I was comtemplating setting up a simple website with a bulletin board.

I know there are several ways of doing it, but rather than "rent" a BBS from someone like Delphi or ezBoard, I'd like to have a go at putting one on my website, i.e. something like vBulletin or UBB.

Are there "free" versions of these available, and what sort of support do I need from the webhost, i.e. cgi etc.

I am a complete newbie even with website design, so I'd appreciate as much information as possible.

Originally posted by ian54
I was comtemplating setting up a simple website with a bulletin board.

I know there are several ways of doing it, but rather than "rent" a BBS from someone like Delphi or ezBoard, I'd like to have a go at putting one on my website, i.e. something like vBulletin or UBB.

Are there "free" versions of these available, and what sort of support do I need from the webhost, i.e. cgi etc.

I am a complete newbie even with website design, so I'd appreciate as much information as possible.

I think this one is free.. just not this exact version. Check out http://www.vbulletin.com for information. Also, there's been people talking about other such scripts, such as phpbb at phpbb.com (I think?) and other's throughout this very forum. Perhaps try and search through the archives here and check out some free scripts web sites and find what you need. Good luck.

There is a free one out there - Snitz Forums. It runs entirely on your server (or your hosts in your directory). The only requirement I know of is you need an NT server as the bulletin board is entirely ASP. It uses Access as the database.

You can get it from http://forum.snitz.com/ . I've got it implemented on my site if you want to see it in operation.

You can check it out at http://www.gadgetcomputing.com in the Help section.

I haven't run Snitz myself, but I've participated on a few forums using it and it seems to be buggier than most. In any case, there's another discussion on forum software currently on this board, and you might want to read it:
http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=6730

There are dozens (well over a hundred) of discussion programs available. There are also several sites that will host a forum of your own creation. Often, displaying ad banners is the price you pay.

If you are determined to have a forum on your site, many of the commercially supported programs have free versions, though usually missing some features of the full version. Still, even the free versions can be quite powerful.

I've got a page on my site about building an online community using a discussion program. It includes a link to David Woolley's site, which lists many of the available programs.

Be aware that some of them are quite resource intensive and can cause your host to disable them if the program uses too many cpu cycles (if you are on shared server hosting). Of course, the traffic your site and forum receive will be a big factor in the usage.

Assuming you choose one of the Perl programs, you will need the ability to have access to a cgi-bin directory and execute your own programs. With a program such as vBulletin (the one used here), you will need php and MySQL access.

Hello,
Ikonboard is a free one that runs on most hosts and does not require mySQL or php altough mySQL version might be avalable in future. Completely re-written version of Ikonboard (version3) is coming in a few weeks. It's completely free (and all the features too).

Requirements:
CGI enabled directory
About 10megs of space
Perl 5.004
CGI.pm v2.4+
Sendmail, or SMTP access (optional)

web site:
http://www.ikondiscussion.com/
version 3 testing board:
http://www.ikondiscussion.com/ibv3/ikonboard.cgi

I like this one..are able to customize it easily!
http://www.forumco.com

Its the greatest. Visit phpbb.com

Originally posted by Martie
I like this one..are able to customize it easily!
http://www.forumco.com


That's running Snitz Forums ;) They just host it offsite for users who don't have ASP and/or can't host BBSes.

You might also want to take a look at http://www.coolboard.com.

phpBB is the way to go! Very easy to set up and administer. They have a 2.0 version coming up in a few months that will be even better! http://www.phpBB or http://www.totalnonsense.com/forums for my board which is customized a bit...

Hi,

I use tforum (PHP/MySQL) and are very Happy with it:

http://www.tforum.de/index.php?lang=2&site=1

Originally posted by wert
phpBB is the way to go! Very easy to set up and administer. They have a 2.0 version coming up in a few months that will be even better! http://www.phpBB or http://www.totalnonsense.com/forums for my board which is customized a bit...

Wert could you email me. I wanted to ask you about the art on your website.

P.S. Forum was down when I posted this.

I've tried and tested using tforum and and i say its the easiest and the best free bulletion board to setup available 2day. So check it out. And its very fast 2 :)

I made a test forum with tforum, but soon took it down... Too unstable and slow... Lotsa features tho'...

Never thought, that finding a good forum software may become a problem. ;) anyway, there's lots of them: http://www.w-agora.net, http://www.phorum.org, just for the quickshot. Also check http://www.hotscripts.com, and http://www.freshmeat.net, all greatest projects are listed there.