Best and Worst Things about Free Forum Hosting

[Teekay]

What are the best and the worst thigns about free forum hosting like freeforums.org and myfreeforum.org

The best thing is that they are free and the worst thing are the ads they out, they are really annoying.

 

[el canadiano]

Hosting your own forums (free or paid) is ridiculously better than using something remotely-hosted.

 

[Impulse]

The worst thing about it is having little to no freedom to add your own features.

Sites like FF are really bad too because they put too many ads everywhere and charge you a lot just to remove them. You're better of using a free-host because you can customize your forum as much as you want.

 

[Lee Lawson]

The best thing about them is none, the worst thing about them is them.

 

[Mikey]

The best thing about them is none, the worst thing about them is them.

thats not very useful info.. :rofl:

 

[Impulse]

It's true though, if you use free hosting then you're not going to get very far. You can't even add anything new and you're stuck with what the free host gives you.

 

[XcapeX]

Best thing: You don't have to spend time uploading your stuff to a host.

Worst thing: Ads.

 

[Raptor]

Best things : Great for a newbie , who wouldn't need to crack his head to bring up a board .

Worst things : Everything else (that's a huge list) :lol:

 

[Loopy Legend]

I recon free forum sites are great for starting forums out, as if they grow then its worth investing time and money into them, as you will have a loyal and active community.

 

[David]

Worst:

• Forced ads which cost to be removed.
• Can't transfer the database, or have to pay high amounts to transfer.
• If one server goes down, not only your forum, but thousands of others will go down.
• No flexibility or uniqueness.
• Poor mods, or copied mods.
• Sometimes not even real software, rather self created.
• Forced backlinks.
• Hard to get members as they see it as "cheap".
• If, by the slightest chance you grow, you will have no way to turn back as you would have done too much.

Best:

• Nil.
• TBH, I hadn't seen any when I used free forum hosting. The best was probably receiving a free domain with forumotion.

 

[CyberFreak]

Best
- Easy to manage
- Don't need to worry about updating software etc

Worst
- Hardly any control
- Can't add any features you want
- Can't always move host and if you can it is not always easy/cheap
-Usually has forced advertising
- Off putting to some potential members
- Usually slow and bad uptime and you don't normally get good support
- Some hosts don't get updated from one year to the next

 

[Kino]

There is nothing best about free forum hosts. You basically have no customization options and you're forced to use the mods they have pre-installed and pre-installed themes. Half the time you can't even change your banner!

 

[AnAccount]

Best
- Easy to manage
- Don't need to worry about updating software etc
Worst
- Hardly any control
- Can't add any features you want
- Can't always move host and if you can it is not always easy/cheap
-Usually has forced advertising
- Off putting to some potential members
- Usually slow and bad uptime and you don't normally get good support
- Some hosts don't get updated from one year to the next

There's just one problem with the second one in the Best section. I remember when I was on a free host with MyBB (not advanced hosting... totally free) and I got that babble in my ACP that I needed to update to the latest version of MyBB ASAP. Well, I couldn't do anything about it, as I wasn't on advanced hosting, and despite the fact that a stable version was now out, the support team took forever to update, but I guess that can kind of go with the "Worst" part as well.

 

[CyberFreak]

Yeah i did have that in the negatives aswell as if your host is quite committed to the site then updates won't be a problem. Some hosts are still on phpBB2 for example and haven't been upgraded to phpBB3.