Cheap and Easy Forums

Someone asked me how to create a forum with features like OO.net. They wanted something that was cheap and easy to maintain, with no programming required.

Hosted Forum: The software OO.net uses is "Invision Power Board" (IPB). The company offers an option where they will host the forum for you. If all you need is a forum, and little else, they have plans starting at $10/month.

Free Hosted Forum: Cheaper still is to use a free forum hosted by someone else. There's a web-site called "InvisionFree" which hosts an older version of IPB. You can register and create a forum in minutes, by specifying a name, and defining some categories and sub-forums. For instance, I created one called "ObjectivistCove" in about 15 minutes.

Free software on your hosted site: Finally, one can pay about $5/month for web-hosting on one of the cheaper sites (like 1and1 or GoDaddy). With a hosting-plan that provides Apache, PHP and MySql, one can install free forum software like phpBB, which rivals IPB in features. This is cheaper than an IPB-hosted solution, and also allows you to host other software on your site. The downside is that you have to download/install/upgrade/back-up yourself.