The discussion centers on whether Discourse can be installed on InMotion Hosting, particularly under its shared hosting plan. Rohit_Singh asks if he can add a forum to his existing WordPress site without switching hosts or spending more. vinothkannans clarifies that Discourse cannot run on shared hosting due to its Docker dependency, which requires specific kernel support. Rohit_Singh then asks if he can host the main site on InMotion and Discourse on a subdomain via DigitalOcean — which vinothkannans and pfaffman confirm is not only possible but preferable. For low-traffic needs (500–1000 monthly comments, up to 1000 users in 2 years), dax recommends starting with 1GB RAM + 2GB swap on any Docker-supported host like DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or Vultr, with room to scale later. marianco questions whether upgrading to InMotion’s Managed VPS could allow Discourse installation, but vinothkannans notes InMotion uses Virtuozzo (OpenVZ-based), which is incompatible with Docker — making Discourse installation unlikely even on their VPS. The consensus is to use a separate VPS provider that supports Docker for Discourse, while keeping the main site on InMotion if desired.
Hi,
I have a wordpress site hosted on ‘inmotion hosting’ with a basic yearly plan of around $50/year.
Now I want to add a forum to my website.
Do I need to now opt for another hosting provider like Digital Ocean and spend additional money?
Can’t I use Discourse with inmotion hosting and my current plan?
You can’t host Discourse in a shared hosting server.
So can I keep my original site say www.example.com on inmotion hosting, and just host the discourse on Digital ocean with subdomain forum.example.com?
Or shall I try moving everything to Digital Ocean?
It is not necessary to host both main and sub domain (Discourse) with same provider.
And it’s much easier not to host them on the same server!
Hi Vinod,
Thanks for the answer.
Just one more query, since I am not very versed with web hosting and things.
Say I am expecting a max of 500-1000 comments on my forum per month.
And do not expect more than 1000 people signup for the first 2 years.
What would be the minimum configuration that I must opt for, which is easy on the pocket as well as performs decent enough?
I am considering Digital Ocean, but open to other suggestion.
1 gb ram and 2 gb of swap should be enough to get started. You can always do a server upgrade if traffic increases.
Any hosting you choose the basic requirement is that they support docker. The first hostings that comes to mind, in addition to DO, are Hetzner, OVH, Scaleway, UpCloud and Vultr but you can find more information here:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-cheapest-solution-for-hosting/24060
where you can also find some benchmark comparison
That isn’t a good answer.
What about answering this question:
What if you upgrade from Shared Hosting to a Managed VPS Hosting in Inmotion Hosting or any other host.
Can you then install Discourse?
And what would you need to do the installation?
Inmotion Hosting already has:
PostgreSQL
Ruby on Rails
@marianco the OP asked the question to install in shared hosting only.
Of-course you can install Discourse in a VPS server. But I am not sure about Inmotion Hosting.