# How much does it cost to run a forum?



## lexmark

A fairly large forum... maybe a bit smaller than this one,  what would the yearly cost be to keep it running?


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## Sir Travis D

Forum $170 a year, dedicated host about $300 a month.


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## lexmark

wow, thats quite a bit more than I expected it to cost... 

thanks for the answer


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## Sir Travis D

You can get some cheap dedicated hosts for about $150-200 a month from sites like these
http://www.hostgator.com/


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## Midna

lexmark said:


> A fairly large forum... maybe a bit smaller than this one,  what would the yearly cost be to keep it running?




It depends on the who you pick to host your site. It also depends on what you include with your site. You can check different site like GoDaddy and compare.


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## Sir Travis D

A forum takes up more bandwidth than any ordinary website of the same file size (All of the scripts running)

Any website with even 1/2 of the traffic that CF gets will probably need a dedicated host.


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## Euklid

Sir Travis D said:


> A forum takes up more bandwidth than any ordinary website of the same file size (All of the scripts running)



Bandwidth is not the problem - it's server resources like ram and cpu. Don't
even bother going with hostgator to run a forum. Shared hosting will not 
have enough ram, and so your forum will constantly appear offline.

Get a VPS (virtual private server) - it's one step above shared hosting, one
 step below dedicated. I host my forum with ZanyHost and it only costs me
 $8 a month. You can always upgrade your plan as you need more
 resources. For $80, you're up to 4GB ram, 210GB storage, and 2.5TB of
 monthly bandwidth. 

But when you're starting out, all you will need is the $8 plan. It takes a long
 time to become the size of computerforum.


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## Sir Travis D

Euklid said:


> Bandwidth is not the problem - it's server resources like ram and cpu. Don't
> even bother going with hostgator to run a forum. Shared hosting will not
> have enough ram, and so your forum will constantly appear offline.
> 
> Get a VPS (virtual private server) - it's one step above shared hosting, one
> step below dedicated. I host my forum with ZanyHost and it only costs me
> $8 a month. You can always upgrade your plan as you need more
> resources. For $80, you're up to 4GB ram, 210GB storage, and 2.5TB of
> monthly bandwidth.
> 
> But when you're starting out, all you will need is the $8 plan. It takes a long
> time to become the size of computerforum.



You didn't even go to my link did you? You think host gator offers only shared hosting, read the link. That's why I said $150 a month, not $5 a month. Do you know how much traffic this site gets? He says he will have a close amount of traffic to this. Also, google Zany Host reviews. 28k results. Google Host Gator reviews. 730k results. I would not trust a company with such a small userbase. @he says he has a fairly large forum similar to this, did you not read his first post? Did you think that maybe he's taking a forum's control from someone who is switching leaders? Maybe he had a pre-sign up and has a few hundred people? And I honestly have no idea what you mean by the amount of ram a shared server has. They have the same amount as a dedicated server, they just split up the ram to control the different user's things. A VPS is a shared server, in that you do not get your own server. You usually don't even get a dedicated IP(s).


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## bomberboysk

Euklid said:


> Bandwidth is not the problem - it's server resources like ram and cpu. Don't
> even bother going with hostgator to run a forum. Shared hosting will not
> have enough ram, and so your forum will constantly appear offline.
> 
> Get a VPS (virtual private server) - it's one step above shared hosting, one
> step below dedicated. I host my forum with ZanyHost and it only costs me
> $8 a month. You can always upgrade your plan as you need more
> resources. For $80, you're up to 4GB ram, 210GB storage, and 2.5TB of
> monthly bandwidth.
> 
> But when you're starting out, all you will need is the $8 plan. It takes a long
> time to become the size of computerforum.


Another good option could be a forum host that only hosts vbulletin websites, and then using something like godaddy to host a standard website if needed.


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## Sir Travis D

bomberboysk said:


> Another good option could be a forum host that only hosts vbulletin websites, and then using something like godaddy to host a standard website if needed.



That would just take more time, and decrease the reliability of the forums/websites. Two websites with a 99.99 percent uptime = 99.9801 percent uptime.


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## bomberboysk

Sir Travis D said:


> That would just take more time, and decrease the reliability of the forums/websites. Two websites with a 99.99 percent uptime = 99.9801 percent uptime.


Even then, thats about 1.75hrs/year max downtime...negligble at best.


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## Sir Travis D

bomberboysk said:


> Even then, thats about 1.75hrs/year max downtime...negligble at best.



That 1.75 hours could me minimized if a single server was used, and the users would probably be happier if an hour of their life was not wasted trying to access the forums.

(Off topic, but please don't brag about having people on your "ignore" list if you actually don't)


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## bomberboysk

Sir Travis D said:


> That 1.75 hours could me minimized if a single server was used, and the users would probably be happier if an hour of their life was not wasted trying to access the forums.
> 
> (Off topic, but please don't brag about having people on your "ignore" list if you actually don't)


Actually there is a "view post" button, decided to see what you were saying in this thread so i viewed your last post.


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## Euklid

Sir Travis D said:


> You didn't even go to my link did you?



No, I know from years of experience Hostgator oversells resources. It's
common knowledge in web circles. Hostgator? Bloated overseller. Unlimited
storage? Unlimited bandwidth? Pure deception. Anyone selling _unlimited_
cannot sustain reliable servers.



