Discourse cannot be installed on shared hosting accounts with Siteground, where I have my site. I just spoke to their support team. A second hosting plan elsewhere for a small forum just starting out is not worth the money, unless it is really low cost. Can anyone recommend other forum software compatible with Discourse so that I can later move to Discourse when the forum has more members and it’s worth paying for another hosting plan? I do have WordPress running on siteground, but I don’t know whether any of the WP forum plug-ins are a) any good, b) compatible with Discourse (export/import). Unless there’s a way to self-host Discourse for under $5/mo. Any suggestions on a forum solution that allows me to transition to Discourse later, given the financial constraint?

I’m not sure I understand. Do you have an active forum already that you are looking to move?

[image] nibl: Unless there’s a way to self-host Discourse for under $5/mo. [image] New Digital Ocean pricing! (Spoiler: $5 for a 1GB droplet) Self-hosting Digital Ocean made some big changes today! Check out the new price list. First, 1 GB droplet is now only $5/month! Also, very good news for people with high volume sites, the fast CPU offerings now have reasonable amounts of SSD space. [image] Also new are “flexible droplets” that make it easy to switch between difference configurations to see what difference it makes to have more RAM, or more CPUs: [image] If you’ve got a 1GB droplet, you’ll likely want to shutdown, switch to the new 2G… [image] Hetzner launches a VPS service Self-hosting Looks like you can get a Discourse-compatible “cloud” server for € 2.49 / $ 3 from Hetzner now. The price point to host Discourse keeps going down. [image] Recommended Hosting Providers for Self Hosters Sysadmins This guide is intended for people who are not system administrators who just want to make Discourse work. This is a list of cloud hosting services that are believed to be reliable and easy enough for a novice to get up and running with as little fiddling as possible. You should be able to create an account, and a server on which to run your Discourse instance and still be able to pull the job off in very close to 30 minutes. I have installed Discourse on each of these, received an email from Di…

I don’t have a forum installed yet. I’m looking for a forum that is compatible with Discourse so I can move to Discourse later. My hosting provider supports forums that are PHP/MySQL based. Since I already have WordPress installed, a WP forum plug-in could be an option.

Short answer is that you can use BBpress on wordpress and that can be migrated to Discourse… [image] nibl: I don’t have a forum installed yet. I’m looking for a forum that is compatible with Discourse so I can move to Discourse later. That’s what I sensed. Honestly, I would say pick PHP based or Discourse now and stick to it, rather than doing php and then trying to migrate after. You’re just going to confuse whatever members you have by doing that. Not to mention the time you’ll spend on the migration and re-coaching your community members. Plus, I’d argue your adoption rate is going to be higher with Discourse honestly. On cost, the biggest challenge you are going to have is building an engaged community. Accounting for the time and effort it takes to build a community, $5-10/month is a pennies. If community is core to what you are doing and you are on a tight budget, perhaps consider downgrading the package your WP install is on to free up funds for Discourse. My 2c, set yourself up now and just go all-in on Discourse. Otherwise a facebook group might be a good idea. I’m taking some liberties here not knowing your full situation.

[image] nibl: I’m looking for a forum that is compatible with Discourse so I can move to Discourse later. You’re creating a world of unnecessary hurt for yourself here. The needs of your community should make the choice between something like Discourse and BBPress pretty straightforward. The cost of running Discourse is at an all-time low, if $3/$5 is really out of your budget then this isn’t even a choice.

Does DigitalOcean allow Discourse to run on their $5 plan? I watched a YouTube video from about 6 months ago and DigitalOcean would only allow the $20 plan minimum. That is, 2GB and 2vps.

[image] nibl: Does DigitalOcean allow Discourse to run on their $5 plan? I watched a YouTube video from about 6 months ago and DigitalOcean would only allow the $20 plan minimum. That is, 2GB and 2vps. Even 2-3 years ago the $10 droplet was fine. The new $5 droplet meets all the requirements afaik.

@david, @steve_pd, Thanks. The video I saw was showing DigitalOcean’s one-click installer. Not sure why the do/did that. As long as SSH works it’s fine by me.

[image] nibl: The video I saw was showing DigitalOcean’s one-click installer. Was that created by DO? If so they’ve a vested interest in selling resources. I’m sure it’s not nefarious, but it’s also not documentation produced by the team.

Transitioning to Discourse later

Product Support Self-hosting

david (David Taylor) February 11, 2018, 1:44am 8

Yes, many people use $5 droplets to run Discourse. Follow this official guide to get started, it is up-to-date and people on this forum can provide help if you need it:

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md

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Transitioning to Discourse later

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