I'm interested in starting a web page and want to have a chat room.... is there any web-hosting companies that can provide that service and what do you think it would run??Thanks in Advance for any info!!!

Chat Rooms generally consume a lot of system resources and are vulnerable to DoS attacks [which could bring the whole server down and cause heavy damages in bandwidth overage bills] so it's generally a no no

Good luck with your search

Cheers
Balaji

It will be prudent for you to define what type of chat room you are seeking. Though CGI chats are usually frowned upon there are other chat clients that may not be a problem such as Java based scripts...

For this reason you may be better off considering a java based script and/or outsourcing your chat requirements. One free option would be http://www.parachat.com

The cost of a hosting package that would meet your needs varies greatly depending on what other requirements you may have and your own service expectations.

Find a host with Cpanel Control Panel, b/c it comes with preinstalled Java and PHP chat rooms. ;)

The web host that dotster partnered with advertises volanochat on most accounts. I think it's hostway? Not that you can't install volano on about any hosting account.

Typically chat rooms consume much bandwidth. If you have bandwidth concerns, you might consider hosting the chat remotely.
Try http://www.freescripts4u.com/
or try hotscripts.com and do a search for remotely hosted chat.
If you dont find one you like and feel you MUST host on your site, try a php based chat script.

www.bignosebird.com also has some nice free scripts.... not sure if they have a chat script or not.

A CPanel host seems to be your best bet if you are concerned about attacks (which you should be :) ). There are many hosts that offer that.

Rob.

Originally posted by KingRican
I'm interested in starting a web page and want to have a chat room.... is there any web-hosting companies that can provide that service and what do you think it would run??Thanks in Advance for any info!!!

Hosts that offer CPanel as their control panel should be able to offer this. There are a couple of built in chat rooms that you can use. There are a whole bunch of CPanel hosts roaming around here - post a message in the requests forum and I'm sure you'll get a response.

Here's an example of one of the built in chat rooms that one of our client uses:

http://www.montreal-subaru-club.com:2084

Its basic but it gets the job done. :-)

Take care,

Brian