please recommand a web hosting site

[HiME]

I'm currently planning on setting up a forum that'll allow around 200 people online at the same time. I have no idea which company to choose but my budget is around 10 dollars per month.

- should i go with yahoo?? $8.96 canadian, 5GB space, 200GB bandwidth
- which forum should i setup, it must be free, phpBB any good?
- would it be appropiate to ask the forum users to upload their pictures to another places to reduce the bandwidth?? is 200GB enough?

 

[sciencewhiz]

I doubt a $10 a month site would hold up to 200 concurrent users.

 

[KoolDrew]

I can't really help with hosting, but as for forum software my recommendation is SMF if you want something free. As for your third question, you could disable uploading all together and make them use the tons of free image hosting sites out there such as imageshack.us

 

[HiME]

If I restrict forum users from uploading pictures on the forum, then it?ll become a text based forum like Anandtech. I'm still not sure if a text based forum will fill up the bandwidth.

I need to setup the forum as soon as possible.. anymore comments?

 

[HiME]

Thanks, I will also give SMF a try. The most important thing about this forum is security because there'll be lots of teenagers accessing it. There is a high chance that these people will try and hack it.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I use Crystaltech because they have affordable CF hosting, but their Linux and .Net plans are reasonable too. They used to be only mid-higher end, but they're branched into lower costs.

FWIW, 200 users on your site at the same time will probably equate to a max of 3 simultaneous connections so you'll be good.

 

[VicodiN]

Check out www.yrhost.com

 

[KoolDrew]

If I restrict forum users from uploading pictures on the forum, then it?ll become a text based forum like Anandtech. I'm still not sure if a text based forum will fill up the bandwidth.

Just restrict them from uploading them, not posting them all together. They can still upload it on imageshack or some other free image hosting site and post it.

Thanks, I will also give SMF a try. The most important thing about this forum is security because there'll be lots of teenagers accessing it. There is a high chance that these people will try and hack it.

Then I would go with SMF. Out-of-the-box SMF is much better and much more secure.

 

[Stuxnet]

I used BlueHost.com (or BlueHosting.com) for over a year. Support was EXCELLENT. I think I paid $12/month and I got the moon.

 

[gsellis]

I use Powweb. They are in the middle of upgrading. $7.73/mth with 10GB/day download. They only have one package, so if you don't fit, forget it. But because they only do one package, they have lower costs.