BlueHost forum hosting refers to the forum programs available for free via the BlueHost web hosting package, and which is included in the BlueHost SimpleScripts installer. Want to add a forum to your website? Take a look at the BlueHost forum hosting options here.
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Introduction to BlueHost Forum Hosting
Whether you want a simple forum or a robust one, a forum through which to build your entire site around as you gather users with a common interest, hobby, team, or political party, or one through which to provide tech support or other customer support to people who buy your products or services, BlueHost Forum Hosting can provide the forum you need. Through their use of SimpleScripts—a one-click application installer—BlueHost offers customers 5 forums, all in ongoing development and supported by their developers, with support accessible through SimpleScripts itself or by going directly to the forum website. For this reason, explains a BlueHost tech support representative, BlueHost customers won’t find advanced support in the BlueHost Help Center, beyond basic information on installing through SimpleScripts.
BlueHost Forum Hosting Choices
The five forums that you can use on your BlueHost account all offer a choice of flat or threaded forum (sometimes the threading is provided through a plug-in).
Simple Machines Forum (SMF), which is only flat. Four of them—bbPress, phpBB, SMF, and Vanilla Forums—are full-featured and offer a variety of externals—be their modifications, plug-ins, themes, or templates—to help forum hosts customize their forum in both appearance and operation. PunBB, built for simplicity and speed, purposely eschews some features that do not fit the initial developer’s vision of a simple bulletin board, and so does not include features like advanced text formatting, the ability to attach files to posts, polls, and private messages.
Here is a run-down of the five BlueHost forum hosting options, with their current version number as of this writing in March 2011, and the location on the developer’s site of the documentation. Note that another reason you might want to visit developer’s sites before installing the forum through BlueHost is to try out a demo. You may also want to have a look at some of the BlueHost forums that have been developed using the software.
• bbPress is at version 1.0.3, with SimpleScripts one point release behind at 1.0.2. One of its draws is that its produced by the developers of WordPress, so compatibility between the two is built in. http://bbpress.org/documentation/
• phpBB is at version 3.0.8, and that’s what you’ll get through SimpleScripts. phpBB is the forum about which BlueHost has the most information in its Help Center, with references to it in the “Getting Started Wizard” article. http://www.phpbb.com/support/documentation/3.0/?from=submenu
• PunBB is at version, 1.3.4, which is what SimpleScripts currently offers. Remember that this is the intentionally light-weight forum. http://punbb.informer.com/forums/
• Simple Machines Forum (SMF) is at version, 1.1.13, and that’s what SimpleScripts is offering. Version 2 is up to the Release Candidate stage, so the expectation would be that it will be released soon. http://docs.simplemachines.org/
• Vanilla Forums is at 2.0.17.8, which you can get through SimpleScripts, and some people may find the fact that they have a mobile version quite appealing. It claims over 500 plug-ins. http://vanillaforums.org/docs