Existential forum help; choking on bandwidth issues?

Hey all,

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but not sure what else to do. I’m using managed hosting, and I have an incredibly active forum. Several times a year, but particularly one day a week (NFL gamedays during season), I usually have a ‘game day thread’ which accrues +2,000 posts in a 3 hour period. Of course, this type of activity bogs down the forum, rendering the thread/forum almost inoperable. You can imagine how the users respond.

While the site is a hobby site, it has an ad revenue/subscription model, but not nearly enough to offset an expense of +$200/mo. Right now I’m paying $100/mo for managed hosting, and even that is stretching the limits some of the site budget.

I asked my hosting provider if Discourse Chat was the way to go instead of a thread; in theory, it seems like less of a resource drain, but I was told the opposite is the case.

Any suggestions on handling this weekly influx of activity without (literally) breaking the bank?

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What are you getting for your $100/month?

Could you possibly increase your server specs during those periods?

More information about your current setup would be helpful.

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