How much does it cost to run a site like this?

[TwoOuter]

I"ve always wondered how much boards like this cost to run. Can anyone shed some light on the general expenses?

I'm thinkin of:

1. Initial site construction
2. Hosting fees
3. Maintenance cost
4. Anything else I'm missing


The funny thing is that I've asked several people, some of whom work in tech-related fields, and the answers have been all over the map. Thanks for any feedback.

[Percula]

When you are talking about a site like this, it is a high volume site, which is different than just setting up a BBS site.

For a site like this you are going to want to co-lo your servers. You will need at least two servers, one for the DB and one for the web site. You may need to add more DB servers as the site grows in size and volume. It typically costs between $100 and $200 a month per 1U of rack space, since you need at a minimum of 2U for two serves, you are looking at a base price of $200-$400 a month.

Since it is a high volume site, you might also find yourself paying for the bandwidth usage as well. Pricing on this is all over the board. But would typically add a couple hundred to a couple of thousand per month depending on pricing and volume.

The software costs are anywhere from $0 to a couple of thousand. The cost of actually setting up the site would be contract work at anywhere from $25/hr to $250/hr, prices are all over the place. How many hours will depend on the skill/speed of the contractor and the complexity of the site and the amount of custom work you have done. Except a minimum of 10 hours.

You will also run into misc fees from the co-lo for things like firewall changes, server restarts, anything that they have to go do something. These can eat you alive depending on pricing from the co-lo.

[brasilstu]

1. Initial site construction

Who's doing it? You or a professional web site developer. If it's you then free but you have to put a value on your time.
2. Hosting fees
Free hosting is avalailable. Depending how much bandwidth you need anywhere from a few dollars a month to a couple of thousand.
3. Maintenance cost
See 1.
4. Anything else I'm missing

If you just wanted to get started you can get a blog from blogger or wordpress and be up and running in a few minutes. If you want a forum like this one then try www.proboards.com/

Specific costs for hosting - google is your friend. Forums like this are good because of the contributions of the posters an d the mods. They technology is very basic indeed.

Hope that helps.

[TwoOuter]

Hey Percula and brasilstu--

I really appreciate all the great information. Now I've got a better understanding why there's such a huge range of cost estimates. Thanks for breaking everything down.

I'm not ready to start a board but it's a possibility down the line and this is very helpful. Also, a friend of mine has a site running old software and has been thinking of converting but he's too busy to even look into it. He gets much less traffic so maybe it wouldn't be too expensive.

Thanks again for the insight.

[Freakin]

TwoOuter,

THe short answer is that you can set up a forum like this for free, or put it on your own domain and hosting for as cheap as $10/mo.

The more traffic you get, the more money it costs in hosting & maintenance.

Look at phpbb.com for a free forum software. vbulletin is a paid forum that is recognized as being one of the 'best' out there in terms of security, reliability and features (plus ease of use). It's like $150 for a one-site license.

[TwoOuter]

Freakin-- thanks for the info and suggestions. There seem to be some very affordable options available- I checked out phpbb and vbulletin and proboards and as mentioned if you use their subdomain the hosting costs are minimal. No wonder I seem to be the only one I know without a website.

Much appreciated.