Making a forum Options

[nWo Sting]

I have a question about adding a forum to my site. I have no idea how to build one myself, but someone recommended I use Invisionfree for a forum. http://invisionfree.com/

I was wondering if a free one like Invision is any good, and what if I wind up getting tons of forum members and tons of posts? Can Invision handle this? I noticed this forum has Invision Power Board at the bottom of the page. That's the same company right? If these forums are hosted by Invision why do I see other people complaining that they do not have enough CPU from their web hosting company to run a forum on their site? Why would a forum affect your bandwidth/CPU if it is not actually part of your domain? Or is it because they have so many forumers they have no choice but to go independent from one of the free forums?? thanks

This post has been edited by nWo Sting: Dec 14 2007, 01:51 AM

[Darin McGrew]

We have our own server, so we don't have to worry about CPU quotas. If we shared this server with other sites with their own forums, then the load could slow down all the sites. If we shared this server with lots of other sites (which is common for inexpensive hosting plans), then multiple forums would certainly slow down all the sites. That's why inexpensive hosting plans have quotas, and why some sites pay the extra cost of having a dedicated server (or multiple dedicated servers).

[pandy]

I don't know if InvisionFree has anything to do with the old Invision board, but the site you linked to seems to be a service. As far as I can see you can't download the script and put it on yoru server. You have to register for a forum running on their server.

[Ataru]

Personally, I would recommend Simple Machines (simplemachines.org). I've used it quite a bit and had great experiences with it. I can build themes for you for free, and the program itself is also free.

[nWo Sting]

Thanks guys. That simplemachines looks really good, I am looking into that. I am currently having high CPU issues with my server so I may not want to run the forum myself unless I upgrade first. A lot of people have been asking me to add a forum to my site, but I have read others complaining that running the forum on their server caused them constant suspensions by their web hosting company because they were not wanting to upgrade to a dedicated hosting plan. I wish these web hosting companies would stop overselling themselves.

[pandy]

I wouldn't bother with installing a forum either, given the situation at hand. Maybe your best option is to change host. You could talk to them beforehand and tell them upfront how much you are using now and that way get a guarantee it won't be a problem.