How to start a forum?

[rixopod]

Whats the best way to go about starting a forum?

I mean like free hosts and free domains to start a forum before it gets big enough for paid domains/hosts..

This is because I don't have much money atm but I really want to start a forum, I have an idea just no idea of putting into practice.

Thanks 😀

 

[ForumSource]

You can definitely get a free host and a free domain to setup a forum to play around with and to learn, but don't count on it being successful. If you want to have a successful, active forum, you're going to need a TLD and real hosting.

 

[zoldos]

Not sure what TLD is, but I agree. There are also a lot of good free forum scripts. I've used phpBB which is probably one of the more popular ones. I have settled down with vBulletin tho which is pay, but offers many more features. As for hosting, I only pay $32 every three months with my host and it offers more than enough bandwidth/space.

 

[Darthmaul]

I wrote an awesome guide here
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=81431 🙂

 

[D]

Free domains/Webhost are not worth your time, forget about that. If your going to make a forum, do it properly.

 

[netsavy006]

In my opinion, if you want to learn how to set up a forum and play around with it, you can use a free host to test the waters and get your feet wet, but if you want to have an official forum, you will need to get a TLD (which stands for top level domain; such as .com, .org, .net), and paid hosting (such as hawk host or hostgator).

Good Luck,
~ Andy

 

[Hotspot]

Put it on a free host and domain for sure; I've seen many sites die within a month of being made and they paid for everything. You have to make sure it does well before paying for it.
I say wait at least one month before buying anything for it, so you know if it will go well or not.

 

[Hissae2]

Contrary to popular belief on FP, you can have a successful forum on a free host with a free domain. I am on a free host and honestly am doing better than the majority on here, and I didn't get a TLD for months. A TLD is definitely a good idea but I would wait until you start getting some activity first. 🙂 Paid softwares like ibp/xf are a huge waste of money in my opinion, they do very little more than any other software, there is no guarantee it'll get you any further than the free softwares so why waste your money?

Also, if you're going with a free host, I recommend zetaboards. It is the best free hosting around, it can do anything. 🙂

Edit: Hotspot beat me to it. I completely agree with what he said. 🙂

 

[ForumSource]

The thing is, is $20 to start a forum that expensive?

 

[VirusZero]

20$ a month? Absolutely that can be a lot of money if you have to make car insurance payments, house/rent payments, grocery bills, electricity/water bills, phone/internet bills, etc...
Not everyone has a lot of disposable income and even if they do have a bit of money they might not want to spend it on a forum they only see as an interesting hobby. Sure you might want to spend money, but not everyone does.

Though anyone who says paid hosting is the only way to go would do well to remember there are legitimate reasons why people use free hosts. Whether it's they don't have the technical knowledge/background enough to go self-hosted. (Remember not everyone is good with code or servers or things like that. Some people can't touch code but can run a forum just fine if they can stay away from code. And maybe they don't have any interest to learn how to do that.)
Plus the money can be an issue especially if a site takes off and bandwidth usage jumps drastically. Suddenly having to go from 10 a month to 40 a month can make a pretty huge effect on someone with a limited budget. So not having to worry about that potential risk is a great relief.
Sometimes people don't view going self-hosted worth it if they're not even sure if their site is going to take off. Let alone if they're going to have any interest in that site 3 months later.

I would also point out that free hosts can be pretty reliable, more so than some of people's self-hosting experiences... How many of you have had sites killed because your host went belly up? Or they suffered tons of downtime and speed issues?

For free hosts though, I would recommend Jcink Forum Hosting over Zetaboards for these reasons. I also recommend people to stay as far away from proboards as they can because proboards for an admin is extremely limited in features and they trap you with them by not letting you get your database legitimately.

I think there are benefits to both free hosting and self-hosting so it is up to the individual to weigh the pros and cons of both then make an educated decision.

 

[Migi]

The thing is, is $20 to start a forum that expensive?

Try changing that amount to non-dollar currency. You will see how it will be expensive for some of us who do not have dollars as our main currency, and with rather high conversion level.

Starting a forum on free domain and free host? "WHY NOT?!" is my answer. Like the minority of voices here, I will go for them. Why? Because you have nothing to lose. No one knows if you will be successful or not. Free hosts offer almost similar power to running a forum completely on your own (of course some features are limited, but still), enough for you to calculate it yourself before buying domain and host for further step.

I started my forum on ForuMotion with their standard domain. Many went against me at that time, but I still managed to get my forum over 10,000 posts before I moved it to a proper host and domain. Ever since then I had problems and had to close it.

Getting a domain and host does NOT guarantee you will be successful. Same goes with free hosts does NOT always mean it is bad. ForuMotion, ZetaBoards, InvisionFree, Jcink, and many other free forum hosts out there can actually be helpful. It returns to each of us, how we can manage things out.

All the best! 😀

 

[David]

The thing is, is $20 to start a forum that expensive?

Try changing that amount to non-dollar currency. You will see how it will be expensive for some of us who do not have dollars as our main currency, and with rather high conversion level.

If you convert $20 to another currency, the objective value of that money hasn't changed. If you are 1.8 metres tall, and you convert that to feet/inches, you haven't become shorter or taller upon conversion...your height hasn't changed, only the units of measurement.

You're probably talking about the relative value to the country's economic situation which is considerably different, but that's because of the cost of living and inflation or deflation. However, your cost of living is relatively smaller than those of dollar nations, so it goes both ways.

 

[Migi]

The thing is, is $20 to start a forum that expensive?

Try changing that amount to non-dollar currency. You will see how it will be expensive for some of us who do not have dollars as our main currency, and with rather high conversion level.

If you convert $20 to another currency, the objective value of that money hasn't changed. If you are 1.8 metres tall, and you convert that to feet/inches, you haven't become shorter or taller upon conversion...your height hasn't changed, only the units of measurement.

You're probably talking about the relative value to the country's economic situation which is considerably different, but that's because of the cost of living and inflation or deflation. However, your cost of living is relatively smaller than those of dollar nations, so it goes both ways.

Ah, indeed. What I meant was actually more towards your second paragraph. It has something to do with each of our economic situation. I just thought that in my place with not-so-good economic situation, if I convert $20 to my currency that is quite a lot. Our cost of living is indeed lower than US for example, but when compared to that 20$ in our currency, we could've used that for other living expenses. ^^

 

[Ewan]

Find a free host like 000webhost and get a free domain extension like .tk then when you have money simply switch host.

 

[Nitro]

I started off small like that. Once you find enough interest and support to venture into bigger things, then go for it.

 

[Fergal]

Don't forget you can get a domain name in exchange for FP right here on Forum Promotion.

 

[LiquidServe]

You could get free hosting from LiquidServe.com and then get domain from dot.tk!
Youre good to go!
you could also get a sub-domain too!