A forum or a community site is a place where members write, and that changes everything about choosing it. A website forum template decides how the posts look; the forum software behind it decides whether members can register, whether spam is stopped, whether moderators can act, and whether the community survives its first argument. Community website templates are sold on their layout and bought on their moderation tools. This page sets out the choice between forum software on your own site and a hosted community platform, what moderation and membership have to be in place before launch, the legal position of a site that publishes what its members write, and how to cost it.
Forum software on your site or a hosted community
Forum software installed on your own site gives you the domain, the data and the design, and gives you the updates, the spam and the security to manage. A hosted community platform gives you registration, moderation, notifications and search done, on a monthly fee, with less control of the look and your community on someone else's terms. For a business adding a community to an existing site, the hosted route is usually right for the first year; for a community that is the whole business, owning it matters more. The template only decides what either looks like.
Moderation and membership before the first post
Registration that stops the spam accounts, which is the first thing a new forum is hit with. Moderators, named, with the tools to remove posts, warn members and ban. Rules, written plainly and shown at registration. Categories few enough that a new member can find where to post. Notifications so members come back. A launch with none of that in place is a forum that is empty for a month and then full of spam. Each of those is a feature line or a moderator's time, and the time is the larger cost.
The legal position and the cost
A site that publishes its members' posts is, under federal law, generally not treated as the publisher of what its users write, which is the provision that makes forums possible; it does not remove the site's own obligations on copyright takedowns, on unlawful content it is told about, or on the data it holds about members. Terms, a privacy policy and a takedown route belong on the site before launch. On the website cost calculator a community is a few marketing pages, the forum software or platform as the feature line or the monthly line, and moderation as an ongoing cost that the calculator cannot see and the business must.
Questions people ask about website forum template
Is a forum the same as a community website?
A forum is threads and replies; a community site may add profiles, groups, events and direct messages. Most small communities need the forum and the profiles and little else.
How much moderation does a small forum need?
Daily attention in the first months, mostly against spam registrations, then a few hours a week. A forum with no named moderator does not survive its first dispute.
Can we charge for membership?
Yes, with a members plugin or a hosted platform that supports paid tiers. The renewal and cancellation rules that apply to any subscription apply here too.