While I have had limited experience with web hosting, I have a solid amount of knowledge about it as a result of various experiences 13 years ago, where I helped a webmaster find a new host as his site was experiencing several downtimes that lasted multiple days. As a result of my research, I gained a lot of knowledge on this topic at a very young age. There are four main types of web hosting:
Shared Hosting- Hosting where your website is sharing the server with hundreds to thousands of other websites and competing for the same resources
Reseller Hosting- Shared hosting where you have the ability to resell your web space to other clients
VPS- Also known as a Virtual Private Server, this is in between shared and dedicated hosting, where you're sharing the server with other customers, but are given guaranteed resources and root access. Because of this, unlike shared and reseller hosting, VPSes can be either managed or unmanaged
Dedicated Server- This is when your site or account is the only one on the server, hence "dedicated", as the server is dedicated to your site. Like the VPS, you are given guaranteed resources ad root access and it can also be managed or unmanaged
But shared hosting often advertises "unlimited disk space" and "unlimited bandwidth"!
This is overselling! In order to stay competitive in the hosting industry, hosting companies advertise these plans in order to gain more customers, while loading hundreds to thousands of websites on the same server, as most websites are very small in size. Have you ever seen an unlimited hard drive? Or an unlimited bandwidth pipe? Internet plans are also known for advertising unlimited bandwidth, yet your speeds usually get throttled after a certain amount. It's no different in web hosting, except busy sites tend to get suspended and forced to upgrade to VPS or Dedicated Server because of "using too much CPU". Because you're sharing the resources with many other websites, it's common sense to not expect to start the next Google on a $5 per month hosting plan! Here is a general consensus of when you are starting to outgrow a shared hosting account:
Users online- Around 50 online at a given time consistently is the basic maximum you can expect in shared hosting without problems, anything past that is in the range for VPS.
Disk Space- Around 10 GB is the limit for shared hosting, which is still a TON of space. Reseller accounts offer more as the purpose of them IS to resell web space and not host your personal sites.
Bandwidth- Anything past 100 GB is VPS range. 100 GB is a LOT of bandwidth.
While it is possible to use more than 10 GB of space or 100 GB of bandwidth on a shared hosting account, it is quite rare, because at that point you'll already likely have begun started using a ton of CPU power. Shared hosting is technically only good for personal sites, small businesses, hobby sites, fan sites, and official websites of lesser known celebrities. I know all this because at that age, I looked up every site I know on domaintools.com, just to find out where it was hosted and what type of hosting it was on!
Reputable hosts and the truth about "top 10 hosts" lists
The "top 10 hosts" lists throughout the internet are a major deception. Why? These hosts pay for these reviews because of their affiliate programs. If you look at reputable web hosting review sites, you'll notice that these "top 10" hosts are often the subject of bad reviews. Some recommended review sites:
http://webhostingreviews.com
http://webhostingtalk.com
Another common theme is that most of the poorly reviewed hosts that are featured on "top 10" lists are also those that advertise unlimited space and bandwidth for a low cost. This is because thousands of sites o a server can overload the server, slowing the sites down and increasing the risk of downtime. There are exceptions to the rule, but there is a reason the saying "you get what you pay for" is so popular. It's basically impossible for a company to make a profit selling unlimited space and bandwidth, especially at under $10 a month, without putting thousands of sites on the same server. Disk space and bandwidth cost money!
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