I want to host a genral interest forum and have never done anything like this before! ha, so Im not so sure what kind of bandwidth I need and would like to include some small advertising, I am aiming high with this but am just so unsure as to what sort of needs I will have. Any advice would be great, thanks, ps, Im pretty set on phpbb, is this the right choice? thanks
I suggest you sign up for shared web hosting with a site lets you upgrade later to get more bandwidth. phpbb is pretty good for a free script.
Yeah you can start it off on a shared hosting server, and once it grows bigger and bigger you can upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server, but shared hosting is the place to start any small site on since its cost effective until site grows.
Not a good choice. vBulletin is more powerful and have many plugin. Shared host will do at the beginning.
Shared hosting will work at the beginning, as the others said, however you will eventually need to upgrade to your own server (a VPS or Dedi)
Why not? It is the most popular free forum software. A lot of forums are using it. I recommend you get started with shared web hosting. That is cheaper then others and smaller then others. I do not think you need to pay more first time.
I see companies offering like 100 mbs space and 3 gbs bandwidth, would this just be two small to start out with? or is this a nice size? what sort of space should I be looking at for say 1000 members? thanks
at first 3GB bandwidth is more than enough to start with. If all get 1000pageviews a day and the average file size is 100KB you will only be using 2.93 GB a month.
I would suggest starting out with at least: 500MB-1GB of space, 5-10GB of bandwidth, and cPanel. Generally this would cost no more then $1-2/m, and if you find someone with a higher price then that, I suggest moving on.
Not really ... Don't fall for these stupid/cheap offers. If you put the time and effort to build this forum i suggest getting QUALITY hosting. Even if it means paying the extra several dollars. You do not want to pay 2$ and then a couple of days/weeks/months later come back here in search for another host as your main one ran away... I'm not saying every 1 is the same, but it is just from personal experience... If it is too good to be true , then it definitely is... regards, Ryan
i think free hosting would be a nice start .. if in one or 2 months your forum will grow faster you will motve to a shared hosting .. and then to a dedicated... Make sure you will not buy unlimited hosting because that does not exists(off topic regarding this part of my advice when I wanted to buy hosting from fatcow and they said unlimited I asked them If I can host all the sites in the world and they said .. wait a minute unlimited it`s not really unlimited.. and I said screw then this service .. unlimited it`s unlimited not with buts ...).
Looking your requirement I suggest you to go with a simple cpanel shared hosting package. In start you won't require much diskspace and bandwidth. So, shared hosting would be the right plan for you, in future if your traffic increased and goes beyond the bandwidth just upgrade it to a VPS hosting package. Using the fantastico option in cpanel, you can easily install various scripts of forums. Since, you are new a shared hosting can fulfil your needs and it doesn't require any programming or technical knowledge to install and manage the forum.
Try going up for shared hosting as it could be cheaper. But do go to some famous and reliable host like dreamhost,hostgator,site5 and many more
I forgot to mention I am from the UK, would it be better to get hosting from a company also within the UK? or is a host from somewhere else in the world also ok, thanks a lot