We have to admit, we liked BoardHost.com a lot more than we thought we would. The homepage of the site isn't overly impressive and there's quite a bit of text to muddle through, but in the end it's definitely worth the time.

• Free 14-Day Trial
• Free Message Boards Available
• Instant Forum Creation

BoardHost.com proved to be a value-packed forum hosting service, offering a wealth of features at very affordable rates. And it's easy to use! Many of the features offered by BoardHost are usually offered by services with a less user-friendly appeal. BoardHost.com makes these advanced features, such as IP stamping and IP banning, accessible and easy.

While BoardHost.com isn't the best bet for those who plan on getting thousands of posts each month (there are some pretty unappealing message caps with each plan), they are great for smaller forum communities that don't need more than a few thousand message stored at any given time. They earn 5.5 Stars!

InvisionFree won't be the forum hosting service of choice for everyone, but it's a great option for those in need of basic hosting services. Users can choose from a variety of skins, alter color schemes and even upload logos to their forum designs. Unfortunately, however, modification installations aren't supported. If you are a basic user, this won't be a problem but advanced users may find it a bit frustrating.

• Multiple Forum Skins Now Available
• Avatars Can Be Uploaded to Gallery
• Emoticon Integration

The forum service is ad supported, so you'll have to deal with a single banner add rotating across your pages unless you want to pay for an upgrade to an ad-free version of the service. That being said, the upgrade is dirt cheap at just 15 cents per 1,000 page views.

Customer support also impressed us, with next-day responses to our support request. While we'd have liked to see live phone support, we understand why it's not feasible or cost-effective for the company.

If you're looking for free forum hosting, you're not too picky about features, but demand good customer service, then this is definitely the forum hosting service for you. InvisionFree earns 5.0 Stars!

We had such high hopes for Bravenet, but in the end we were a bit disappointed. First, there's the fact that the forums themselves don't offer as many features as we'd have liked to see. There's no member ranking, no spell check feature, and a few other missing fundamentals.

• IP Banning
• Password Protection
• Online Message Forum Demo

Then there's the fact that the advertising isn't just banner ads, it's pop-up ads too. That gets quite annoying and will probably goad you into paying for an upgrade at some point in time, but the first $55 per year upgrade only removes banners and pop-ups. If you want the Bravenet branding removed you have to pay an additional $55, which we don't think is fair.

Overall, while Bravenet does offer user-friendly free ad-supported forum hosting, we have to say that we feel there are better options out there. Star Reviews gives them 4.5 Stars!

TalkThis is by no means the top forum hosting service on the Web. The forums are rather elementary and the customer support is laughable. The site does, however, have its place in the forum hosting world.

• Ad-Supported and Premium Services Available
• Unlimited Posts/Unlimited Members
• Non-English Versions Available

If you're new to forum hosting and want to test the waters before jumping in with both feet, this service is a great option. The ad-supported hosting service won't cost you a dime, and the ad-free service won't hurt your budget too much if you do decide to upgrade in the future.

The other thing TalkThis has going for it is that it's relatively easy to use. On that same token, don't expect to be able to customize every nook and cranny of your forum environment.

If you're looking for a cheap way to break into the world of online message forums and you don't expect too much from a free or low-cost service, TalkThis might be a good forum hosting service option for you. We give them 4.0 Stars!