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Recommended hosts for an RP-focused community?

LaylaAlder

LaylaAlder

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Today I'll be purchasing the XenForo software after work, alongside the following plugins:
I don't expect the RP to become massive, though we do have some artists in the community so there is an expectation of an accumulation of art assets over time. What hosting service would y'all recommend for something like this, and do you see anything you think I should swap out or pick up alongside the others?
 
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LaylaAlder said:
What hosting service would y'all recommend for something like this,
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The hosting service I always recommend is @MattW https://mattwservices.co.uk . He uses xenForo himself. If you are hosting a lot of audio which I imagine you will for RP examples then you'll need plenty of disk space.

But I don't think the type of community makes any difference.

Beware some of those addons are unmaintained though.
 
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Probably more pictures than audio, honestly. The most we'll likely do with audio is posting Youtube Vids in a writing advice thread. It's mostly written roleplay with still images for art, so thankfully no need to host audio or video files I don't think.
 
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Pretty much every host will work for what you're wanting, however you will need to scale as your community grows (you could probably ask @The Dark Wizard about running a RP community).

I would wait for 2.3 before making any final decisions on add-ons; OAuth support means you may likely be able to use MediaWiki or another wiki option, which would be overall better than XenCarta. There is also VaultWiki, however I have always found that fairly problematic. You could also get by with using Showcase or another similar add-on (or if you're really desperate Resource manager) and utilize custom fields for filling in data.
 
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The first question would be where you are located and based on that I would pick a host.

Another question you have to ask yourself is how many GB of files you have to store and serve.

Assuming that people upload artwork in a proper resolution, a file will very easily need 5-10MB, maybe even more. If you have let's say 10 people to upload a file three times a day of lets say 10MB, you need 300MB a day, 2,1GB a week, 8,4GB a month and around 100GB a year.

However, the reality is significantly different than that :)
Our Saab forum accumulated around 130GB over a whopping 20 years only (for a long time attachments were strictly limited in size though) with a user base of just 20K people.

It would be good to know a rough estimate of users you have and expect.

Another aspect I want to throw in regarding storage needs is XenForo's compatibility with S3 storage, which would allow you to scale your needs on the go.

Aside from that XenForo's requirements are pretty basic and more or less the same as any other software. You need a database and a webserver. That's about it.
 
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Forsaken said:
Pretty much every host will work for what you're wanting, however you will need to scale as your community grows (you could probably ask @The Dark Wizard about running a RP community).

I would wait for 2.3 before making any final decisions on add-ons; OAuth support means you may likely be able to use MediaWiki or another wiki option, which would be overall better than XenCarta. There is also VaultWiki, however I have always found that fairly problematic. You could also get by with using Showcase or another similar add-on (or if you're really desperate Resource manager) and utilize custom fields for filling in data.
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Alas, we're migrating from Guilded, so we have time pressure. Everything has to be moved over before 7/15, as our community has no desire to create Roblox accounts just to continue to use the program we've used for years. The purchases have already been made.

@rkhx: I'm personally based in Texas, USA. If there's a hosting service that I could upgrade the plan as we need, that could be ideal - maybe start at 8GB/yr, and if we need more we can upgrade to a 16/32/64 etc GB/yr plan, and if somehow we get popular upgrade to a higher one from there. Honestly, I expect a few dozen regular members, with maybe an accumulated few hundred or so over the years who show up, are active for like a week, then disappear off the face of the earth. I don't think we need super high amounts of space. We will need a host that won't kick us for spicy artwork though. While we're not an explicitly ERP community, we don't disallow it and do filter out kids. I wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of finding a host and setting it up only to be kicked because the host is prudish.

Mr Lucky said:
Sorry I thought you meant RP = Received Pronunciation :) Not much of a market for that these days.
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lol we're a Roleplay community with a no-kids rule.



Anywho, the ones I'm looking at now are A2, InMotion, or Hostinger. Any red flags for those?
 
