Forum Software

[finneyb]

Looking for advice.
I am looking for some simple to use forum software that would operate with upto 100 people.


Any suggestions?

Brian

 

[finneyb]

Further ---- I've just answered 10 questions at http://www.forum-software.org/ten-quest ... m-software and their recommendation is ICE BB http://www.forum-software.org/demo/icebb

Any thoughts or experience on ICEBB or others appreciated.

Brian

 

[Walney Col]

At the risk of stating the obvious have you tried PHPBB as used on here? It's free and there's tons of bells and whistles you can add such as one for letting folk embed youtube videos which many people really appreciate (hint hint ukworkshop).

 

[finneyb]

At the risk of stating the obvious have you tried PHPBB as used on here? It's free and there's tons of bells and whistles you can add such as one for letting folk embed youtube videos which many people really appreciate (hint hint ukworkshop).

What put me off was all the bells and whistles, being too complex. But on reflection I know PHPBB works so maybe that is the obvious answer.

I'm not getting involved in an embedded video argument; I may need friends with PHPBB knowledge. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Brian

 

[DonJohnson]

What put me off was all the bells and whistles, being too complex. But on reflection I know PHPBB works so maybe that is the obvious answer.
Brian

I'm not a very experienced website creator, but I managed to implement PHPBB with very little difficulty.

Another advantage is it is well-known to users, who will feel at home with it.

 

[morfa]

I really rate discourse:

http://www.discourse.org/

phpbb is orrible and overkill.

 

[DonJohnson]

I really rate discourse:

It looks very comprehensive, especially for mobile devices, but . . . . .

Did I read correctly that hosting costs $200 per month at present (with a $100 per month option in preparation) or $99 for a single cloud installation then $10 per month ?

PHPBB is free!

 

[finneyb]

What put me off was all the bells and whistles, being too complex. But on reflection I know PHPBB works so maybe that is the obvious answer.
Brian

I'm not a very experienced website creator, but I managed to implement PHPBB with very little difficulty.

Another advantage is it is well-known to users, who will feel at home with it.

Don,

Who are you hosted by? Tried a trial free one-click hosting last evening (Forumatic.com) and it's fallen over.
Tech support is slow ie no reply this morning but then again it probably worth what I'm paying for it .

Brian

 

[DonJohnson]

Who are you hosted by? Tried a trial free one-click hosting last evening (Forumatic.com) and it's fallen over.
Tech support is slow ie no reply this morning but then again it probably worth what I'm paying for it .
Brian

I have four websites with Compila, and have had very few problems. Their rates are very reasonable, and you can scale up from a small package as a when you need to do so.

Have a look here; http://www.compila.com/website-hosting.html

 

[finneyb]

Don,

Thanks for the info. I worked out what the problem was - forum URL needs to be in lowercase only. So I stayed with Forumatic.com its free upto 30,000 hits per day and 1 click installation - I don't anticipate a problem with that capacity!!

It looks to be working well, until some users come along wanting embedded video :roll: :roll: :roll:

Brian

 

[finneyb]

I had a suggestion from elsewhere to use Google+ Community.
It is certainly easier to set up and maintain than phpBB and maybe just the thing for smaller groups.

I'm not into Facebook and the layout of Google+ is similar which I don't like, but I am sure will get used to. While I am sure it wouldn't work for the volume of posts on here; it looks promising for a much smaller group with less traffic.

Anyone any comments?

Brian

 

[Rhossydd]

Google+ might be an option if every one of your prospective users has a Google account or is prepared to join them. That might limit membership compared to a conventional forum.

 

[morfa]

I really rate discourse:

It looks very comprehensive, especially for mobile devices, but . . . . .

Did I read correctly that hosting costs $200 per month at present (with a $100 per month option in preparation) or $99 for a single cloud installation then $10 per month ?

PHPBB is free!

You can install it yourself on your own hosting:

http://blog.discourse.org/2014/04/insta ... 0-minutes/

It costs a lot of money to write decent software, so they're trying to recoup some of that by making the hosting option a bit more prominent on the website and the free option. You don't have to use docker etc, but it's easy to download the source and install it yourself.