will there ever be a free forum host for Xenforo

[Deleted member 32117]

so as the title says will there be any free hosting company dedicated for xenforo hosting something like icyboards zetaboards somewhere users who don't have money can use Xenforo for free if they have never since its cost a lot but IPB is more yet its free on forumotion and zetaboards.

 

[DudeThatsErin]

Doubt it because XF/IPB are expensive. I have free hosting and wouldn't even consider that because of how expensive it is.

 

[Page]

Unless you get free host and then buy xenforo yourself

 

[John]

No. If you have the money to buy XenForo, you have $3 a month to buy a cheap hosting plan.

 

[Ash]

It's a premium forum software. If they offered it for free on a free host, no one would want to buy it then

 

[Deleted member 32117]

No I mean something similar to Zetaboards but they can upgrade to premium and get more addons etc

 

[Gus]

The only reason you can find IPB free hosted is because the version those hosts are using is 1.x.x (it was a free software back then). You'll never see a free host offering the latest version of IPB. Just like you'll never see a free host offering the latest version of XenForo, or any version of XF since it's never been a free software.

 

[ConradBleu22]

No I mean something similar to Zetaboards but they can upgrade to premium and get more addons etc

Proboards

 

[Smokey]

No I mean something similar to Zetaboards but they can upgrade to premium and get more addons etc

Proboards

ProBoards isn't Xenforo, it's their own platform, they just took feature ideas & design ideas from Xenforo (copied them) It's still a different platform and is even coded in a different language.

As for the OP's question - Short answer - No. The guys who do IPB and Xenforo are in it to make money, a livelyhood. It's their jobs/careers making those softwares and putting out updates. IPB was free for the 1.x days but once they hit 2.0 they went the commercial software route requiring a license. However, back then it was just abit cheaper for an IPB license then it is now for one. Saying that, XF is still the cheapest/most affordable out of the big three (XF, IPB and vBulletin)

 

[Lord Saru]

I doubt it but you never know what time has in store for us 😛

 

[Smokey]

I'd say if XF or IPB ever go 'free' in the future then probably, there are PLENTY of free hosts for the likes of MyBB, phpBB, etc. IcyBoards and Forumotion come to mind.

 

[Deleted member 32117]

I'd say if XF or IPB ever go 'free' in the future then probably, there are PLENTY of free hosts for the likes of MyBB, phpBB, etc. IcyBoards and Forumotion come to mind.

There should be more Free host's for Mybb

 

[VirusZero]

You'll not likely see a free host offering Xenforo because they'd need to either pay a licensing fee for each forum that opens (which would easily bankrupt them since it'd be unlikely they could make that much per forum) or they'd have to work out some kind of special deal with Xenforo's makers to buy a mega/bulk license at an absurd cost. If they bought a massive/bulk license they'd have to invest a huge amount up front and hope their service would take off. But given how much competition there is already it's unlikely that such a move would be worth it.

Even if they could get a deal where the licensing fee was reduced compared to a normal user, it'd still be crazy expensive. And given how some people open forums... it wouldn't take long to drive costs up. (I mean I know in RP sites users sometimes open multiple sites that never truly get used. 1 for their development stuff then one per idea. Sometimes they have like a half dozen in-progress ones that never see an opening. If they did this and the host had to pay, it'd get expensive in a hurry. That or they'd be limited to how many sites they could create...)

If I recall correctly Zathyrus ran into this issue when they were looking at upgrading IF from 1.3 to 2.0. (IPB told them they'd have to buy a license for each forum. Which is why they scrapped that idea and built Zetaboards.)