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My Eyes Pain GIF

I couldn't resist :ROFLMAO:
All the joking aside, that is an important point to look out for and I would highly recommend to check what the respective terms of service state.

I think to remember that Contabo (German provider with US datacenters), has relatively liberal ToS, but one would have to check.

Also here DigitalOcean's AUP as a reference:
www.digitalocean.com

Legal - Acceptable Use Policy

Helping millions of developers easily build, test, manage, and scale applications of any size - faster than ever before.
www.digitalocean.com www.digitalocean.com
 
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Thanks for the heads up - that ruled out several options, and raised red flags about others where I can't seem to find a listed AUP or TOS. Hostinger seems like it may be the one we go with, unless I get someone warning me of some kind of nightmare story or incompatibility there.

I apologize if I'm sharing too much - I've not had to create or host a website before, so I've no idea what is or isn't relevant and want to make sure I do things right.
 
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LaylaAlder said:
Alas, we're migrating from Guilded, so we have time pressure. Everything has to be moved over before 7/15, as our community has no desire to create Roblox accounts just to continue to use the program we've used for years. The purchases have already been made.

@rkhx: I'm personally based in Texas, USA. If there's a hosting service that I could upgrade the plan as we need, that could be ideal - maybe start at 8GB/yr, and if we need more we can upgrade to a 16/32/64 etc GB/yr plan, and if somehow we get popular upgrade to a higher one from there. Honestly, I expect a few dozen regular members, with maybe an accumulated few hundred or so over the years who show up, are active for like a week, then disappear off the face of the earth. I don't think we need super high amounts of space. We will need a host that won't kick us for spicy artwork though. While we're not an explicitly ERP community, we don't disallow it and do filter out kids. I wouldn't want to go through all the trouble of finding a host and setting it up only to be kicked because the host is prudish.


lol we're a Roleplay community with a no-kids rule.



Anywho, the ones I'm looking at now are A2, InMotion, or Hostinger. Any red flags for those?
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I use hostinger and I’m very happy with them up to now.
 
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KnownHost | Website Hosting Provider

Managed Web Hosting on Ultra-Fast Servers - State of the Art Hardware - 24/7 Tech Support. Affordable and Simply the Best Website Hosting on the planet!
www.knownhost.com www.knownhost.com

KnownHost would be great. I seemingly just upgraded from one plan to another without services going down on the VPS plans. I'm sure their shared hosting can do the same.

It's worth opening a ticket and just asking them some questions if you're that unsure. I've been using KH for years. Very positive experience.

Oh, and they use Xenforo themselves: https://www.knownhost.com/forums/

In the event you need some support with the setup.
 
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Obviously biased but at some point in the future, do give XenForo Cloud a look.

Interestingly, over the last couple of years, we were surprised at how many RP communities signed up for Cloud.
 
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rkxh said:
My Eyes Pain GIF

I couldn't resist :ROFLMAO:
All the joking aside, that is an important point to look out for and I would highly recommend to check what the respective terms of service state.

I think to remember that Contabo (German provider with US datacenters), has relatively liberal ToS, but one would have to check.

Also here DigitalOcean's AUP as a reference:
www.digitalocean.com

Legal - Acceptable Use Policy

Helping millions of developers easily build, test, manage, and scale applications of any size - faster than ever before.
www.digitalocean.com www.digitalocean.com
Click to expand...
I can vouch for contabo. Great company, superb support and good prices. I've got a VPS there.
 
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Don't listen to @Chris D, he is this type of guy to call you at 3AM regarding your cars warranty. 🤧

To be fair, I think XF Cloud is a solid product if you want to spend as little time and effort possible when dealing with the entire backend work.

Maybe on a critical note, but I couldn't seem to find a terms of service for the cloud?

@CedricV I use Contabo for small and not so important sites. Thing is that their host systems are relatively crowded. For European based sites I would always use netcup. From my experience some of the best, if not even the best, provider for VPS.

Another point we didn't pick up here in our recommendations is the fact you will need a mail server as well to send outgoing e-mails like notifications.
 
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