Have you considered transitioning your forum to a cloud-based hosting solution?

[Cedric]

In regards to my latest article:

Exploring Cloud Hosting

Exploring Cloud Hosting options, including offerings from Invision Community, XenForo, vBulletin, Discourse and others,

freeforumhosting.com

The way we host and manage our forums is changing too. One option that's gaining traction is transitioning to cloud-based hosting solutions. @CharlesW has already stated such statement in his interview a while ago. This shift offers a host of benefits, but it also raises some important questions.

Have you considered transitioning your forum to a cloud-based hosting solution? What factors are influencing your decision?

I'll kick things off by sharing my perspective. I've been contemplating the move to cloud hosting for a while now. The ease of management is one thing. Being able to focus on content alone is great but I'm also concerned about potential limitations in customization. More over, I like to be in control of the server and any technical aspect behind the forum software.

What's driving your decision? Is it cost-effectiveness, the desire for more hands-off management, or perhaps specific features offered by cloud platforms? Are there any concerns or drawbacks that are holding you back?

Share your thoughts, experiences, or questions below!

 

[Tracy]

If you run a singular site.. it's a viable proposition if you have outgrown most cheap shared hosting and you can't administer your own VPS and you don't want to pay for a managed VPS/dedicated server.
But for me... the answer is no, I haven't contemplated it, and no I wouldn't contemplate it since I run multiple sites on my current VPS solution.

 

[zoldos]

I use an unmanaged, fully dedicated server. Love it!

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Cost. I have a VPS with several websites and 2 communities. There is no sense in going to the Cloud. My monthly costs would quadruple.

 

[zoldos]

Cost. I have a VPS with several websites and 2 communities. There is no sense in going to the Cloud. My monthly costs would quadruple.

How much do you pay a month? I've used a VPS before and just wasn't satisfied....

 

[Tracy]

How much do you pay a month? I've used a VPS before and just wasn't satisfied....

I don't know about him... but mine runs me about $16 USD a month.
4vCPU/8GB RAM/160GB storage/20TB traffic

I have several sites running on it (WordPress, XenForo, SMF evaluation, myBB evaluation, phpBB evaluation and about to do a Joomla evaluation site).
To go to SaaS, I then have to pay for each of the XF sites separate and then STILL have the VPS for the other sites. Why let others admin my XF sites server servoces (in my case) if I'm already running other sites on a VPS?

 

[Ravenfreak]

If I ever needed to upgrade from shared hosting I probably will move to cloud hosting, or perhaps I'll invest in a VPS so I can learn a few things. I haven't really thought about it too much though lol.

 

[Tracy]

If I ever needed to upgrade from shared hosting I probably will move to cloud hosting, or perhaps I'll invest in a VPS so I can learn a few things. I haven't really thought about it too much though lol.

Suggestion.. if you are contemplating ever moving to a VPS... get a copy of Oracle VirtualBox and start playing with the different linux flavors on it, setting up a local host testing instance of your site and such. That way, you don't goof up a live site, you aren't exposed to the wide world and if you make a mistake, you can (if you copied the image file) start back from scratch easily.
I was lucky when I started playing with it back in the 90's that I had a few spare computers around that I could learn on.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

I pay $70 a month for this package...

4 Core CPU Processor
8 GB Guaranteed RAM
150 GB Raid-10 SSD Storage
4 TB Premium Bandwidth
2 IPv4 Addresses
DirectAdmin
Managed

The Managed services is $20 of that. I keep it on there because it's like insurance. If I mess something up, I just have them fix it, lol.

 

[Aussie]

There are a lot of advantages like automatic updates, not having to worry about running server and keeping that up-to-date as well, however the biggest concern I have is the potential loss of ownership of the information on your website AND the potential for censorship of your website if they don't agree with the "politics" of your site. I mean we have seen it with Discord with whole communities being taken down and removed because someone working there has decided they don't agree with the content on your Discord channel.

Imagine for a second, that your twitter or X account was actually a website you ran, and if a X employee decides they didn't like one of your tweets they can shut your account down pretty much without having to ask anyone else... now apply this to your whole website instead of just your X account. Oh someone made a post they don't agree with? Shut that site down.

I am a massive free speech advocate, obviously excluding the illegal stuff.

 

[zoldos]

I don't know about him... but mine runs me about $16 USD a month.
4vCPU/8GB RAM/160GB storage/20TB traffic

I have several sites running on it (WordPress, XenForo, SMF evaluation, myBB evaluation, phpBB evaluation and about to do a Joomla evaluation site).
To go to SaaS, I then have to pay for each of the XF sites separate and then STILL have the VPS for the other sites. Why let others admin my XF sites server servoces (in my case) if I'm already running other sites on a VPS?

View attachment 2338

160GB storage? Wow...that doesn't sound like much. My site has been running since around May and uses around 6GB. But I have 2TB of storage and unlimited bandwidth... Good stuff!

 

[zoldos]

There are a lot of advantages like automatic updates, not having to worry about running server and keeping that up-to-date as well, however the biggest concern I have is the potential loss of ownership of the information on your website AND the potential for censorship of your website if they don't agree with the "politics" of your site. I mean we have seen it with Discord with whole communities being taken down and removed because someone working there has decided they don't agree with the content on your Discord channel.

