Alternatives to GoDaddy?
What do people think of GoDaddy? Are they a good default registrar for little guys? I'm just trying to register a few names for now. If not, who else would you recommend?
Many thanks,
JDelage
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I don't understand, you asked for an alternative registrar and accepted the answer of someone saying: for registrar use GoDaddy, for hosting use other companies. Why? – J. Pablo Fernández 14 years ago
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@Pablo: You misunderstood the question. He is NOT asking for an alternative to GoDaddy. He is asking what others think of Godaddy. And if it's not a good choice, can they recommend another option. The answer he accepted is perfectly reasonable. – Zuly Gonzalez 14 years ago
4 Answers
I'm speaking from experience with multiple, multiple hosting providers, including GoDaddy. I originally started everything GoDaddy. I mainly found them because they were probably the first name I found when I searched for a hosting provider, and they are by far the largest. Even though they are the largest, that doesn't mean they are the best. I have been a GoDaddy customer for nearly 10 years, and I'm overall pretty dissatisfied with the service. Why haven't I switched you ask? I did. I use GoDaddy to manage my domain names, and other hosting providers to manage web hosting.
In terms of web hosting, GoDaddy has good reliability (>99%), but so does every other provider. They offer decent pricing, but you can usually find better deals elsewhere. It wasn't until recently that GoDaddy started offering unlimited plans. From my experience, their customer support is below average. GoDaddy also keeps a unbelievable tight hold on everything that you do, and force you to administer your entire profile through their hosting control panel that runs at an unbelievably slow pace. I like to feel that I have control of my web hosting, and I can't get this with GoDaddy.
As far as recommended hosting providers, I would recommend a few. You have the other big names like hostmonster, dreamhost, hostgator, and the list goes on and on. The few I mentioned are pretty good. I've been using a service called Arvixe for the past few months, and they seem really good so far. Amazing reliability and also I have complete control over my solution. I can work completely from my machine without having to work through an abysmally slow interface. The service is awesome, and the pricing packages are competitively priced.
So, that was my perspective. YMMV, but I hope it helps.
I'm not sure that Godaddy has ever been "the registrar of choice" for anyone. There are hundreds of registrars out there.
The important question is what is important to you as the customer-to-be of a registrar. Ask us that. "I'm looking for a registrar that does X Y and Z." If you can't specify, then don't worry about it and pick one at random.
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Fair point - I edited the question. Thank you. – J Delage 14 years ago
I have had no issues with GoDaddy, other than price.
And I get around price issues by searching for the domain with BustAName.com, which enables me to get any domain at about $7.50 instead of $11 (GoDaddy's normal rate).
I have been using Namesecure.com as the domain registrar for all my domains, always.
I have about 20 and I only use this company to park the domain names, nothing else. Never had any problems.
There are only about 7 .CO domain names that I bought a few months ago in GoDaddy because they were not available anywhere else. Namesecure.com now offers .CO domain names as well.