Sir Travis D said:


> Also, google Zany Host reviews. 28k results. Google Host Gator reviews. 730k results. I would not trust a company with such a small userbase.



Obviously, ZanyHost is a new hosting provider. I have experienced their
service first hand. It's good value, I get good service when I need help, 
and I've been with ZanyHost two months now, the servers are fast, and I
 have had a 100% uptime.




Sir Travis D said:


> And I honestly have no idea what you mean by the amount of ram a shared server has. They have the same amount as a dedicated server, they just split up the ram to control the different user's things. A VPS is a shared server, in that you do not get your own server. You usually don't even get a dedicated IP(s).



Wroooong. 

1) You will always receive your own IP address with VPS hosting, and you 
can also purchase additional IP addresses. 

2) A VPS is a server that has been split up into virtual boxes. Each box has
 an allocated amount of server resources. This means, no matter how much
 resources another VPS is using, they never drain the resources allocated 
to your server.  It runs just like a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the
 cost.

A shared host has no allocation of resources. There can be as many as 100
 websites squeezed on one server. If another website uses a PHP script
 that was poorly written, and it hogs all the memory on that server, all 100
 websites go offline.

In most circumstances, virtual private server will be more cost effective
 than a dedicated server.


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## Sir Travis D

Euklid said:


> No, I know from years of experience Hostgator oversells resources. It's
> common knowledge in web circles. Hostgator? Bloated overseller. Unlimited
> storage? Unlimited bandwidth? Pure deception. Anyone selling _unlimited_
> cannot sustain reliable servers.
> 
> 
> 
> Obviously, ZanyHost is a new hosting provider. I have experienced their
> service first hand. It's good value, I get good service when I need help,
> and I've been with ZanyHost two months now, the servers are fast, and I
> have had a 100% uptime.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wroooong.
> 
> 1) You will always receive your own IP address with VPS hosting, and you
> can also purchase additional IP addresses.
> 
> 2) A VPS is a server that has been split up into virtual boxes. Each box has
> an allocated amount of server resources. This means, no matter how much
> resources another VPS is using, they never drain the resources allocated
> to your server.  It runs just like a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the
> cost.
> 
> A shared host has no allocation of resources. There can be as many as 100
> websites squeezed on one server. If another website uses a PHP script
> that was poorly written, and it hogs all the memory on that server, all 100
> websites go offline.
> 
> In most circumstances, virtual private server will be more cost effective
> than a dedicated server.



1. If you are saying any host that states unlimited bandwidth are not reliable, this includes serves like Bluehost and Godaddy, Godaddy is one which I have seen tlarken and bomberboysk mention on these forums. 

2. The op did not mention a budget, so I suggested the best and most capable option for him.

3. Most servers allocated a certain amount of CPU usage per person, for example, my shared host Bluehost monitors CPU usage per server.

4. If your theory is correct, you are paying double for a dedicated server for only the ability to be seperate physical machines? I doubt the average office user or consumer would buy a dedicated host then. They would all be the same price if that was the case. 

5. 

Zanyhost responce time
Average time over 10 pings: 32.5 ms

Hostgator's responce time
Average time over 10 pings: 6.5 ms

Granted, this is only from where I live, but it is most likely due to the fact that Hostgator has more physical servers, and a lower access time for customers.


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## bomberboysk

Euklid said:


> No, I know from years of experience Hostgator oversells resources. It's
> common knowledge in web circles. Hostgator? Bloated overseller. Unlimited
> storage? Unlimited bandwidth? Pure deception. Anyone selling _unlimited_
> cannot sustain reliable servers.
> 
> 
> 
> Obviously, ZanyHost is a new hosting provider. I have experienced their
> service first hand. It's good value, I get good service when I need help,
> and I've been with ZanyHost two months now, the servers are fast, and I
> have had a 100% uptime.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wroooong.
> 
> 1) You will always receive your own IP address with VPS hosting, and you
> can also purchase additional IP addresses.
> 
> 2) A VPS is a server that has been split up into virtual boxes. Each box has
> an allocated amount of server resources. This means, no matter how much
> resources another VPS is using, they never drain the resources allocated
> to your server.  It runs just like a dedicated server, but at a fraction of the
> cost.
> 
> A shared host has no allocation of resources. There can be as many as 100
> websites squeezed on one server. If another website uses a PHP script
> that was poorly written, and it hogs all the memory on that server, all 100
> websites go offline.
> 
> *In most circumstances, virtual private server will be more cost effective
> than a dedicated server*.


Exactly, you cannot have "unlimited" space and bandwidth without being super unstable, good hosting costs money. If these "unlimited" sites were so great, why would they still sell dedicated and virtual private servers?


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## Sir Travis D

bomberboysk said:


> Exactly, you cannot have "unlimited" space and bandwidth without being super unstable, good hosting costs money. If these "unlimited" sites were so great, why would they still sell dedicated and virtual private servers?



The reason is that the average consumer will not fulfill these bandwith needs. - I've seen stories of people who have gotten about a terabyte onto a shared host, but they broke the ToS by having "non related files" on their server - Most unlimited shared have something along these lines, but getting a few hundred gigabytes of storage on a shared unlimited plan is plausable. Also, people with large storage and bandwith needs would also probably want things like a dedicated IP (For running various unsupported programs that require a static IP), the ability to have full control of their web server, and control what components their servers have.


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