Hey guys, urgent help needed. I bought the vbulletin suite for 250 dollars. All I need now to start the forum up is to buy a domain/hosting service. I have no idea which ones are good for vbulletin 4.2, and I really want some advice on this. Please recommend me a good affordable hosting service. Cheers. Edit: I'm located in Australia btw
Did you find a hosting provider? Which location do you prefer? It is best to choose a location closest to your forum audience be it Australia, US etc What is your budget?
The biggest issue with vBulletin is that it needs to be cached server-side. For that, you pretty much need a VPS at minimum. It got even worse as vB moved from 3.x to 4.x and now 5.x. It's just a beast. Australia has really expensive hosting. Would you want to maybe host it on the West Coast USA, or Singapore? Good idea for worldwide traffic, bad idea for Australia-only traffic. Yeah -- what's the budget for this?
Might take a look at this one: http://seovb.com/vbulletin-services/professional-vbulletin-vps-hosting-plans They have good plans + quick support system. They also have other vBulletin services. Hope that helps. Thanks!!
You don't need a vps for a new forum, those telling you that you do are most likely trying to sell their own crappy hosting. You can get by with a $5 plan from a small orange, or pretty much are reliable host will have similar pricing starter packages. If you have any questions then feel free to pm me.. I wouldn't pay more then $15 a month for hosting on a new forum.. period!
You can run vBulletin on cheap shared hosting, but it will be really slow due to lack of caching. Do it? Yes. Do it well? No. That's just vBulletin for you.
I've been in vb for years as well, it WILL run a cheap hosting to start off. Most forums don't explode right away, no reason to buy a vps for a new forum of any type until you need it. ps.. your vb.org hosting link even has $5 a month hosting plans.. point proven
Nexcess.net, who is a great web host, is offering shared hosting vBulletin plans. They are really knowledgeable, have their own data centers, and offer great service and support. Shoot their sales team an email and they will definitely walk you through what you need.