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Hi I'm kinda doing some research and thought I would ask here.

I was thinking of opening a new site for myself & would like to know about running costs.

I don't know if i want to use IPB or V-Bulletin yet until I find out some more stuff.

I already run a small music forum on IPB alongside a few more people but it has come to the point that I want my own instead because of difficult matters.

I would appreciate anyone that owns or has owned a forum to give me a few tips on what hosting package I need what hosting company to use
whether I will be able to run a shoutcast radio through the site and how much everything costs including the license.

The things in use on the forum will obviosuly be threads, a shoutbox, a radio, signatures, avatars, I wont be hosting media on the site itself only download links like megaupload sendspace rapidshare hotfile etc

My current site has about 4,000 members and 300 logins per day atm, as I would want my new forum to grow somewhere near that level in the first year I need the right package that can handle it, I dont know anything about shared or dedicated servers so help me out please.



I don't want hosting from the 100s of resellers that decide to sell hosting each day, I would rather go with someone with a good reputation all round and not likely to dissapear.

Start off with the smallest shared hosting package. Don't go for an overseller. Take a look at www.mddhosting.com I've used them for all my sites I've started/ran over the past 6 months or so. I used to own a hosting company. I know the owner professionally and he runs a tight shop. Plus it's powered by LiteSpeed which is about 50-90% faster than Apache for dynamic content. You'll be fine for a while on shared hosting, generally until you get to about 50 or so users online at the same time clicking at the same time.

Thanks Grizzly I will check it out and see what they have to offer.

I don't have a host to suggest, but anything small really works at first, as long as it has some decent feedback.

http://theforumforge.com/

They're supposed to be good.

I'd go with www.jweb2.com Very good

(01-29-2010, 08:56 PM)TheLifelessOne Wrote: [ -> ]http://theforumforge.com/

They're supposed to be good.

@TheLifelessOne Thanks for the recommendation ;)

@Leeds-Lad I really do respect the fact that you are spending a good deal of time investigating this and asking for opinions - so many people go out, look for the cheapest deal, and end up disappointed. I suggest that you get in touch with any providers which you are interested in, and ask them some serious questions about their services/what they'll be able to provide to you. That should help you in making your decision.

Best of luck with your search!