I am planning on hosting a message board on a website but i know that they require a lot of bandwidth, so i was wondering, if i ran an UBB and made up to 1000 members on it, what server is the best for me?

All help is appreciated...thankyou in advance!

N9ne

Whats your budget?

I can reccomend you the following hosts if you're looking for hosting under $15/mo:

aletia.com
tera-byte.com
splashhost.com
akashik.net
myacen.com
voxtreme.com

If you do a search about these hosts you'll find they have pretty good reputations. Hope this helps in your quest for finding a decent host :)

Regards,
Asher.

btw, i think phpBB or vBulliten are better than UBB....

Hey,

I don't think there is a server in the world that could handle a UBB with 1000 members (assuming alot of them are going to be online at the same time)

If you're going to do it, you'll need your own box and it better be a nice one. UBB hogs 100% CPU power to post 1 message on a 800Mhz machine. And I ain't joking, I've seen it with my own eyes in real time. Imagine an active forum! The web server would might aswell be down for the rest of the sites hosted on the same box.

Yeah you might want to consider a virtual dedicated server or something.

I would recommend vBulletin. It's fast, clear and will not cause any problems if you're on a shared account. In it's relatively affordable.

If you don't want to spend any money, phpBB is also an excellent solution -- especially when version 2 final comes out.

UBB, on the other hand... Let's just say I don't think any host would allow a popular UBB on a shared server. It's one of the worst written Perl scripts I have ever seen. :rolleyes:

You might also want to consider Burning Board (WBB) from www.woltlab.de
And YaBB SE looks very good, it's a PHP/MySQL version of their forums. www.yabb.info

Yep,

Vbulletin is just about the sleekest piece of PHP out of any script. But check out this board hosted on a fast dedicated server. It probably averages out at 80 concurrent users and spikes to over 200.

At the time of posting this there are 120 users on the board and load time can be slow, pages double load. But still it's pretty damn incredible. There is no way in hell UBB could handle any near as much.

UBB hogs too much CPU power... Don't use it. Use a vBulletin or a phpBB, they are good and they don't hog that much computer power...

Hope this helps. :)

yeah i've also been considering getting a vBulletin license and i love the boards, so many options! So ok due to a lot of advice i've gotten all over the net i will now go with a vBulletin! When i say 1000 members, i only expect maximum 50-100 being online at one time! The average would probably be about 20-30 and sometimes only 10+. I was thinking about going with a shared account (Plus250) with wizardshosting.com but I will also check out those sites that you have recommended to me. My budget is about $15 p/m.

I just visited tera-byte.com and i am just wondering if the "4R" package is suitable for my needs?

Make sure your host has the capabiity to support many mysql connections. On a server with multiple busy (not necessarily large) vBs, you may get connection errors and those are annoying.

Also, UBB has gotten a lot better with their software. We've got two very busy UBBs on one server and it handles it, and everything else, very, very quickly. I don't like UBB myself (too messy, I prefer DBs), but it is getting better about the resource hogging...

Originally posted by N9ne
I just visited tera-byte.com and i am just wondering if the "4R" package is suitable for my needs?
Tera-byte doesn't allow ubb . One of my site got suspended because I put UBB script there (although that board wasn't in active , and just for testing), until I delete that . I'm sure you won't be acceptable with terabyte.

ok i did some more research and came across www.activewebhosting.com << is that reliable? I know a few people who use it and run vBs/UBBs...they say they give Unlimited Bandwidth:D and Unlimited web space at only $10 per month and you also get a domain name!

Agreed.........if you can, go with a pay host, NEVER use free hosts, pay hosts are usually more reliable, because you're paying for the server, of course!!:D ;) :rolleyes: :cartman: :blush:

that's true but i can't afford Dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting, so i need a great shared hosting service under $15 p/m. With mySQL and PHP supprt and agreeable bandwidth...my forum would not be THAT popular, like i will have about 45 people online at the same time as a record, no morethan that, so im just looking for a decent host for the situation there...so i found www.activewebhosting.com and im just wondering if that is suitable and reliable :D

Originally posted by N9ne
ok i did some more research and came across www.activewebhosting.com << is that reliable? I know a few people who use it and run vBs/UBBs...they say they give Unlimited Bandwidth:D and Unlimited web space at only $10 per month and you also get a domain name!

Check out http://www.unlimitedtransfer.com, and search for unlimited bandwidth and unlimited diskspace on this forum - it'll provide you with some interesting reading.

I recommend you go with WizardsHosting - Carlos is a friendly guy, and I'm sure you'll be happy there.

Originally posted by voxtreme-matt


Check out http://www.unlimitedtransfer.com, and search for unlimited bandwidth and unlimited diskspace on this forum - it'll provide you with some interesting reading.

I recommend you go with WizardsHosting - Carlos is a friendly guy, and I'm sure you'll be happy there.

but some people have replied to this topic saying that they might not allow my vBulletin board?

I would most think most hosters will allow a VBB, especially if it isn't that popular, like mine that has a record 6 users at one time :D

I think that # can be attributed to the free server that it is on, 99.5% downtime guarenteed.

I've run YaBB on my machine with a 500MHz K6-2, only 64MB of RAM, over a 56k connection with America Online running. It didn't even come close to overloading anything. I think UBB must just be badly written.

