What are the best free forum hosting service?

[Ray123]

What are the best free forum hosting services?
I know that Jcink is one. There are others.
I'd like to be able to transfer the site to paid hosting if the forum takes off.
Thanks.

 

[Cedric]

@vbgamer45 runs a couple of free forum hosting companies. I’d recommend him. He may be able to give you more info.

 

[x-te]

unfortunately, the development of forum software (both paid and free) has been hitting a brick wall recently. there are many scripts that allow the transfer of databases (seamlessly? never done it myself) so your starting forum software shouldn't be too big of a concern for you.

i would suggest mybb for free software. there is a lot of plugins still in production/working in the current version. understanding the software isn't too difficult either as it's pretty straightforward. the software has been around for a long time, so even if you are struggling, there is a lot of information around the web.

there are some big boards that are still using (heavily edited) versions of mybb. if you have some skills, the "hacking" aspect of mybb is great too. maybe that's appealing to you?

i got to this point and reread your thread. i missed the point entirely haha. oh well, this will still be posted but i will post some information for you that is relevant.

some software (i believe) allows you to export (to some extent?) the information so if you struggled transferring to a paid host, with your free host, that will be an option to consider. you can pick up some cheap shared hosting with a cpanel, that will give you most user friendly approach - unless, of course, you know of linux then even better - CHEAPER than cpanel (in some cases). definitely keeps you more involved and you know your system is secure.

 

[Ravenfreak]

CreatemyBB is another one that is free and @vbgamer45 owns. It's a free MyBB host that allows you to make database backups so you could move to self hosting. All the other free hosts other than Jcink force you to stay with them so you wouldn't be able to move hosts if you go with them.

 

[Ray123]

Thanks. Yes I had a SMF self hosted forum for a month about 10 years ago.

At the time I found it a pain in the neck to use and there was lots of spam to deal with.

I have a blog with Siteground and I think they have one or two forums options that I can install from the control panel.

However, I was hoping to avoid the learning curve and launch on a free option just to get the ball rolling.

 

[x-te]

cpThanks. Yes I had a SMF self hosted forum for a month about 10 years ago.

At the time I found it a pain in the neck to use and there was lots of spam to deal with.

I have a blog with Siteground and I think they have one or two forums options that I can install from the control panel.

However, I was hoping to avoid the learning curve and launch on a free option just to get the ball rolling.

you mention of a learning curve, i think you will be pleasantly surprised with just how easy managing your own website is. let me give you an example.

you head over to <insert common hosting provider here> and sign up for their managed, shared cpanel hosting service which costs x.xx every month. you receive an email with your login details and enter the cpanel area. once in the cpanel area, you browse over to their scripts to install and install mybb via a script service. you're up and running in a matter of minutes, no crazy learning curve and it's basically the system setting it up for you.

a caveat to this, you will need to learn eventually the service that you're renting - the limitations, the layout and functionality of your cpanel area and a few other things. with that in mind, you won't need to be technical minded to get the ball rolling. if you google "how to install mybb on cpanel with a script" it will give you very detailed tutorials.

 

[Ravenfreak]

@Ray123 you can even ask the community for help if you do go down the self hosting route! I used x10 hosting to get familiar with self hosting, there's other free hosts you can check out too just so you can get used to self hosting. Then you can easily make the switch to paid hosting but there's some cheap hosting plans out there so you could just go with paid hosting. I use Ionos for my hosting provider, I pay $3 monthly. Most hosts that have cPanel have scripts you can easily install without needing to upload files to the server.

 

[x-te]

@Ray123 you can even ask the community for help if you do go down the self hosting route! I used x10 hosting to get familiar with self hosting, there's other free hosts you can check out too just so you can get used to self hosting. Then you can easily make the switch to paid hosting but there's some cheap hosting plans out there so you could just go with paid hosting. I use Ionos for my hosting provider, I pay $3 monthly. Most hosts that have cPanel have scripts you can easily install without needing to upload files to the server.

x10 hosting! i started with them years ago too. you've just bought back many many memories haha

 

[vbgamer45]

My SMF based one is createaforum.com that is the one I work on the most and has the most addons/features. The one thing is my forum hosts stay online some are close to 20 years old now.