing control panel

Links

• HostPapa.com (USA), HostPapa.ca (Canada) and HostPapa.co.uk (United Kingdom)
• HostPapa Review
• HostPapa Coupon Codes - Get Up To 3 Months Free!
• GoDaddy Website
• GoDaddy Review
• GoDaddy Coupon Codes

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