I've tried using free forums, but they usually end up being a hassle because of their slow speed and their tendency to stop working a lot. I want to host a forum on the webspace I already own. How would I go about creating a forum for myself that won't cost me any money? I don't necessarily want to script an enitre message board, but I'm looking more into those packages you can download and alter, etc.

Depending on your programming skills, pretty much any forum packages can be modified. I use Java to develop web applications, and I have been modifying a forum package called JForum to look and behave like I want.

Creating your own forum is a huge undertaking, with a complex architecture. Perhaps it would be more helpful to know what capabilities your current server has. Otherwise it is sort of hard to make recommendations that are meaningful.

I've got 3,000MB storage and 100GB transfer a month. I use it for my website currently and I'm looking to use it for a forum as well. Is there a package out there that doesn't require a lot of altering? I have programming experience, but I'd rather not use it! I only expect 10 people max at a time (and that's pushing it) for the forum, so I'm not looking for suped up.

Size and transfer rate doesn't really tell me much. I am more interested in whether it is a linux, windows, or mac. I am interested in what server software it is using to deliver the pages.

You want free software that you don't have to alter much for a few users. Ever heard the saying that you get what you pay for? Many forums use style sheets to offer some customization. So your choice is to take what you can get and live with it, or make it livable. There are many free forum packages that work just fine. I am thinking that maybe you don't have a clear understanding of what you need to be able to do.

It's a Wind2003 server with 1 MySQL DB, MS Access Database, phpMyAdmin
ASP.NET 2.0 & 1.1 phpBB, osCommerce

Do you have any recommendations for forums? I keep coming across forums like proboards or freebb which cap bandwidth rates because they host it themselves. I've seen forum software such as yabb which allows you to use their software and host it at will. I'm looking for something like that and was hoping for a recommendation of a particular forum in that criteria.