Start a forum on a tight budget

well for one, not many people will donate. You need to make a friend with web space!, i might be able to help you please PM me with firther details on what this is all about.

Once you have a successful community, you can put up a donate button with something along the lines of: "If you enjoyed your stay here, please help us out with a donation." However, no one is going to donate to a new site that doesn't (yet) have much to offer, unfortunately. People like to feel like they are getting something for their money. If it is a successful site, they are getting the peace of mind and the satisfaction of helping out an informative, helpful, enjoyable site. But whatever it is, they feel like they are getting something for their money. It doesn't necessarily have to be something tangible, but it has to be something.

While searching Freewebspace.net, I found a few sites that will host your board for free.
http://www.forumer.com/
http://www.phpbbplanet.com/
http://www.hostingphpbb.com/
There are a few others, you can do a quick Google search. You might be able to find a free host there too. Good luck!

Dont go for any of that, a domain will just cost you 9 dollars and you can easily get quality hosting for as low as 3 dollars a month that would have say 200+ mb disk space with around 5-10 gb bandwidth that should be more than enough for you to kick start your community. Get a free forum software package like phpbb or if you want to venture further XMB and simplemachines.org are also very good, infact I am starting to rate them higher than phpbb.

Like most people have said so far, I would recommend getting a proper hosting deal as you never know how successful your forum may become and you dont want to be trapped in a free package that doesnt allow your forum to grow. I would recommend going for a host that offers Cpanel, and fantastico as it will install phpBB or a couple other boards for you, takes away all the pain of installing it yourself.

With phpBB it is possible to add adverts, all I will say is dont expect people to click them really. Also to add the adverts you will need to get to grips with the code so that you know where to add it, its fairly simple with phpBB though to just insert the code or change the layout of the page to fit an advert in a good place.

You dont really give many details about your forum though so its hard to advise you, I will say if you expect the forum to become a big hit then its best to plan for that now. Take a look at vBulletin, yes it costs money but its such a complete package. But if phpBB will suffice for now be prepared to spend hours adding modifications because the standard package will not be enough, its a well supported community though so plenty of hacks out there.

Good luck with your forum.

I suggested those sites because I read that he was on a tight budget, I forgot that DoggyPaw mentioned he was thinking of buying his own domain name. As Scribbllermentioned before you can easily get a domain name for a fairly low price with more than enough space and bandwidth you would need right now starting at around $3.00/month.

I realize you might be on a tight budget, but in reality, starting a website isn't as expensive as it seems.

Try and produce $60.

• 4$/mo - 48$ a year
  
• 8.88 - Domain name, 1 year
  
• 3.88 is left in your account

Primitive? Very. Will it get the job done and allow you to grow? Most definitely. $60 a year is not a bad price for your own website and domain name, sell some advertising and you'll quickly break even.

hello i'm new here and from the UK.
i'm looking for a FREE forum hosting site (prefer it to be phpbb) and also a FREE domain name. any sites?

I posted some links (a few posts above) to sites which offer free forum hosting, but as far as I know, none of them offer free domains along with their service. I haven't seen any that offer both.

Free domains - these only work as forwarders....

www.dot.tk
www.uni.cc