[Sam]

Would you ever use free forum hosting? Why or Why Not?

I have reviewed IcyBoards for one of my former sites and I have to recommend it. Everything seems relatively straight forward and they seem to be able to easily handle larger forums.

[CyberFreak]

I have used free forum host previously although I wouldn't anymore. Know I know how to run and manage sites myself, I much prefer the freedom of adding whatever features I want and having full access to features etc.

[Mr.Panos]

^That's the most important disadvantage of free hosting companies.
Although, if you are not a professional, you could use them until you learn how to use another software.

[Brad W]

x10hosting have everything apart from good uptime.

[TimeRider]

I wouldn't do that. Running your own forum in name of other domain/company name? There are forum softwares like phpBB and MyBB for free.

[MoneyBox]

I have before, I would not now as it does not allow me to customize the forum well enough in my opinion.

[Travis]

I personally would not, there are always decent free hosts out there to allow you to run your site. Personally I would just go outside look for a few quarters and get myself a month of paid hosting, but that's me. ForumHosts really don't allow much customization however the are a great idea!

[Eternal]

I used to use free forum hosting, but I don't think I would ever use it now. Like Fowler said, I like the freedom I have running it myself.

[jacktheking]

I have used free forum hosting before. It great to set-up a small games community. The only thing it is lack about is.. our creative. I once wanted to try icyboards, but the stop-forum-spam blocked me.

[wasi90lk]

I really do not recommend free hosting, I prefer to pay for my hosting.

[TheRaven]

Certain free forum hosting services are great and do allow for board customizations, however not all of them allow this. I recently moved my forum from free hosting to a paid one since we needed to update a theme and the free host didn't allow us to access the templates to do so. It depends on what hosting service you go with, but paid hosting is much better.

[Garfiun]

Free hosting is a good leg up into the forum world, but, I would only suggest it as that. Some of their offers like ad free, more web space and custom domain name are just over expensive. For the price of a custom TLD on one I could get 1 year hosting and a TLD obviously it ould be ad free too. Never try and build a big forum with them either since you have almost no control of the back end.

[shamzblueworld]

I created my first forum with forumotion, I must say for a newbie it is really nice, the help forums are active and quick responsive, it was a very good stay with them, but then I got to know about phpbb/mybb so I moved on. For a newbie its good to use them, as you'll have a lot of help, but once you're a bit advanced, hosting your own forum is the way to go, as you'll have so much more to offer and control over your forum.

[dan213]

I have used free forum hosting and never had a real issue with them. I don't use them anymore because I have the funds available to get something better. I don't have anything against them though if the provider is reputable.

[juststeven]

I have in the past when I couldn't afford hosting and was just starting out and I never had many problems with it I guess. It always worked for me but when I needed space and bandwidth I had to go paid. However thanks to Sshadow at Empire Hostings I got lifetime hosting for free with a large package and the company that took them over honored that deal.

[netsavy006]

I used a free forum host in the past. That was how I got started with forums in the first place. I had a forum on the host (freeforums.org). At this point, I wouldn't use a free forum host since I have knowledge on how to manage a forum myself.

[Michael W. Smith Fan]

I'm not what you call tech savvy, and the niche of forum I'm running, well, you don't really need that many bells and whistles, even though some members think you do, so free hosting is a must for me. I have been on ProphpBB's free plan for almost 9 months now and I absolutely love it! Besides, when I was on advanced/paid hosting before, I got too greedy right away: Always wanting to add one mod or theme after the other and hardly anything got used. Free hosting like ProphpBB is teaching me to be grateful for what I have and allows me to work with just what I have, instead of forever wanting tons of mods and themes like before. I love it and would happily recommend this host to anybody.

[nagy00]

i will never use a free forum hosting again , because i tried it before and after 1 month all my files and database deleted with no reason , so dont waste your time with a free hosting

[nasia1301]

I am still new at making forums so I am going to start with a free hosting and then we'll see

[shadypro]

Simply - no , free forums hosting is not worth it , better make your own , if you can't afford to pay for hosting then better don't start a big project at all , if you only wan't to make a small forum or just to test something you can go with a free hosting and some nice deals for free .org or even .com domain if u are lucky.