Imagine for a second, that your twitter or X account was actually a website you ran, and if a X employee decides they didn't like one of your tweets they can shut your account down pretty much without having to ask anyone else... now apply this to your whole website instead of just your X account. Oh someone made a post they don't agree with? Shut that site down.

I am a massive free speech advocate, obviously excluding the illegal stuff.

I don't use Discord, and esp. not Reddit. I don't see the need. My forum has locally hosted, fully featured IM chat with cam.

 

[Aussie]

How can you not use discord nowdays? I did my best to stay away from it but I am a gamer so pretty much have no choice nowdays lol... but I do despise it.

 

[Tracy]

160GB storage? Wow...that doesn't sound like much.

Once I start pushing it to capacity, I'll simply enable R2 on CloudFlare and use it. That's another reason to self host also (with XF), as apparently you cannot use R2/S3 with their cloud product.
Have an add-on for images that helps quit a bit also.

 

[zoldos]

How can you not use discord nowdays? I did my best to stay away from it but I am a gamer so pretty much have no choice nowdays lol... but I do despise it.

lol I checked it out, and it was just too much. I joined a support channel for a site I use to test Discord (after a friend mentioned it), and if I didn't continuously monitor the channel, my question was gone, and I couldn't find it again since later that day when I got back on, like 5000 other posts had been made after. So I got confused and annoyed. I also don't do voice chat. I play on-line PvP shooters and MMOs. Most have text chat. I stick to that, if any.

Once I start pushing it to capacity, I'll simply enable R2 on CloudFlare and use it. That's another reason to self host also (with XF), as apparently you cannot use R2/S3 with their cloud product.
Have an add-on for images that helps quit a bit also.

How much is that? I tried something like that some time ago, a service to store files from my domain off site to save space. It was extremely difficult to set up, and was *not* cost effective.

I decided to go with an unmanaged, fully dedicated server with tonnes of resources and the latest Plesk Obsidian for $52 a month. Been using them for years.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

160GB storage? Wow...that doesn't sound like much.

You'd be surprised. My one community that's been around since 2006, which has lots of daily activity sits at around 75GB. Combined with my other sites I was running out of room on my 100GB VPS so I moved up to one with 150GB. I will be good for a while unless one of the other sites or forums that I host for others would surprisingly grow exponentially. Most of that space is hogged up by uploaded images and videos.

 

[Tracy]

How much is that? I tried something like that some time ago, a service to store files from my domain off site to save space. It was extremely difficult to set up, and was *not* cost effective.

Fairly cheap... less than what getting a dedicated server or extra storage from the provider is.
There is no "easy" answer.. it all depends on how much space you need, and how many requests are made a month.

For 500GB storage, 5 million writes a month (which is REALLY high) and 25 million reads a month... cost about $30 USD.

 

[Tyrsson]

Maybe someone else has already mentioned this and if I overlooked it I apologize.

There needs to be a distinction made between software providers that offer a "cloud" which is actually a SaaS (usually but not always) and moving to actual "cloud" infrastructure. The difference is between like Invision's cloud and Azure, Google Cloud or AWS. They are not the same.

 

[Ravenfreak]

There are a lot of advantages like automatic updates, not having to worry about running server and keeping that up-to-date as well, however the biggest concern I have is the potential loss of ownership of the information on your website AND the potential for censorship of your website if they don't agree with the "politics" of your site. I mean we have seen it with Discord with whole communities being taken down and removed because someone working there has decided they don't agree with the content on your Discord channel.

Imagine for a second, that your twitter or X account was actually a website you ran, and if a X employee decides they didn't like one of your tweets they can shut your account down pretty much without having to ask anyone else... now apply this to your whole website instead of just your X account. Oh someone made a post they don't agree with? Shut that site down.

I am a massive free speech advocate, obviously excluding the illegal stuff.

And this is why I prefer forums to Discord and social media. Also good luck keeping that information online for future internet users on social media or Discord, if their servers ever get taken down they most likely will be removing everything so all the posts made on Facebook, Discord, etc will cease to exist. I still don't get why there's people who think you can have a community that shares helpful information on a Discord server. It's only good for real time communication between people you just want to shoot the breeze with or play games with or to keep in touch with your staff members, not to share information.

 

[Uncrowned]

There are a lot of advantages like automatic updates, not having to worry about running server and keeping that up-to-date as well, however the biggest concern I have is the potential loss of ownership of the information on your website AND the potential for censorship of your website if they don't agree with the "politics" of your site. I mean we have seen it with Discord with whole communities being taken down and removed because someone working there has decided they don't agree with the content on your Discord channel.

Imagine for a second, that your twitter or X account was actually a website you ran, and if a X employee decides they didn't like one of your tweets they can shut your account down pretty much without having to ask anyone else... now apply this to your whole website instead of just your X account. Oh someone made a post they don't agree with? Shut that site down.

I am a massive free speech advocate, obviously excluding the illegal stuff.

The problem with this is that you make an awesome point about social media accounts disappearing overnight, but sadly the strength of the free web to keep a site deemed "bad" online anymore is fading. From simple server bans to entire CDN bans and discovery bans, they are now pushing domain and registry removals. It seems like the backbone of the internet services has been stressed by public outcry and government influence to make changes and it has given way to these more often than we would like to see as even the most fundamental part of the internet seems unwilling to stand up for the little sites.