Are unlimted hosting plans really unlimited?

There is nothing like unlimited in this world. And if you talk about specifically web hosting, i will say that "You get what you pay for".

Just imagine how can you imagine an Unlimited Hosting in $5 or $10 per month while having a dedicated server with limited resources (i.e. 1-2 GB ram, 250-400gb space) costs $125-$150 per month.

They do it by excessive overselling (sometimes putting more than 10000 sites on single server).

I have gone through various hosts in last 5-6 years and according to my opinion; even in unlimited hosting there are some hidden limits.
In my cases, if you cross 5-10 GB data or 100GB/month bandwidth or 3k-5k visitors per day, they simple suspend or close your account saying that you are using excessive server resources.

regards,
Manish Pandey
www.jetwave.com

If you need bandwidth and computing resources, you should go for dedicated server. Shared resources (bandwidth and computing) is not suitable for application that has high traffic and back-end processing.

You also need to check whether your bandwidth is limited to 10MB or 100MB up-link and whether it is dedicated 10MB/100MB or shared.

Regards,
Luke
www.borneosoft.com

No really. The assumption is that you will not use more than the average. Let assume you want to dump the entire google apps onto the so called "unlimited hosting", what do you think will happen? One, they will start looking for a way to charging you more, or block you out all together. Most host can afford to say unlimited because they target the small business, which on avarqage will use a maximum of about 100-250MB and less than 10000MB in bandwidth. That is manageable.. hence the unlimited hosting. Space and Bandwidth will always have a limit pass a certain point..

I realize I am a bit late on this one but I cannot resist answering it. :)

The simple answer to the question is "NO!"

If that were not the case, companies/sites like twitter/facebook/yahoo with huge resource requirements would simply take up one of these $5-$10 "unlimited plans" instead of investing in hundreds of servers, people/data centers! The limit and cost dynamics of the same have already been covered by most as above.

I suppose providers continue to claim this as it seems to sell for them. However, at some point, the industry needs to do some self regulation and resist the temptation of pushing out these offers.

Cheers!