The rules of hosting are changing rapidly. It would be nice to compile a list of the top Drupal hosting companies without regard to space or bandwidth. These are secondary and often times unobtainable due to limits described in often vague and hard to find Acceptable Usage Policies (AUP) and Resource Usage Policies (RUP). It will take some serious detective work to actually get hard numbers and although I thought their numbers we're low, I must give Site5 credit for even posting hard numbers! Their RUP is somwhat hidden but it definitely has useful information about how far you can go before you can expect the dreaded "Site terminated for excessive CPU usage" message. If we all work together and share what we know we could have a valuable resource here.
Rules
Actual data about CPU resource and MySQL query limits and memory usage. The ability to edit php.ini files should be included in the post. Be as thorough as possible, and let's try to keep it neat and tidy. Optimal would be 1 post per host with all information. I don't really want a discussion about this and that host doing this or that. Let's use Site5's info as a goal of the info we can try to acquire from the hosts via e-mail or phone. Most hosts will not have this detailed of info on the web. We could just post something like this about the hosts. Notice how I shortened and compiled the info from their page. If their RUP or AUP with the data is available we could put a link with the data. Probably should just post it anywhere for people to view even if it doesn't include this data.
Example.

Hosting Company:Site5

Resource Usage Policies
Type of hosting:Shared, Reseller
Clustered,Grid,or ?:NO

Resource Usage Restrictions

Processes

16 MB of RAM.
15 seconds of CPU time.
Open files < 64.
No core dumps.
simultaneous processes < 5.
No fork bombs
No service or daemon

Database Restrictions

15 >concurrent MySQL connections.
2 GB of disk space.
queries < 3,000 per hour.
changes (insert/update/delete) < 1,000 per hour.
No remote

Files and Directories

inodes in an account < 25,000.
directory < 2,500 immediate child files. This includes subdirectories but not their files.

Web and Email

Apache connections < 50.
Web processes should not fork or spawn subprocesses.
Files in excess of 10 MB should not be sent via email.
Processes should not send outbound mail to more than 25 recipients at any given time.
The maximum number of members per mailing list is 1,500.

This would make a better WIKI. Does Drupal.org have a WIKI. Maybe it could be a handbook?

Thank you everybody. I think if enough of us just do a couple different hosts, we may be able to help solve one of the major obstacles of Drupal - Getting a HOST!

Comments

JohnForsythe’s picture

Site5 is pretty much ruling out Drupal with those database restrictions.

If you're logged in as a user, Drupal regularly makes more than 100 queries per page load. So that means your site can serve up about 30 page views per hour before you'd hit the 3000 query limit! That's some pretty bad stuff :\

As for AN Hosting, (you can see my review of them here), their Terms of Service are pretty clean cut. Basically, the only limitation is on CPU/RAM usage. If you're constantly using more than 10% of the server's resources, they reserve the right to suspend the account and refund your money.

Realistically, if you're pushing 10% on an 8-core high-end webserver, you're either doing something wrong, or you have tens of thousands of hits/day and should be investing in a VPS.

--
John Forsythe
Blamcast - Custom Drupal Themes and more...

kbahey’s picture

More and more hosts are limiting resources.

Here is an example from Hosting Zoom (see section 8).

They have a daemon that would kill any process that violates this limit.

This can affect cron, which cannot run to completion. Also terminates mysqldumps prematurely, and more.
--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com

--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba

buckmanhands’s picture

Here is what i know about

iPower

50,000 DB queries an hour
My site get over 1000 visitors a day and it is a huge site, people sit there ofr hours, I had to create an array of 40 DB users before I did not max it out regularly. They were ok with that. Thier support sucks though.

1,000 php e-mails an hour, but no matter your settings, it will connect and send them one at a time. It takes about 40 minutes to send the 1000.

No mention of max resources.

siteground.com

No db query limit

Customer's use of disk space

Customer's account disk space is limited in accordance with the Customer's hosting plan. The maximum allowed space for shared Linux Hosting is 750,000 MB. The following disc space limitations for different file types are also applicable:

1. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to music, video or other multimedia files including but not limited to .avi, .mp3, .mpeg, .jpg, .gif files
2. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to any archive files and disk images files containing the complete contents and structure of a data storage medium. These files include but are not limited to .rar, .zip, .tar, .gzip, .iso, .nrg, .ccd, .img, .sub, bin/.cue files.
3. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to databases dumps including but not limited to .sql files
4. NO more than 5,000 MB of a Linux shared hosting account can be allocated to Executable files and all other files which are the result of compiling a program. These include but are not limited to .exe, .pdf, .psd files.

Customer's use of email service

The Customer should use the email and other related services in full compliance with the terms below:

1. Each Customer's account is allowed to send a maximum of 400 emails per hour. Any account that exceeds this limitation is endangering the overall server performance.
2. Each email sent by the Customer should have NO more than 20 recipients. Sending a single email to more than 20 recipients simultaneously is endangering the overall server performance.
3. The use of email clients with IMAP protocol is allowed for mailboxes with a maximum size up to 200MB. Any use of IMAP with a bigger mailbox is endangering the overall server performance.
4. The use of email clients with POP3 protocol is allowed for mailboxes with a maximum size up to 100MB. Any use of POP3 with a bigger mailbox is endangering the overall server performance.
5. The Company allows up to 100 checks per hour for a POP3 mailbox. Any use of POP3 service to check a mailbox more often than 100 times per hour is endangering the overall server performance.

Customer's Use of Shared Server CPU

The Customer account should NOT use more than 10% of the shared server CPU for a period longer than 5 seconds. Any account that is using more than 10% of the shared server CPU for more than 5 seconds is endangering the overall shared server performance.

Customer use of Server Memory

The Customer account should NOT use more than 65MB of the server memory resources at any given time. Any account that is using more than 65 MB of the shared server memory is endangering the overall shared server performance.

Other Customer's account limitations

The limitations listed below apply to each Customer?s account and failure by the Customer to comply with them will endanger the overall server performance:

1. No more than 20 simultaneous processes will be executed by the Customer's account at any given time.
2. No Cron Jobs with execution period shorter than 30 minutes will be executed from the Customer's account.
3. No more than 10 simultaneous connections from a single IP to the Customer's account are allowed.

The Customer agrees that the Company has the sole right to decide what constitutes a violation of the terms for resources use listed above as well as what is the appropriate severity of any corrective action to be applied. If no revision of the decision is requested by the Customer in 7 calendar days, the Company decision became binding and final.

The Customer has the right to request a revision of the Company decision for any resource abuse case only once. If this request is received by the Company in 7 calendar days, after the corrective action has been taken, the Company will revise the case including the additional information provide by the Customer. The decision of the Company in such a case is binding and final, and cannot be a subject of a further change.

The Customer understands and agrees that the Company can terminate each account that violates the terms of account resource use and cannot be responsible for data loss in such cases.

The Customer understands and agrees that in case of re-activating of a Customer's account suspended for violation of terms of account resource a re-activation fee of $50.00 will be applied.

Webhostingpad.com

From experience I have found that they have a max db query limit of 50,000 per hour.
However you can set up a db array of users to randomly choose to connect with that will bypass this to a certail extent.
From their TOS:
Server Resources
Any Web site that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given the option to reduce the resources used to an acceptable level, or upgrade its service to a Dedicated Server plan. WebHostingPad will be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level. Any Web Hosting account deemed to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior notice.

Ride your bike---It's good for you and our Mother.

DIMSKK’s picture

Ipower is good till now for my site. They allow you to edit php.ini file and you can set php memory limit to 128MB mximum. Maximum 75,000 db queries per hour are allowed.