Neverside

how much does it cost to run a forum?

Hey guys, you see it all the time, when a community grows too rapidly and the owners have trouble paying the huge cost of the bandwith each month.

I just want to know how much bandwith is usually required to run a regular sized forum.

Anyone here have an idea of how much bandwith a normal regular sized forum generate and a gerneral idea of how much the costs would be?

I'm asking this because I'm thinking of starting music forum with no intention of it become a very big site but I would like to get a general idea of how much bandwith I should consider when choosing a host because I don't know how much bandwith a small to medium size active forum generates.

I just have this feeling that forums generate a lot of traffic and bandwith wth all the page views, I just have no idea how much. Anyone here who runs a forum and knows more about this please respond, thanx!

oh yeah, let's say you're running a web server at home (ie, apache) would it be a good idea to run a forum also. As you can see I'm clusless here and would like some more insight.

A small-medium size forum can easily get by on 2 gigs of bandwidth a month or less. You can probably find a decent host (make sure they support PHP/MySql) for about 5 bucks a month. check webhostingtalk.com if you need to find a cheap deal. Running a server from home isn't a cost effective way to go if you just want to run a forum. You can always upgrade to more bandwidth if you need later, so start small.

___________________

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cost of bandwith

hey PVD-
I'm not quit sure what you are planning on setting up but actual bandwidth does not cost anything. It is the choice of the host to charge for the bandwidth. So, in theory, you could use an old computer and upgrade it with some memory and a processor and then download apache, PHP, and mySQL (all for FREE) and run your own server from your home or office. The only thing then to buy would be the domain name and point the domain to your DNS. I've seen doamin cost as low as $8.75/year. Then download yourself a PHP messageboard. Many of those are also free.
You mentioned the forum growing rapidly. So, I would then find some of the users that are on alot and have alot of knowledge of what the forum is covering, and ask them to be moderators.
If you are going to have a company host your site where you host the forum then, of course, you would have to pay for that additional bandwidth usage. Those prices will very so I couldn't quote anything.
I responded to your post simply because I was literaly in the same position you are. I am looking into setting up my own server.

-=-Solow

P.S. It would obviously be better to have a cable or DSL modem if you run your own server.

___________________

"I learn so I can Help" - Solow

thanks for the quick reply Saoi. So a small to regular sized forum only generates about 2 gigs a month (i thought it would be much higher than that)

I guess it's the forums with thousands of members who need hundreds of dollars every month.

Yes, it's always a good idea to start small and add more bandwith later. Thanks for giving me a general idea.

Also, why is it not cost effective to run a forum at home? don't most people who run forums do that anyways? or is it too slow say on a cable connection?

Re: cost of bandwith

Quote:

Originally posted by solow
hey PVD-
I'm not quit sure what you are planning on setting up but actual bandwidth does not cost anything. It is the choice of the host to charge for the bandwidth. So, in theory, you could use an old computer and upgrade it with some memory and a processor and then download apache, PHP, and mySQL (all for FREE) and run your own server from your home or office. The only thing then to buy would be the domain name and point the domain to your DNS. I've seen doamin cost as low as $8.75/year. Then download yourself a PHP messageboard. Many of those are also free.
You mentioned the forum growing rapidly. So, I would then find some of the users that are on alot and have alot of knowledge of what the forum is covering, and ask them to be moderators.
If you are going to have a company host your site where you host the forum then, of course, you would have to pay for that additional bandwidth usage. Those prices will very so I couldn't quote anything.
I responded to your post simply because I was literaly in the same position you are. I am looking into setting up my own server.

-=-Solow

P.S. It would obviously be better to have a cable or DSL modem if you run your own server.

I have a cable connection right now and I'm thinking of setting up my own server. The forum that I want to set up is a music forum for people to chat and stuff (I'm really doing this just for fun and just for some experience setting these things up) I'll probably try it out on my home computer first to test it and it I need to I'll move to a hosting company.

I was also just curious about the pros and cons about hosting a forum at home. Someone I talked to told me they hosted a forum at their computer and when a user does a search, he notices his resources decrease by like 50%.

