I want to join the Fediverse. I don’t have a computer or anything to make something like a Lemmy instance, and I found that NodeBB will easily allow you to make a forum quickly, but I have to pay to do so. Should I just pay when I can or is there a free way to make a federated instance on a software?

    • Craig (He/Him)@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      41·
      6 months ago

      IDK, Dad and Grandpa say the computer is too old to access it and he thinks me buying an ethernet cable is useless 😭 The computer is probably 10-13 years old, I’m not sure

          • svn@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            If you go with something that isn’t lemmy/piefed/mbin, you should look into compatibility and project activity very carefully.

          • abeorch@friendica.ginestes.es
            1·
            7 days ago

            @CraigCabbage @mat I had a look at this - - If this is ProBoards - proboards.com/free-forum-featu… - It looks that its a closed service - hosted by that company and either free (Where the audience is is the product sold to Google Advertising) or where someone can pay to host a forum (and remove the ads) - I couldn’t see any federation capabilities

            Maybe it would make sense for them to have a Discourse type plugin that allows you to follow posts from the forums in ActivityPub to attract visitors but I guess they are too small to be able to devote their own resources to developing this capability.

            From my perspective, If I was going to run a forum - I’d avoid this type of service since you are basically locked in and no doubt at some point it will get enshitiified. I’d either get a Lemmy server, use an lemmy server and create a community on that (so you are properly part of the Fediverse) or run a Discourse Forum (With ActivityPub plugin ) - where you at least own the domain and can move / migrate it if ever want/need to.