Originally posted by N9ne
yeah i've also been considering getting a vBulletin license and i love the boards, so many options! So ok due to a lot of advice i've gotten all over the net i will now go with a vBulletin! When i say 1000 members, i only expect maximum 50-100 being online at one time! The average would probably be about 20-30 and sometimes only 10+. I was thinking about going with a shared account (Plus250) with wizardshosting.com but I will also check out those sites that you have recommended to me. My budget is about $15 p/m.

Here's the thing with forums. Unless you have a good idea of exactly the amount of people it will draw once it opens, it isn't going to be easy to guess. If it is likely that you'll start off small and eventually head up to 1,000 members and 100 online at the same time, then you'll be ok with a shared account for $15/mo.

What I have seen however, is a forum start small then get busy, with no change in the way it is run. In other words, $15/mo. is only going to last you so long, so have an initial plan of how the site can generate revenue (even if it is through member donations, which I wouldn't count on heh). For now, you probably don't have to worry about it, but it is something to think about so you don't end up coming back here in a few months asking for dedicated solutions for $15/mo :D

ok i've taken in a lot of the advice given...but i have a question, which server out of these...

http://activewebhosting.com/ << this one...


http://tera-byte.com/hosting.html << Package "4R" there...


http://www.wizardshosting.com/shared.htm << Plus 250 package there...

the active web hosting package is only $10 p/m but the others are $15 which is what im willing to pay and tera-byte is allowing 25GB Bandwidth per month!!!

So i would be running a vB on one of these servers, i'm just stuck on which one to go with, i would say that activewebhosting doesn't seem like the reliable kind to me :-/ and wizardshosting is great but tera-byte offers 25GB bandwidth per month!

So please help me make this decision, which is the best deal/offer?

please help, i need to buy this before the end of the week :-S

I would stay away from unlimited bandwidth and diskspace. Wizards and Terabyte would be your best bet. I personally would go with wizards.

ok so now i have eliminated activewebhosting.com...

now tera-byte is giving me 25GB Bandwidth and for the same price at wizards i get 8GB, is it me or should i go with Tera-byte or is there a catch?

I think tera-byte is overselling a bit their bandwidth, but nevertheless they are reputable company and I think you'll get what is advertised if you'll actually will be able to consume all 25 Gb bandwidth.

We are hosting some forums and I can say that it is hardly that you'll go over 5Gb/mo bandwidth with 1000 members as long as your visitors won't use huge pictures in their posts.
I think the main thing you have to look at are the limits that hosts put on your accounts.

For example we have a customer with vbulletin. His previous host suspended his account just because they saw that some day vbulletin registered 40 simulteneous visitors board. It is a famous host whose name I don't want to put here. Just can you assure that it was not Tera-byte or Wizardshosting. Now when we host him it causes very light lad to the server.

So in your place I would contact both hosts directly and ask what is a line when your forums activity will be considered as ecsessive usage.

Taking in consideration your needs bandwidh is not the main thing that should force you to go with tera-byte.

z555, thanks for the help, i will now go and contact both of them and come back and tell all of you what they say :)

OK I just got back from emailing Tera-Byte.com and they had a great service and I got a reply in just 5 minutes! They said that it is ok to run a vBulletin on their host and it will not slow their server down...what do you guys/girls think, I am close to going with the shared 4R package at tera-byte.com , so is that a good thing to do?

With your budget $15 a month, it is hard to find a host that will do UBB.

However, with Vbulletin you will have to worry about MySQL connections. Most host allows very little per site, but i heard VenturesOnline allows 40. With 40, you can get about 60 ONLINE users.

When you enquire for a new host, ask them how many MySQL connections they allow you to have. If it is too little, you will get that annoying MySQL errors.

Ok I E-Mailed Tera-Byte.com and asked them about mySQL servers...this is what they said...

You only get 1 database. You can create multiple tables in it. This allows
you to run vBulletin. Each user is limited to 20 simultaneous connections.
I can't tell you how that will affect the number of members online at once.
You should check vBulletin's documentation.



What does this mean?

anybody?

Ok now this is almost on the 3rd page of the forums :-/, not going how i expected, seems to keep flying down the page onto the second one everyday :( and I need to make a decision in maximum 48 hours and I REALLY need help on my last question, so if you are reading this, PLEASE HELP if you know the answer! Thankyou.

N9ne,

If you need help, you are most welcome to PM me. I'm in the same shoe as you, looking for a cheap host that will support BB.

In regard to your last question, 20 connections will roughly accomodate for about 35 ONLINE users. So i wouldnt go to tera-byte if you are using Vbulletin as you know that once your sites is popular, it is VERY annoying for your visitor to have the SQL connections ERROR.

A new update, VenturesOnline offers 45 connection instead of 40. Sorry for the outdated info.

ok DJ I sent you a PM, check them when you have time :)

I could be completely wrong here - or just very out of date - but I have a feeling that tera-byte host virtual accounts on cobalt RAQ and that might be a consideration because such a system is not going to handle CPU heavy BBs well on a shared server.

Tera-byte no longer hosts on cobalt raq ;) They were superb until their RAQ could no longer handle my UBB, but that was like 9 months ago. I have since made the switch to Vbulletin :)