free message board?

[ghosthunterbeck]

mySQL does come with *most,* but yes, you want to make sure to check. There are some great hosts out there and some not so good ones too. I've been through several before settling on my current host (Lunar Pages). I'm sure that there are others who can give recommendations, too.

jcat, feel free to let me know if there's anything I can help you with. If you're looking for something temporary and won't need CPanel access, I can probably set something up for you, too, as long as I don't have to code any php

 

[coaster]

I think I'm going to play around with Simple Machines to begin with. If I go with that on a paid host it has the advantage of being exportable to vBulletin. I'm finding that free hosts for the most part don't allow database exports.

 

[ghosthunterbeck]

SMF is also exportable to IPB. I'm not sure about phpBB though.

Note that there are some limits to its functioning. It's a great software in terms of security (and being free!) but if you don't want it to look the same as every other SMF forum out there, you need to know php in order to re-skin it and make it more attractive, amongst other things.

 

[coaster]

I'm pretty sure I'm going with phpBB3. I've been playing with it on a free forum site and it just seems to click with me, whereas it seemed I was fighting SMF all the time.

 

[ghosthunterbeck]

You either love SMF, or you hate it. At least that's what I've found. I've had it recommended to me because of the ease of installing add-ons (it is easy with SMF), but doing almost anything else is a lot harder than it is with phpBB3, which has much of the same functionality as VBulletin, but obviously without the price tag. No, it doesn't *look* as good, but you can always upgrade if that's what you choose to do