As some of you might know I am active on a popular admin forum. There I recently got a feedback on the thread where I listed NodeBB and " software to keep an eye on ". Some of them where under the impression that NodeBB is actually not free because we need to spend a lot on hosting. Just wondering if we can tie up with some host to provide some cheap hosting package for beginners.
Another thing is we can offer installation help as well (may be for a small fee or someone from community can volunteer) because many feel that NodeBB is a bit hard to install after dealing with conventional scripts.
I am willing to volunteer to help installation service for free if you guys can help me with it.
You don't need to spend a lot on hosting, aren't Digital Ocean droplets like $5 a month? That is pretty cheap.
I only pay £11 a month for a dedicated server; free hosting usually sucks. If they really wanted free they could just host it on their own machine.
A bash script would be useful for quick and easy installs.
@meetdilip said:
Another thing is we can offer installation help as well (may be for a small fee or someone from community can volunteer)
PM me if you know somebody who needs help installing NodeBB.
@Scuzz said:
You don't need to spend a lot on hosting, aren't Digital Ocean droplets like $5 a month? That is pretty cheap.
I only pay £11 a month for a dedicated server; free hosting usually sucks. If they really wanted free they could just host it on their own machine.A bash script would be useful for quick and easy installs.
I am not talking about offering free hosting. I was just checking if we can contact a hosting service provider and provide hosting a decent hosting for beginners which will be around the rate of shared hosting. No offence, these amounts sound small in USD, GBP and Euros but not in many other currencies.
@planner said:
@meetdilip said:
Another thing is we can offer installation help as well (may be for a small fee or someone from community can volunteer)
PM me if you know somebody who needs help installing NodeBB.
The general opinion I got it is the learning curve to install the software and maintain VPS. No one has contacted me personally, but I would love to see NodeBB offering it as a service. NodeBB needs more adopters, so the simpler we make the process, better it is.
100% no to both points. This is a forum software, not a cheap hosting provider. Unless the members were offering installation for free (bad idea), the installation of the software would cost you a lot more than the hosting currently does. I used to work for a company that charged £500 per day per developer. Suddenly £2.98 ($5) and following the documentation doesn't seem so bad.
Please point the person whom said nodebb isn't free to the github. They've gone straight to pricing on nodebb, not the self hosted options as I've mentioned above which is cheaper, but doesn't come with the services provided. If you need something, be prepared to pay for it, unless you're posting here for advice.
Apologies if that seemed a bit snappy. 
No offence taken. I just wanted more people to use NodeBB.:)
I perfectly understand what you said. I am not requesting NodeBB to provide free / cheap hosting. Just that check with some host who is willing to give an affordable hosting solution. They will get some customers who may grow big and upgrade in future.
Though I am pros like you guys, I am willing to share some time if it is just initial install. I can ask doubts and more people join we can either charge a fee or add more volunteers.
Just my 2 cents.
I can speak for the three of us when we say that we want to keep NodeBB free, but speaking for myself, when I say "free", I mean "free" as in free speech, libre. The core of NodeBB will always be that way, as that is what drives value and adoption.
I will admit that there is a lost segment that we cannot capture. Our hosting service works with admins who do not want to deal with the technical aspects of NodeBB/VPS administration, and costs money. Our self-hosted option works best with admins who already have that technical knowledge. Either way, we lose those admins who like the software, have no technical knowledge, and do not have the spending power to afford a hosted NodeBB.
Part of the reason why NodeBB is as fast as it is is it's* technology choices, and those choices are not widely adopted by the hosting segment. It will be a matter of time before hosting providers integrate Node.js into their offerings, just as Wordpress and Drupal were not "one-click installable" when they were first released.
While I am more than happy to encourage users to try installing NodeBB on their own, we cannot provide continued support since we have very limited manpower, but that is where our community comes in! People helping each other debug and install their NodeBBs is fantastic, and is beneficial in the long run.
For those who are technologically inclined, Digital Ocean seems to be a very good and very economical choice. In the short/medium term, we may attempt to reach out and facilitate easier installs through pre-configured images.
* Wow, first time I've said "it is is it's". Neat.
While I am here, I will also mention that we also cannot capture the segment of our audience who would prefer to maintain their own VPS (with shell/root access). We don't grant that on our hosting plans as it introduces variables we cannot control, although we might make changes on the hosting front so this is possible.
In the meantime, we do unofficially do private installs. They'd just need to contact us directly 
There are three free VPS's that comes to mind right now, Heroku, Koding, and OpenShift. You could probably run a small community on those platforms without paying a dime. The problem remains that it's still not easy to install with "one-click" as per other PHP solutions
@psychobunny Koding shuts your VPS down after 20 minutes of inactivity on their dashboard site. Which is a little bit...
But it's great for development needs.
