You don’t know exactly how to create your forum? In the following, we consider the strengths and weaknesses of the two options by taking the different criteria into account.
Installation and maintenance
By opting for a forum hosting provider, you will always have a more comfortable start into forum creation. Applications are installed on an executable server structure and are kept up-to-date so you can focus on configuring your forum. If you use your own server, you’re responsible for the necessary hardware resources as well as installing and updating web servers, forum software, and database. You need to allow time for extra workload.
Flexibility
Hosting the forum yourself gives you a high degree of freedom. For example, you are free to choose which forum software or web server you want to use. Hosting providers only offer a small selection of systems or are limited to a single one that applies to the version of the respective program. This can become a problem if you consider making big changes to the application later. Another advantage of self-hosting is having the option of integrating the forum directly into your CMS via module.
Security
As with any web project, security plays an important role for forums. Protection against attacks (especially spam) and a good backup strategy are compulsory. Many hosts comply with this, but ultimately there’s not much you can do to influence it yourself. Therefore, when choosing your provider, you should pay particular attention to their security measures. When it comes to self-hosting, you should never take the issue lightly. If you don’t have the necessary expertise, you should consult an expert.
Data protection
When creating and running a forum, there’s no way around the topic of data protection. Users often enter at least their e-mail address when they register on forums. In addition, IP addresses often end up in the server log and – depending on what is required – personal information can also find its way into the database, which must then be protected. You should check with your forum host: for servers located in the US, data protection is relatively lax. If you are hosting the forum software yourself, but are renting the corresponding web space, you should still check so as to be on the safe side.
Scalability
If you start with a small forum and minimal resources, but your community and the demands are steadily growing, you might need to have to increase your web space and bandwidth. For this reason, many forum hosts offer cloud solutions that enable flexible resource management. This also applies in case you need a temporary or permanent reduction in performance at some point in the future. With your own server, you can act accordingly depending on how your project is developing and upgrade when needed. It is much more difficult to scale down. You technically only have to sell the relevant hardware, but you may suffer some financial loss.
Costs
Renting web hosting facilities isn’t as expensive as it used to be a few years ago. Forum hosting, which additionally contains the installation and maintenance of the software components, is very affordable for this reason. If you can manage without your own domain, it’s even possible to create and manage a forum completely free of charge with some providers. This cost exemption, however, is associated with advertising and a subdomain. In order to directly integrate the forum into your own domain, it is necessary to take the hosting into your own hands and to buy or rent the necessary resources. With good planning you can save a lot of money when it comes to the software and hardware.