Stop me if you’ve heard this one: get shared hosting with unlimited disk, unlimited bandwidth, free domain, and it’s only $1/month from a Big Web Host.

Yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, there are deals where you can get very cheap shared hosting.  We’ve seen some incredible deals here (especially during our recent Black Friday event).  But they’re usually reasonable and you don’t feel like you’re buying stolen merchandise.

If you’re shopping for shared hosting, I’d recommend taking a look at our providers first, because a lot of the big web hosts operate from the same playbook: big, possibly deceptive promises that fall apart under close examination.

Let’s take a look.

Unlimited Disk

First, to state the obvious, there are limited number of silicon atoms in the universe, so…

But seriously, no one is going to give you truly unlimited disk for $10/month.  Or even. $100/month.  What you get is subject to a couple really big asterisks.  The first is that everything must be web-facing.  This one isn’t so bad, really – it’s to prevent people using their unlimited disk as backup storage.  But sometimes they require your web-facing content to be truly web-facing.  For example, if you upload a TB of encrypted .tar.gz files and you put it behind https, is that web-facing?  I mean, technically it is, but…

But the real catch is inodes.  Sure, your GBs are unlimited, but your inodes (roughly: quantity of files and metadata) is not.  A lot of times, what “unlimited disk” boils down to is “use as much as you want as long as we don’t think it’s unreasonable,” with that latter term frustratingly left undefined.

Unlimited Bandwidth (Transfer)

The fine print here is pretty simple.  Sure, transfer all you want.  We never bill for overages.  But we do cap your port speed and if you’re really serving a lot, we may cap it more.  So yeah, technically it is unlimited…it’s just that the rate of transfer limits it a lot.

Cheap Price…Sort Of

This one you see all over the place on pricing tables.  Wow, it’s only $1 per month…hmmm, what is this monthly/annual slider?  Oh.

And it’s not uncommon to see a very low price in all the banner ads, and then find out it’s for a three-year prepay.  Three years!  That’s a lifetime in the IT industry, and who knows if the host will still be around in 2029.

Free Domain

If you prepay for three years….ok, you can have a free domain.

Are renewals included?  Better check.

Our Easy to Use Control Panel

This is nearly always cPanel.  And while I’m not an admirer, a lot of people use it and it like it.  There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with cPanel.

But it’s also not something rare or differentiating.  It’s the same panel you’ll get at thousands of hosts.  Just because someone put a fresh skin on it doesn’t make something great.

Other Gotchas

If there are backups, are restores free?  You’d be surprised.

If the geography says “North America” will they tell you exactly where?  For shared hosting, you shouldn’t be that latency-sensitive but you have a right to know where your site will be hosted from.

Is 24×7 support truly 24×7?  Or is it lower-level customer service people on the weekend who will make you wait until business hours for anything other than a password reset?

If there is an SLA…what is it really good for?  If it’s a prorated refund, probably not much.  Let’s say you’re paying $5/month and your web site is down for a whole day.  You’ll get a whopping 17 cent credit on next month’s bill.

The Solution?

Shop on LowEndBox 😀

And:

• Read reviews on LowEndTalk, or ask for recommendations there.
• Don’t prepay for service well in advance.
• Using cPanel if you like it is a good plan because it’s easy to backup and switch hosts if you need to move.
• Look at what you need in terms of disk and bandwidth and buy something reasonable, not “unlimited everything” that you’ll never use (and wouldn’t be allowed to use anyway).

Good luck!

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.