Shared Hosting Accounts What Can They Handle?

The answer is 'it depends'. Dynamic websites (WordPress, joomla, drupal) use more resources than static websites (html), and therefore can't handle as much traffic before you hit the invisible shared hosting wall.

Even WordPress sites can vary dramatically depending on what the site does and how many queries it runs.

You can get more mileage out of a shared hosting account by using a CDN (content delivery network) service such as MaxCDN to reduce server load.

Finally, a lot depends on when a website gets the traffic. If a site gets 500 visits a day, but 400 happen during a crunch time - like a restaurant site between 6pm and 7pm, then a shared server might not work.

On the other hand, a site that gets 500 visits throughout the day will probably be fine on a shared server.

In general I'd say a static site on a shared hosting account can handle several thousand visits a day, whereas a dynamic site I'd cap at 500 visits a day. Some hosts won't even like that many. I had a Bluehost account that was getting throttled at only 400 visits a day.

I hope that helps!

Go for reseller hosting.

The answer is "not much"

If you are VERY lucky they can handle a single, low traffic wordpress blog...but add a few plugins, scripts etc...and you will get problems. Don't even think about anything like autoblogs....or blogs where you do remote post via XMLRPC or similar.

thanks for the posts so far, please keep em coming.

Shared hosting is ideal, in my opinion. I run about 20 sites on my shared hosting account through HostGator which is only costing me $9.95/month. Not bad at all.

It also depends on the shared host and their caps and restrictions. You will find that most "unlimited" plans mean that you have unlimited access to reasonable usage. If you start to breach their acceptable levels, you can see resources limited to your account or a friendly e-mail suggesting you look for a more robust solution!

What is nice about a shared host is that the price is cheap and you can use it while you develop your site/business. At the point you start to see response times less than the optimal that you want you can invest in a better host at that time. For most restaurants when someone is going to see what is on their menu, they aren't going to be too worried about waiting an extra second or two to see the menu.

I would go for a VPS at least. My main concern would be that I would lose visitors because of the lack of resources..Leaseweb.com provides pretty cheap dedicated and virtual servers.