Explore Other Forum Hosts

There are hundreds of free forum hosts out there, and many offer features that IF, PB, and ZB do not have. I suggest also making test boards on different types of software, because there might be something you like a lot better.

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>IPB 1.3</span>
This is the same software used on Invisionfree, but most other hosts have added more features than IF.

Jcink
http://jfb.jcink.com/
Jcink is based on the same software as IF, but has tons more features. In addition to most of IF's features, they have custom profile fields, bot tracking, automatic legend, IRC, member awards, automatic welcome messages, custom BBCodes, multiple skins, and the ability to back up your board straight from your admin cp.


<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>MyBB</span>
MyBB is really, really great software, and I think the RPG community, especially those looking for a compromise between Proboards and IF, should give it a chance.

MyBBest
http://www.mybbest.com/
Lots of themes and plugins to choose from in the admin cp, a regular subdomain name, and best of all, NO ADS!

MyBB New
http://www.mybbnew.com/
MyBB New is stable and has been around awhile, but they offer a number of automatic themes/skins and mods.


<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>SMF</span>
Simple Machines Forum is my favorite software, by far. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of forum hosts that run it. There are a number of people on RPGD who do host custom SMF forums for roleplaying sites.

SMF For Free
http://www.smfforfree.com/
SMF for Free has been the longest running SMF free forum host. Features include unlimited subforums, gallery, full arcade, and a very active support community. I would recommend this for sci fi or more action-based RPGs.


<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>PhpBB</span>

Forumer
http://www.forumer.com/
Forumer has been around a long time on a software for which dead hosts are common. It doesn't offer a lot of custom features, but it is stable and has a good record for speed and uptimes. They do offer live chat rooms and forum shop mods, as well as boards based on IPB 1.3.

Forumotion
http://www.forumotion.com/
Forumotion has a lot of features, such as chat, gallery, custom profile fields, and 300+ skins, but they are reputed to be a little slow sometimes. They do also offer PunBB, which is a very fast software, as well as IPB 1.3.

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>And Now for Something Completely Different</span>
There are so many new capabilities for web software now that there are some really interesting options for really ingenious styles of roleplaying sites.

Spruz
http://www.spruz.com/
Spruz is like Ning, but as Ning now removed most of their free features, Spruz is a much better choice. Both Spruz and Ning are like a full Facebook for just one group. I have seen two really effective and ingenious roleplays on Ning/Spruz, using the social networking capabilities combined with the inbuilt forum. Spruz can also be used to supplement a currently running RPG.

Twitter
http://twitter.com/
Most people are familiar with Twitter, but fairly recently I saw a group RP on it, and it looked rather interesting. The roleplay used the advantages of Twitter's short post nature to enact a roleplay about people Twittering to each other, and how they shared their lives only through this medium.

Create or Conquer
http://www.createorconquer.com/
Create or Conquer is unique in that it allows you to create your own browser-based multiplayer RPG, in the style of many of the Facebook RPG games. An added bonus is that all the worlds are connected together so you can go visit other worlds, and they can visit yours.

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>Finding a Free Host</span>
When you can't afford to buy a host, there are options available for free forum hosting. When you self-host with MyBB, SMF, or PhpBB, you will need access to not only webspace, but also a database and the ability to install. Look for the term "cPanel", which is simply an administrative panel that has database access. Sometimes cPanel will have an automatic installer for SMF and PhpBB under "Fantastico" or another option.

Here are a few options:

1) You can post a help topic on RPGD, as some people on RPGD will host RPs for other people.

2) You can look on the forum community of the software. Often there are threads and forums just for free hosting.

3) A gem of a thread about free hosting is on software company DragonPrime's community, who offers pretty resource intensive web roleplay software (like Create and Conquer). A lot of people have been successful running that software on free hosts, and any of the above forum software should be able to work on anything that runs DragonPrime's software.

Nice documentation! I'd like to suggest that you add spleafnet to the list, too - www.spleafnet.com

Ryokumori wrote a documentation about what it offers here. n_n

<div align=center><span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>ACCEPTED ADMIN & STAFF GUIDE</span>
<span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>[color=7f323a]THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSION![/color]</span>
Thank you for submitting to our documentations center and for helping staff learn how to work with their board of choice! Keep up the great work and we look forward to seeing more documentations from you.
</div>

Awesome bo blossom! I love this so much.

Great documentation! I would however like to point out just one thing if I may.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/upd...oogle-wave.html

This is a blog post by Google stating that Google Wave is no longer being supported, and the site may not be maintained after the end of the year. As a suggestion, it may not be a good idea to keep the Wave reference there if it's going to disappear. x.x

Speaking as someone whose board uses Forumotion, I'd just like to add that they are ad-free for logged in members. They also offer the option to have your board as an IF-lookalike, as well as phpBB2 or phpBB3.

Great doc, too - I'm really pleased to see people made aware of hosts other than IF and PB.

The reason forummotion is slow is because of the way the skins are structured. They're written in both French and English, and the image host is apparently quite slow (you can't actually load images to the board, they get automatically redirected to another host).

Anyway, my point is that you can probably make your site run faster on forummotion by rewriting the css.

Updated!