| Rank | Provider | Compare | Inodes | Starting price | Disk space | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Read Review | Unlimited | $2.59/mo | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 2 |  | Read Review | 800 000 | $0.99/mo | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 3 |  | Read Review | 600 000 | $3.92/mo | Unlimited | Visit Host |
| 5 | 
| Review soon | 600 000 | $4.10/mo | 50 GB | Visit Host |
Disclosure: if you purchase through any links on this web page, I earn referral fees from partners. These fees do not influence my recommendations.
#1: DreamHost Inodes (unlimited)
DreamHost is the only unlimited inodes web hosting provider on our list. Even their introductory Starter plan, which starts at $2.59 per month, has no Inode limit or restrictions.
DreamHost has a slew of other advantages, including free website backups, an inviting and beginner-friendly user interface, and the best money-back guarantee in the business.
If you’re looking for affordable hosting with no Inode limit, this is it.
The only downside to their cheapest plan is that it doesn’t include free email; you’ll need to upgrade to their “Unlimited” plan, which starts at $4.95/mo., if you need an email address under your own domain. See our DreamHost review for more.
Starter plan highlights:
- Starting price: $2.59/mo.
- Inodes: no limit
- Price negotiable: no
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: 50 GB
- Data transfer: unlimited
- Control panel: custom
- Money-back guarantee: 97 days
- Live chat: 5:30 am to 9:30 PM PT
#2: Hostinger Inodes (3,200,000)
The number of Inodes Hostinger allows on their Business plan is a whopping 3.2 million. Even their cheapest Starter plan leaves most competitors in the dust with its 800,000 maximum Inodes.
Despite their incredible prices, Hostinger’s shared hosting plans include regular free backups and malware scans.
An overall excellent hosting company, assuming you don’t mind the storage limits.
Business plan highlights:
- Starting price: $2.89/mo.
- Negotiable prices: yes
- Websites allowed: unlimited
- Storage: 30 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: custom hPanel
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Live chat: 24/7
- Hostinger shared hosting review
#3: A2 Hosting Inodes (600,000)
A2 Hosting’s shared plans boast a 600k Inode limit. The main difference between WP and Shared hosting at A2 is that the latter is much cheaper and comes with unmetered storage.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $3.92/mo.
- Negotiable prices: no
- Websites allowed: one
- Storage: unlimited
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 live chat
- A2 shared hosting review
#4: Namecheap Inodes (300,000 / 600,000)
Their cheapest ($1.30/mo.) plan comes with 300k Inodes, but their most expensive ($4.10/mo.) plan comes with 600k Inodes.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $1.30/mo.
- Inodes: 300,000 (600,000 on the larger plan)
- Websites allowed: three
- Storage: 20 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Email accounts: Yes
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 Live Chat
#5: PowWeb Inodes (unlimited – see comment)
Officially, PowWeb does not impose an Inode limit. However, some users have reported that when the total number of files on their hosting server exceeded 50,000 – 100.000, they were contacted by PowWeb staff and asked to remove some of their files.
These reports are anecdotal, so we are leaving PowWeb on this list for now. See our PowWeb review for more details about the quality of their service, as it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Worth noting is the fact that they offer one of the cheapest hosting plans with unlimited websites allowed.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $3.88/mo.
- Inodes: no limit (see comment above)
- Websites allowed: unlimited
- Storage: unlimited
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: vDeck
- Money-back guarantee: 30 days
- Support: 24/7 live chat
WordPress hosting with unlimited Inodes / high Inode limits:
| Rank | Provider | Compare | Inodes | Starting price | Disk Space | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 
| Read Review | Unlimited | $29.16/ mo. | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 2 | 
| Read Review | Unlimited | $20.83 / mo. | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 3 | | Review soon | 600 000 | $11.99 / mo. | 10 GB | Visit Host |
| 4 |  | Read Review | 450 000 | $11.99 / mo. | 30 GB | Visit Host |
WPX Hosting (unlimited Inodes)
WPX is one of the top WP hosting providers around and we highly recommend them to anyone planning to host 4-5 websites (if you’re looking to host just one or two sites, there are more affordable options out there).
They excel in all areas including server performance, live chat support quality, transparency, security, and ease of use. On top of that, they provide pro-rated refunds (refund on unused subscription months).
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $20.83/mo.
- Inodes: unlimited
- Negotiable prices: no
- WP sites allowed: five
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: 100 GB
- Control panel: custom-built
- Support: superb 24/7 live chat
- WPX hosting review
SiteGround (450,000 Inodes)
Please note that the 450,000 limit applies only to SiteGround’s largest WordPress plan (GoGeek) – their basic plan comes with a limit of 150,000, which is an industry-standard.
Siteground is one of our top-recommended hosts of all time: their support is second to none, website load times and performance match those of far more expensive providers, and their prices are competitive – they are among hosts with the cheapest annual plans.
GoGeek plan highlights:
- Starting price: $11.95/mo.
- Inodes: 450,000
- WP sites allowed: unlimited
- Storage: 30 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Support: superior 24/7 live chat
- SiteGround WordPress hosting review
WP Engine Inodes (unlimited)
WP Engine is another WP host that offers unlimited Inodes. If you read our WP Engine review, you’ll learn that while the quality of their service is solid, they are far too expensive to be recommendable – WPX and SiteGround are almost always better choices.
Still, they have no Inode limit. offer great server performance and generous storage (10 GB for a single website is a lot), and are one of the hosts with the longest money-back guarantees. So we’re including them here.
Basic plan highlights:
- Starting price: $29.16/mo.
