Creating a forum...advice please

quango77

Hi All,

I would like to set up a gardening forum aimed at my local town...growing tips, seeds/skills/tool swap, smallholding etc. Can anyone advise me on the best free forum providers....dont want to fork out until I know its going to be successful!

Cheers in advance

googler

I see a lot of forums use vBulletin, so you might want to look at that.... can't imagine it's free, though...

johncalvin7

you can try phpbb for free.

hamcaster

The most popular free bases for forums are phpbb, smf (simple machines) and ipbfree (don't confuse with ips, which you have to pay for) - all of these can be found with a quick google search. However, you would still need to find somewhere to host these.

There are some sites which will host and set up the forum for you, which would probably be your best option if you're new to this. There are loads of sites for this, but forumotion is the one which I hear a lot of good things about (again, a quick google will help you find this).

If you have any problems, let me know and I'll try to help.

GeoffX

If you're looking to create a forum, without actually hosting it yourself, then you could look at Google Groups, (takes deep breath at the shame of suggesting something he wouldn't touch with a barge pole) Facebook, or something like InvisionFree. TheFreeCountry.com has some other suggestions.

DodgyLurgy

PhpBB is free but you need hosting for it.

vBulletin costs £123 for the licence (minimum) and you still need webspace/hosting to put it on.


Your best option is to go for something like GeoffX has suggested where all the software has been setup for you and you then sort out what sections you want etc.

quango77

Cheers All...I'll check out your suggestions