Using Proboards in 2022?

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Kale

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I honestly think with just the way forums are nowadays I still feel as if Proboards is the best for free forum hosting. With forums not being as active anymore, I almost don't see a point paying for hosting for them so using Proboards won't hurt or matter.

Has anyone had any success stories with using a Proboards forum within the past 5-10 years?
 
Kale said:
I honestly think with just the way forums are nowadays I still feel as if Proboards is the best for free forum hosting. With forums not being as active anymore, I almost don't see a point paying for hosting for them so using Proboards won't hurt or matter.

Has anyone had any success stories with using a Proboards forum within the past 5-10 years?
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Mine's on Proboards & I do like the ease of use. One doesn't have to have coding knowledge. I've had my forum for over 2 years so I'm not quite there yet 🙂
The only thing I don't like is you can't migrate over if you DID want to go to another free or paid hosting.
 
I use Proboards znd I love it. I cant afford to pay so it works best for ne. The support board is awesome.
 
Kale said:
I honestly think with just the way forums are nowadays I still feel as if Proboards is the best for free forum hosting. With forums not being as active anymore, I almost don't see a point paying for hosting for them so using Proboards won't hurt or matter.

Has anyone had any success stories with using a Proboards forum within the past 5-10 years?
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The only thing I'd worry about is ProBoards essentially thinking the same thing and shutting down their services.

That's what would make me spend the money and get my own hosting and software.

Rented space like ProBoards and other free hosts can come to a complete halt and you can lose everything without being able to do anything about it because you agreed to that in the terms.
 
Shawn said:
Rented space like ProBoards and other free hosts can come to a complete halt and you can lose everything without being able to do anything about it because you agreed to that in the terms.
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Yup, recall that has happened before with some of these free hosts. I guess self hosting it is then!
 
I'm pretty sure ProBoards at one point had to ask their communities for donations to keep the service running, back in 2020 if I'm not mistaken. I won't be surprised when they go under since it's probably just a matter of time when it's unlikely their revenue will increase due to forums being a niche nowadays.
 
Moonface said:
I'm pretty sure ProBoards at one point had to ask their communities for donations to keep the service running, back in 2020 if I'm not mistaken. I won't be surprised when they go under since it's probably just a matter of time when it's unlikely their revenue will increase due to forums being a niche nowadays.
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I started my forum in April of 2020 & I vaguely remember them asking for donations, now that you mentioned it.
IF they did go under, I truly hope they let us migrate over so we don't have to start over.
 
Jcink is the better free forum host IMO. You can download a database backup of your forum at any time, for free! That way if you choose to move to self hosting, you can.
 
Ravenisawesome said:
Jcink is the better free forum host IMO. You can download a database backup of your forum at any time, for free! That way if you choose to move to self hosting, you can.
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What does the database consist of? Is it your entire forum? Also I've decided self hosting is better for me than proboards or any free hosting.
 
in my opinion, using free forum hosting is nothing but a complete waste of time, you don't own your forum, and you don't have control over your website files. You cannot monetize your site.
 
nomad said:
in my opinion, using free forum hosting is nothing but a complete waste of time, you don't own your forum, and you don't have control over your website files. You cannot monetize your site.
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Always been a hot debate even way back. I do agree that it's a better idea to self host your forum especially nowadays since you cannot be too sure of a forum hosts future.
 
When you are running a self-hosted forum, you can monetize your forum and generate revenue, this is not possible with the free-hosted forum
 
nomad said:
When you are running a self-hosted forum, you can monetize your forum and generate revenue, this is not possible with the free-hosted forum
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I can't speak for any still existing free forum hosts, but InvisionFree and ZetaBoards would allow users to run their own ads if they had purchased ad removal (or something along those lines; I might be misremembering the exact requirements to do it). I can't say I ever came across a board that seemed to actually be running their own ads though, but if they were being displayed similarly to the ads shown by IF/ZB then I likely would've assumed they were default ads and not ones being run by the forum owner, especially since both parties would've probably used AdSense.
 
nomad said:
in my opinion, using free forum hosting is nothing but a complete waste of time, you don't own your forum, and you don't have control over your website files. You cannot monetize your site.
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So I guess everone is in it for the money here rather than the communities?
 
leangreen76 said:
So I guess everone is in it for the money here rather than the communities?
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I'm running sites for fun myself, some people are running a site for extra income and that's completely fine if that's what they want to do.
 
I love the fact that there is still a free option for you to be able to create a forum using proboards. It's a nice-looking forum with a lot of potentials and helps to get people into the running of forums. I myself have not used it personally as an admin but I have registered on many forums that use proboards and as long as they do not go overboard with loads of graphics or an out-there theme that is a bit much they are nice forums to use. If I ever did have an idea for another forum, proboards would be a service I would use for sure.
 
If you want something more conducive to the actual discussion I'd look at a Flarum forum. You can get a free board here: https://freeflarum.com/ that's also cool that I have to seen 😛

But Proboards is better also regards most people are aware and familiar with it
 
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