- Inodes: unlimited
- Negotiable prices: no
- WP sites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: 50 GB
- Control panel: custom-built
- Support: 24/7 live chat
A2 Hosting (600,000 Inodes)
While expensive, A2 Hosting is one of the best providers for hosting a high-traffic WordPress site (100,000 to 150,000 visitors per month). Plus, they among the affordable hosts that allow you to restore your website from their automatic backups for free; most other hosts charge a fee between $25 and $150 for this.
Starting WP plan highlights:
- Starting price: $11.99/mo.
- Inodes: 600,000
- WP sites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: Plesk
- Support: 24/7 live chat
GoDaddy Inodes (unlimited)
GoDaddy is definitely not our top recommendation; they upsell customers on unnecessary extras way too often, charge an arm and a leg for add-on services, and their support quality leaves a lot to be desired.
Still, if unlimited Inodes are what you are looking for and you’re on a tight budget, GoDaddy is worth considering.
Starting plan highlights:
- Starting price: $6.99/mo.
- Inodes: unlimited
- Negotiable prices: yes
- WP sites allowed: one
- Storage: 10 GB
- Bandwidth: unlimited
- Control panel: cPanel
- Support: 24/7 live chat
What is an Inode in hosting, anyway?
An Inode is short for “index node.” It’s essentially an informal term that is used by your hosting server’s file system to store technical information about each of your website’s files or directory.
Broadly speaking, for every file or directory (including sub-folders) that you have, you will use up a single Inode on your hosting server.
It follows from the above that an Inode limit basically determines the maximum number of files and folders (regardless of their size) you can store on your server.
Which popular hosting providers have poor Inode limits?
Although the majority of popular website hosts offer more than enough Inodes for most webmasters’ needs, one – InMotion. Both their cheapest and most expensive shared hosting plans come with a 50,000 Inode limit.
You may have also seen other websites mention that Bluehost limits Inodes to 50,000. While this is technically true, it’s actually just a “soft limit,” meaning that no action will be taken against your website if you go over this limit, although any new files above 50,000 will not be included in the automated website backups they take of your site. Bluehost’s “hard” Inodes limit is actually 20,000.
What kind of Inode limit do most shared web hosts offer?
The standard in the shared and Cloud web hosting industry is between 150,000 and 250,000 for entry plans and between 450,000 and 500,000 for advanced plans.
This is what you can expect to get from most popular hosts, including HostGator, BlueHost, Interserver, and many more.
What is the Inode limit for VPS hosting packages?
Most hosting providers offer vastly higher Inode limits on the VPS plans compared to their shared hosting plans.
For example, while Bluehost’s shared plan is capped at 200,000 Inodes, their VPS package allows you to store up to one million files.
What about dedicated servers?
There are no Inode limits for dedicated servers.
Because you own (or rent) the entire computer where your website is hosted, you have full control over its resources.
What happens if you exceed your Inode limit?
Most web hosts will send you an automated email well before you reach your limit. For instance, you might receive a notification when you’ve used up 80% of your Inode quota.
The email will usually include a recommendation to upgrade your current hosting package to one with ma higher Inode limit.
If you end up reaching or exceeding your limit anyway, you won’t be able to upload any more files to your website, and your server won’t be able to generate new log files.
This is a critical problem that requires immediate attention (see below for advice on how to reduce Inode usage) as it can negatively impact your site on multiple fronts, including:
- Make it impossible to take backups
- Prevent you from receiving new email
- If you host your own analytics platform (e.g. Matomo), your won’t be able to store any new visitor statistics
How does running your website at or near your Inode limit affect your visitors?
It can affect your users negatively.
Your website is constantly conducting various behind-the-curtain operations to serve content to its visitors. Many of these operations involve creating and deleting files on your server.
If you’re dangerously close to your Inodes limit, some of these operations will become slow or outright impossible to execute.
The above could result in your website:
- Loading very slowly
- Loading incompletely
- Failing to load altogether
We, therefore, recommend that you keep an eye out on your Inode usage and take corrective action well before you run into the limit.
You can check how many Inodes your website is currently using by asking your hosting support team or by logging into your cPanel hosting control panel.
How many Inodes will I need for my website?
This depends on multiple factors, including:
- The type of website (WordPress? Drupal? A self-developed PHP/CSS site?)
- How many images and videos you upload to your website
- How you handle and manage your emails
As an example, a WordPress website with around 250 articles, 3-4 images per article, and 30 WP plugins currently occupies 25,000 Inodes.
See my guide on website Inode requirements for more details.
If my host offers unlimited storage, does this mean there is no Inode limit?
The majority of hosting providers that offer unlimited storage impose Inode limits as well; they just choose not to advertise them.
To find out what a particular host’s Inode limit is, you can either ask their live chat support or consult our expert reviews.
Are provided Inode limits per website or per hosting account?
They are always per hosting account.
For example, if a hosting package allows up to five websites and comes with 200,000 Inodes, and you use up 200,000 Inodes towards a single website, you won’t be able to host any more sites on this package until you free up some Inodes.
How do you reduce inode usage?
I go into more detail in my guide on how to reduce your WordPress site’s Inode usage.
However, here’s a quick rundown of simple ways to reduce the number of Inodes your website uses:
- Delete any website themes, templates, or plugins that you’re not using
- Delete any images you aren’t using. By default, WordPress creates multiple different-sized copies of every image you upload. Every image is a file and hence it occupies an Inode on your server. Ask yourself if you really need a “thumbnail” and a “medium-sized” version of every image.
- Every email message in your mailbox contributes to Inode usage. Consider unsubscribing from unnecessary newsletters and delete any old emails that you’re unlikely to need again. Keep an eye out on your spam folder, too.
- Server log files take up Inodes, too. Depending on how your hosting server is configured, you may need to periodically delete these files.