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Best PunBB Hosting & Best Hosting for PunBB
PunBB is a free, light-weight internet discussion board application, it was created as an alternative to graphical and more verbose discussion boards like the phpBB, vBulletin and other bulletin board. PunBB completed in August 2003, and it was a personal project undertaken by Rickard Anderson and was simply known as Pun that is, play on words.
Follow-up versions have been released in quick successions, with version 1.2 in January 2005, prompting the team to immediately begin work on version 1.3. In all, PunBB has become fully stabilized since 3 years ago with the release of the version 1.4.4. Coded in PHP, PunBB requires a PHP processor while it equally supports other well-known open sources including MySQL and the lite version of the same.
It is interesting to know that until 2011, Facebook developers had a discussion board for reporting bugs and for general discussion that was powered by PunBB. If you run a website that has a bulletin or discussion board, PunBB is your best bet for the fastest loading time and simple interface.
While PunBB is released under the GNU general public license, ensuring that it is free to download, distribute and modify, bearing this in mind several other variants of PunBB are now on the market, written directly from PunBB source code.
Essentially, what makes PunBB so good is the relative lack of features. So rather than load graphical interface, PunBB is always loading your website just the way you love it - fast, simple and easy. This single feature has made PunBB gain popularity amongst website developers and owners who use to build their websites on bulletin boards. Other features of PunBB includes:
Themes
Everyone loves a colorful website, where everything is in order and neatly arranged. Order is of the essence in any website, particularly one that has a bulletin board. Not only will this give the website a matured feel, it will also promote forward reasoning conversation. PunBB allows you to customize your website bulletin board and give it a top-notch feel.
Avatars
Avatars are the bane of bulletin boards, allowing individual users to pick the default image that would represent them. Other users can easily see these avatars and know who exactly they are chatting with while all users can choose to stay anonymous, some advanced plugins allow users to change these avatars to their personal pictures, bringing a human feel into bulletin boards. PunBB supports the usage of Avatars for your bulletin board.
Quotes
Have you ever used a bulletin board where a user replies to another user who has previously commented by quoting the previous comment before issuing a reply? It can be either a continuity or a negation of thought. PunBB allows your bulletin board do just this, it brings life into conversations as a user-specific comment can be issued.
Emoticons
The quirky little faces and objects that have become the bane of bulletin posts is actively supported by PunBB. Make a statement of Intent with a few emotions, PunBB has got you covered.
Tips on choosing the great web host for PunBB
Now that you have known what the Bulletin board plugin PunBB can do for you, you will need to get a reliable hosting company to get your website up to speed. What are the tips you need? What should you look out for before picking your website host, they include the following:
Experience
Experience is truly the best teacher, this applies here. You should pick an experienced hosting company to host your PunBB website, such that if any eventualities arise the company will be able to handle it. Experience definitely affects the level of technical support a company can provide, and you sure want the best of that.
Simplicity
The bane of PunBB is simplicity, and you should complement this by choosing a host that promises the same. Don’t get bothered by technical languages or behind the scene coding, this will give you all the time you need to focus on the task at hand.
Maximum Uptime
When choosing a host, ensure you pick one that will give you at least 99% uptime - not only is this the industry standard, it also gives your website users the satisfaction they need, allowing them to stay as long as they want to on your website.
Flexible plans
Since PunBB enabled websites are lightweight and do not take too much of space, you may want to start from the basic hosting plan and walk your way up, depending on your website need. It is thus imperative that you pick a website host that allows you to switch hosting plans seamlessly without losing any data.
Security
If you must pick any website host, pick one that provides world-class antivirus protection for your website, preferably one that runs a daily check on all servers to ensure safety compliance. You don’t want your website brought down because its server has been infected by the virus. Do your best to secure your PunBB website.
Technical support
If ever you ever get stuck in the middle of a process as regards your website hosting, you should be able to contact your hosting company for support. You must look up to get reviews of technical support of the company you intend to provide hosting for your website. Do they provide round the clock support? If not, it may be safe to jump ship.
If you follow these tips, you should get the best hosting for your PunBB based website
10 Best PunBB Hosting Reviews and the Top PunBB Hosting Companies
1) A2 Hosting
3) BlueHost
5) InterServer
6) InMotion
7) DreamHost
8) GreenGeeks
9) HostPapa
10) iPage
