Hosting spec sheets are a genre of creative writing. A decoder ring: 🔍
- "Unlimited" storage/bandwidth = limited by an Acceptable Use Policy you didn't read. There's always a cap (inodes, CPU seconds, "fair use"). Unlimited is a marketing word, not a technical one.
- vCPU = a share of a core, not a dedicated one. "4 vCPU" on an oversold node can be slower than 2 vCPU on an honest one. Steal time tells the truth.
- "SSD" — ask if it's NVMe (fast) or older SATA SSD. Big real-world difference.
- "Up to X% faster" — faster than what? Usually their own worst old plan.
- "99.9% uptime" — that's 8.7 hours of downtime/year and often excludes "scheduled" maintenance. Read the SLA's fine print and remedies.
- "Free CDN" — sometimes a genuine CDN, sometimes a checkbox that does very little.
The meta-skill: every superlative is a question, not a fact. Ask "compared to what, and measured how?"
What's the most misleading spec you've been burned by? Let's build a shared BS-decoder. 🧾
