Free Forum Hosting

[Ravenfreak]

I think free forum hosts are great for those who are brand new to owning a forum. I've seen successful forums hosted on Proboards before as well, so there is a great chance that a free forum can be popular. However, most free forum hosts don't allow you to gain access to your database, so if you wanted to move you couldn't. Jcink is the only free forum host that allows you to make backups iirc, so you could always go with that. Have you ever made a forum using a free forum host? How successful was your forum?

 

[Nomad]

I have never used free forum hosting, however, I have a lot of virtual friends who are running free forums. Most of free forum hosting do not allow you to move your site database to a new platform, which means you do not actually control your forum.

 

[eenya00]

if you can not get full control of your forum, then what is the need of running it? i have been on various forums and after some time they tend to close down or something, and i usually wonder what might haved caused it, especially when they are doing well.

 

[Lens]

I don't really know how to setup a forum using jcink. I just registered but everything looks clumsy. Could you explain in details how to setup forum on jcink?

 

[Good-Person]

I am not sure about any kind of platform that offers free forum hosting. However, you can get a free blog at blogger. Keep in mind that blogger could close your blog at any time.

 

[glitch]

I think if you are going to start a forum, it is best to just outright buy the domain and pay for the software (or use free opensource software).

You end up being bogged down using free hosted ones.

 

[Naiwen]

I have myself used in the past : freeform.com, forumotion.com and currently, I'm using pro boards.com for my current community because a paid is unaffordable for me personally for the moment at least anyways. Although, I'd prefer proboards because I've used it for the longest time out of the 3 of them, free hosts.

 

[HayKay]

I'll say a big no to free forum hosting - not only will it look unprofessional, it'll not be a good sight when there's a lot of traffic coming in or there's more bandwidth needed as well.

 

[Laurentta]

No, i've never made a forum with free forum host. I've heard a lot of bad reviews about free forum hosting and so i don't think i would like to make a forum using free forum host.

 

[eenya00]

I think if you are going to start a forum, it is best to just outright buy the domain and pay for the software (or use free opensource software).

You end up being bogged down using free hosted ones.

i could understand your lack of budget if you where hosting a free website and why you need to start small but not a free forum as forums are more expensive to run and you need money for it.