How fast can we be live?
Answer
About five minutes. Sign in, name your portal, and it is online at yourcompany.myforumcat.com. Nothing to install.
Community platform
A hosted community platform.
Nothing for you to install.
Your forum, your domain, your brand. Live in about five minutes with nothing to install. $9 one time on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain.
Free for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
5 minfrom sign-up to a live portal
0servers to run or patch
$9one time for a working portal
7 daysfree, no card needed
Pick the door that matches your job
One thing, several names
Community forum, discussion board, message board
People call this a community forum, a discussion board, community software, or a forum for their website. It is the same thing here: one public place where people ask, answer, and vote.
What changes between tools is not the form. It is who runs the server, whose domain it sits on, and what the bill looks like in month twelve.
This one is hosted. There is no server to rent and no update day to plan. You pick a name, you answer questions, and the rest is ours.
What you own
What is yours, and what you never run
The right column is this product. The left is what a forum you host yourself asks of you, and keeps asking.
| A forum you host yourself | Forumcat | |
|---|---|---|
| Your domain | Yours, once DNS and SSL are set up | Yours, with SSL issued for you |
| Your brand | Themes and templates to maintain | Logo, favicon, accent, and Light, Dim or Dark |
| Your content | In a database you back up | Readable through the REST API on every plan |
| The server | Rent it, size it, watch it | None. We run it. |
| Updates and patches | Update day, every release | We ship them, you do nothing |
| Price shape | A server bill every month, plus your time | $9 one time, or $99 a month on your own domain |
| Per seat or per member fees | Depends on the tool | None. The bill does not grow with either. |
| Time to a live address | However long the rows above take | About five minutes |
The left column describes the work any self-hosted forum needs. It is not a claim about one product. Unlimited seats and questions on Pro carry a quiet fair-use backstop, lifted for any real portal that reaches it. Page views are fair-use limits, not a meter.
Your brand
It should look like part of your site
Upload a logo, set a favicon, pick an accent color, and choose Light, Dim or Dark. That is the whole design job.
On your own domain the portal sits at an address like community.yourcompany.com, with SSL set up for you. Your existing analytics or chat snippet goes into the page head from the dashboard. The forum stays inside the stack you already report on.
- A forum on my domain, with automatic SSL
- Google sign-in that shows your company name, not ours
- Your own analytics script, on every plan
In the box
What every portal comes with
The same set on both plans. Nothing here is an add-on, and nothing is held back for a higher tier.
Search that works
Full search over every question, plus categories and tags for browsing.
One accepted answer
The reply that solved it gets pinned under the question, and the thread turns to solved.
Private when it needs to be
Any question can be made private. Whole categories can be private by default.
REST and MCP
Every capability is an API call and an MCP tool, on every plan. Your own agents can read it.
Setup
Name it, and it is live
Sign in, type a name, and pick an address. The portal is online at yourcompany.myforumcat.com while you are still on the page.
There is no server to pick, no Docker, no database, and no mail server to wire up. Answer the first question and you are running a community.
Short answers
The questions people ask before they sign up
- Do I need a server for a forum?YesNo. There is nothing to install and nothing to patch.
- Can it run on my own domain?YesYes, on Pro, with SSL set up for you.
- Will the forum be indexed by Google?YesYes. Server-rendered pages, a sitemap, and structured data.
- Is it affordable forum software?YesYes. $9 one time for a working portal.
- Is it the easiest forum to set up?YesThat is the whole point. About five minutes.
- Can our own AI agents read it?YesYes. REST and MCP come with every plan.
No plugins to choose. No settings maze to work through.
Pricing
One flat price. No surprises.
Not per user. Not per question. Grow all you want, your bill stays the same. More traffic is good news, not a bigger bill.
Basic
$9 one-time
Create your portal- Portal on yourcompany.myforumcat.com
- 2 team seats
- 1,000 registered members
- 10,000 questions
- 1 GB (≈2,000 images) of media
- Full SEO and GEO: structured data + sitemap
- Analytics built in
most popular
Pro
$99 per month
Start with ProEverything in Basic, plus
- Your own custom domain
- Unlimited team seats
- 10,000 registered members
- Unlimited questions
- 50 GB (≈100,000 images) of media
- 1,000,000 page views / month
FAQ
Fair questions
What does it cost in month twelve?
Answer
The same as month one. $9 one time for a portal on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain. The bill never grows with traffic or questions.
Does it work on our own domain?
Answer
Yes, on Pro. Point a subdomain like help.yourcompany.com at Forumcat and SSL is set up for you. Your Forumcat subdomain redirects to it.
Do customers need an account to read?
Answer
No. Reading and searching are open to everyone. Signing in is only for asking, replying, and voting, and it is passwordless.
Are replies threaded?
Answer
No. Each question has one flat stream, in time order, with an "in reply to" marker. It stays readable for people who do not use forums often.
What happens to our answers if we leave?
Answer
They are yours. Every question and answer is readable through the REST API, so you can pull it all out any time.
Your community, live in about five minutes
Name it, brand it, and answer the first question today.
Create your portalFree for 7 days. No credit card.
