I want to start a Forum on my website... anyone know how to make one?

[Madcowz]

I have to update/edit this website for my organization and I want to create a message forum, but don't know where to begin. Anyone know how, and can point me in the right direction? That'd be awesome if it could look as good and be as functional as Anandtech, but I doubt that's gonna happen as I have little to no budget to work with... if I could do this for free though, I'd be stoked!

 

[JoeKing]

what kind of server is it hosted on? You might want to check, as a lot of server packages come with forum software

 

[Luden]

oops.

 

[Luden]

Heres three good (free) forum packages, they usually have a good installation guide with them.

Invision Board
phpbb
ikon board

 

[Madcowz]

It's hosted on my University's server, which I doubt has any of those tools. I'll check out those 3 packages... thanks a bunch!

 

[johnjbruin]

there are a lot of free ones. php/asp based ones are quite easy to find and most hosts should support either one. windows servers running IIS support-asp, unix running apache or anything can support php.

 

[Kelemvor]

Heh, just integrate with EZBoard.com. It's free which is the best thing. heh. Runs on their servers, their software, etc.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
Heh, just integrate with EZBoard.com. It's free which is the best thing. heh. Runs on their servers, their software, etc.

their ads, their pop-ups

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Madcowz
It's hosted on my University's server, which I doubt has any of those tools. I'll check out those 3 packages... thanks a bunch!

If your university's server has PHP and MySQL you can manually install InvisionBoard FREE forum software which is used here and here.

Very easy to intsall, takes about 10 minutes and it's ready.