forum

[Tazuk]

I would like to start a forum on my website does anyone know of a good non php forum that i could use. Again it has to be non php as my host does not support it.

TAZ

[mattk]

Does your host support ASP.NET?

[DotNetWebs]

Hi Taz

I use an ASP.NET application for all my forums. See my signature for one example. I have also customised the code on this one to display RSS and Web Service feeds.

It is based on a commercial application so is more expensive than a free or low cost PHP board but I prefer to use it as is can be more tightly integrated into my existing web sites.

To be honest if your site does not support PHP and you wish to add the sort of functionality you require for your site you may need to think about upgrading your hosting package.

[DotNetWebs]

Thats funny Mattk

Two ASP.NET answers arriving at EXACTLY the same time!

[Tazuk]

Yes the host does support asp.net.

I am trying to get some repeat traffic to my website by putting a forum and regular rss news feeds on the site i now have enough info on rss and i will be sorting everything out for the site shortly.

cheers

TAZ

[DotNetWebs]

You would also need Microsoft SQL Server database. Is one included in your package? If the forum takes of you may find the database grows considerably so you would need to check how much it would cost you if you exceed the storage included. IMHO InstantForum.net is the best ASP.NET forum around. One slight issue I have with it though is that it stores all attachments in the database rather than in the file system. This does have some advantages if you have your own server but if you are using shared hosting you can rapidly exceed the typically included database limit. This can get very expensive.

Using a Windows / MS SQL solution will almost certainly cost more than a PHP / MYSQL solution that is why you may be better off switching to a PHP host. If however your site already uses Microsoft technologies you would probably be better off sticking with it and going with a ASP.NET solution.