I think prophpbb.com is the best free forum host. It is professional, easy to use and no coding involved. It also has a pretty sick domain aswell. What do you think is the best, leave a reply and let us know 🙂
Looks like phpbb but the down fall is that you have hardly any options for a good/professional premium themes around. This is why I prefer Vbulletin (Although it does cost $$$) but it has a professional look and more themes to choose from.
Looks like phpbb but the down fall is that you have hardly any options for a good/professional premium themes around. This is why I prefer Vbulletin (Although it does cost $$$) but it has a professional look and more themes to choose from.
It is phpbb 😀
What I don't like about free hosts is the subdomain and the limited options on plugins and themes, but it's the best way to start a forum. Start small and then get bigger, post by post.
I've used Zetaboards and Forumotion. They are both good, I've never had a problem with either one of them. However, you're probably going to think the "themes" are better with Zetaboards.
Easy to install
Easy theme customization
Easy mod installation
Great admin control panel
Easy to create mods
Great look
Stable and secure
Great developers and development
However there a couple of bad reasons why it isn't good
People selling mods and themes
This is a con because many people want to how many mods on there site but when people sell theme they will move to a different forum software like SMF because it has the same level of installing mods but has WAY more mods it offers.
- Lack of good mods
Many people create mods that other softwares have why not create something that no forum software has to make MyBB step out from the others. I'm creating a special project for you guys you will see it soon. But I think people should get more creative. I know there some good mods out there but many are copies but put in different places.
I don't use any nor have I for many years though I think one thing to consider is the ability to move later on. You want a free host that enables you to backup your database so once you're established you can very easily migrate to your own servers, collect ad revenue and invest/build your community.
I think createaforum is quite decent, they allow custom domains and that's what i use, however I haven't had experiences with the others so I can't judge, but i can say there quite good 🙂
Jcink Forum Hosting is my number one choice. They allow users to take backups of their database at any time for free. Virtually no other host that I know of allows this.
Plus they have some decent custom additions and the owner is developing and adding new features to it. (An alerts system is in testing now so it shouldn't be too long before that's made available for all.)
IcyBoards is my second pick. Has a solid set up and offers a good selection of plugins. Plus if you pay for a backup (by ordering a month of IB Premium) you can get a copy of your database and slide it into any web host with a compatible MyBB version. (So if you had a forum based on MyBB 1.8.3 on IcyBoards and you bought hosting/a domain then you could get the database and transfer it over with little fuss. Plus you could install, most if not all, the plugins you used on IcyBoards and not lose any data from them.)
I can't recommend ZetaBoards because they kinda stagnated and haven't really updated or upgraded in a while. And their premium features are kind of a joke compared to both Jcink Forum Hosting and IcyBoard's premium modes.
InvisionFree isn't even worth considering since Jcink Forum Hosting exists. (JFH is what InvisionFree could have been... but for now IF has been left to rot.)
Infected, are you referring to a free hosted forum, like ZetaBoards or Proboards? Or are you referring to free forum softwares, like phpBB and myBB?
Either way, my favorites are ZetaBoard for free hosted and really a tie between phpBB and myBB on the other. I prefer the mod/admin perspective from phpBB a little more and love having full control over permissions, but the relative simpleness of myBB is a plus. I use to use Proboards back before v5, but ever since they released it, they have fallen way down hill.
