@JQ331, “Other than push notifications” is a understatement IMHO. As a 20+ year forum admin in multiple spaces, I would blame a large portion of the decline of forum use in the past decade on a lack of push notifications. People use apps now more than mobile browsers and especially for IOS, where native push notification support is not available for websites loaded in Safari, the ability for users to be updated and reminded of new content on your forum in the same way that they are constantly aware of Faceobook, Instagram, and every other app out there is critical to keeping your forum relevant.
There are a lot of notifications vying for the attention of your users. You can’t make the other notifications go away, but to not have any on your own forum is a miss in my experience.
Yes, users who are already used to checking your forums in Safari will maybe continue to do so without proper native notifications, but if you are looking to grow, especially by expanding into audiences that haven’t used forums much, notifications are key in helping keep your site easily accessible to them.