I need to start a forum. A social networking site that I'm a part of is closing down. But a lot of that need it are going to be lost so I decided that we would all move to a different forum. Problem is I don't know how lol. I am trying to find a place or a way to host a forum. BUT, i expect it to be a growing forum so I don't want to pay a lot of money to move the forum if it gets too big. Any ideas?
For several years im running forums on instantcpanelhosting.com, the mini hosting plan would do for the beginning, it cost $1.5 quarterly If you wish i can help you setup the forum free of charge if you buy from instantcpanelhosting. Moreover i will advice you on how to become independent and be able to move your website to other webhosting at anytime. PM me if needed. btw, there are several forum systems, free is for example mybb, phpbb . paid is vbulletin and xenforo. just google them or google them + add word themes/templates to see how your forum can look like. PS: im not following this topic. PM me or contact mentioned hosting provider.
If you don't know how to host a forum, chances are you may not be in a great position right now to provide this service. There is never a better time to learn than now as they say, so what do you know how to do as far as web hosting in general is concerned? Putting up a forum is pretty easy, the hard part is picking your platform, branding and marketing plan. There are probably plenty of people here including myself who could help you with this, but I think we'd need more details.
I would recommend you to start with small account. Then after some time you will see if that is right time to upgrade account or you need to stay with chose account. Just upgrade as you go and not order huge package at the beginning.
First of all try to find a good Managed WordPress Cloud Hosting. I'm talking about Cloud server because they're up trending nowadays, because of their performance, security and reliability. There are many Cloud hosting providers like Cloudways, Bluehost, Dreamhost etc. Using WordPress you can easily create Social Network site by using "BuddyPress" plugin. I'm recommending WordPress because it is very easy to use, no technical knowledge required. Just drag and drop. And you're Done ! Good Luck !
I was just in the same boat looking for add a forum to my existing website, but the biggest thing is that it had to integrate will with my existing user database. After lots of trial and error, I chose Vanilla Forums with the jsConnect plugin (to sign my existing users in). It works like a charm! The forum software is very lightweight and serves my purpose. I was hoping that the number of existing Themes would be better and also newer/better plugins, but thats OK for me. I just needed something basic. There are some new forums that I am keeping an eye on, one of them is Flarum that is in Beta. Looks promising, but probably too early to start using it now on a production website.
mybb is pretty good forum software. As you're just starting the forum out you can do a normal shared account. Then when you upgrade to a VPS you just use cPanel and the migration is pretty simple.
Well, when I needed to creat a website I used a website builder http://www.templatemonster.com/moto-cms-3-templates.php. I`ve picked a design there. Looks really professionally. If you want to create a forum you can also use it. If you have all the info from your previous site it will be even faster and more convinient. You won`t believe. but firstly, I wanted to creat a website by myself, because I wanted to save some money on it. But after a month of my work, I didn`t like the result. That`s why I`ve found webside builder. I liked that everything was easy and fast.