Just stuff like that, that I'm curious about. I was a little worried about the bandwith issue because there's this forum that I visit that the owners stated was growing too rapidly for them to cover the cost of operating and they need to raise 500 dollars by the end of the month to keep the forum going (?)

500 dollars would cover an extensive amount of bandwidth. I run a small hosting company and I could set you up with an account. Usually the main reason forums use alot of bandwidth is because they allow images and stuff to be posted in the posts and don't set a cap on it.
Just curious, what is the forum that they need 500 to cover costs?

If you are interested in me hosting your site then let me know. I can offer you just about as much space as you want and let you have the 2 gigs that Saoi mentioned. Here is what I can include:
2 gigs transfer
free InvisionBoard forum
free phpBB forum
CGI chat
phpMyChat
MySQL databases (let me know amount needed)
PHP4
CGI-BIN
.. and more.

Since I have PHP and MySQL installed on the server, you could also find a forum on your own and install it.

Just let me know
-Solow
www.solowhost.com <-- not quit finished yet

___________________

"I learn so I can Help" - Solow

lmfao?

I ran a forum that averaged 70-150 members at any one point in time.. which in my opinion is a fairly decent sized forum..

and I used over 30 gigs of bandwidth a month

all of it text and images smaller than 50k

I run a very large forum/s and we use lots of space. I had to buy a reseller account to have enough space......we used around 50/60 gigs a month... (plus vbulletin license) ....it all adds up.

I found this on Forum-forum.com written by forum2. Here is the original link:
http://www.forum-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=41
================================
Bandwidth reduction methods...
This article was origionally written for vbulletin users, but with a little ingenuity many of these techniques can easily be applied to all forum software!

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I thought I would write up a list of ways to save bandwidth. Perhaps this could then be moved to the Hints and Tips forum. Please add any other suggestions:

ADMIN SETTINGS:

1) Ensure that you do not have NO CACHE headers set on in your settings

2) Reduce the number of threads displayed on forumdisplay and the number of posts displayed in showthread

3) Use CSS to replace font settings:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...&threadid=17943

SERVER SETTINGS:

1) Install gzip and turn it on for the forum (biggest saving you can make)
http://i4net.tv/marticle/get.php?ac...le&articleid=12

AVATAR SETTINGS:

You have a number of options here:

1) Encourage use of default avatars and not custom avatars (which don't appear to be cached by the browser. sorry could not find url discussing this)

2) Use hack to save custom avatars as files
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...light=bandwidth
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...om+avatar+files

3) Use hack to allow users to enter a link to their avatar off server
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...ighlight=avatar

4) Prevent hotlinking of custom avatars with a referrer in avatar.php
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...ghlight=rewrite

5) Store default avatars on another server.

IMAGES/ATTACHMENTS:

1) Place all your images on another server and link to them. The other server being a place with cheaper bandwidth.

2) Reduce the max size of attachments

3) Prevent attachments being viewed by guests, will also stop hotlinking from other sites.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...ghlight=rewrite

4) Use mod re-write to prevent hotlinking of images and non custom avatars
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...ghlight=rewrite
http://faq.solutionscripts.com/misc/hot_linking.html

CHEAP BANDWIDTH:

I would recommend www.rackshack.net for a server at $100 per month and about $250 set up (rubbish server) but you get 300GB bandwidth and they have a decent network (with stats to show its use).

Of all these suggestions none really decrease any functionality of your forum. If you want to decrease more bandwidth and don't mind decreasing functionality, suggestions include:

1) Requiring registration (ie no guests)
2) Turn off PM
3) Turn off Calendar
4) Turn off forumjump (can use quite a lot of bandwidth if you have lots of forums. More than 40 forums and I would get rid of it)

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Article taken from vbulletin.com with permission from it's writer Chris Padfield.

Christopher Padfield
mailto:chris@deskpro.com
http://www.deskpro.com
"Advanced Support Solutions"
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If anybody has any additional bandwidth saving secrets, please post them!

note: we realize some of you may not have access to some of the links, and we are working on that.

____________________

Regards,

___________________

"I learn so I can Help" - Solow

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