ForumSpark 2.0 is here

I appreciate all the hard work, but im going to be honest i am not a fan of 2.0 being locked behind a paywall, even if it is cheap, its not even that it isnt worth it, because it is, i just think everyone should get 2.0, or maybe paid users get the next major version sooner, alot of users had input into 2.0 that it just seems wrong to charge for it kinda out of the blue. Just my two cents, no offense of course.

On Jul 23, 2026, Excalibur said:

I appreciate all the hard work, but im going to be honest i am not a fan of 2.0 being locked behind a paywall, even if it is cheap, its not even that it isnt worth it, because it is, i just think everyone should get 2.0, or maybe paid users get the next major version sooner, alot of users had input into 2.0 that it just seems wrong to charge for it kinda out of the blue. Just my two cents, no offense of course.

I appreciate the feedback, and no offense taken.

In an ideal world, everything would remain free. Honestly, I would prefer to keep it that way. Unfortunately, ForumSpark does not have investors. Introducing a small monthly fee is necessary to give the platform a stable and sustainable future.

The fee has deliberately been kept low. Considering the value provided, it could easily be much higher, but the goal is to keep ForumSpark affordable for everyone.

The reality is that infrastructure is not cheap. ForumSpark is growing at a healthy rate, which means larger and more expensive servers are needed to keep everything fast, reliable, and online. There are also costs for email delivery, Cloudflare, storage, backups, realtime, AI services, and many other services behind the scenes.

That is without even considering the countless hours I have invested in building, maintaining, and continuously improving the platform.

As a thank you, any v1 board receives a 50% discount during a full year when upgrading.

On Jul 23, 2026, Cedric said:

I appreciate the feedback, and no offense taken.

In an ideal world, everything would remain free. Honestly, I would prefer to keep it that way. Unfortunately, ForumSpark does not have investors. Introducing a small monthly fee is necessary to give the platform a stable and sustainable future.

The fee has deliberately been kept low. Considering the value provided, it could easily be much higher, but the goal is to keep ForumSpark affordable for everyone.

The reality is that infrastructure is not cheap. ForumSpark is growing at a healthy rate, which means larger and more expensive servers are needed to keep everything fast, reliable, and online. There are also costs for email delivery, Cloudflare, storage, backups, realtime, AI services, and many other services behind the scenes.

That is without even considering the countless hours I have invested in building, maintaining, and continuously improving the platform.

As a thank you, any v1 board receives a 50% discount during a full year when upgrading.

I totally understand you have to make money because all this costs money, you gotta pay the bills, i guess my issue, is more of it being unexpected for 2.0, but i do have a question, what happens to users who do pay but cant pay again, do they get downgraded, how would that work?

On Jul 23, 2026, Excalibur said:

I totally understand you have to make money because all this costs money, you gotta pay the bills, i guess my issue, is more of it being unexpected for 2.0, but i do have a question, what happens to users who do pay but cant pay again, do they get downgraded, how would that work?

There is no downgrading possible at the moment. But there is a 90 day grace period. We're not going to shutdown and delete your board the moment your subscription runs out. During the grace period you can access your board, but you cannot turn it online for members. After the grace period the board will be deleted automatically. And honestly, I'm around, if you want to pause it for longer than 90 days, just send me a PM and I'll make sure nothing gets deleted.

On Jul 23, 2026, Cedric said:

There is no downgrading possible at the moment. But there is a 90 day grace period. We're not going to shutdown and delete your board the moment your subscription runs out. During the grace period you can access your board, but you cannot turn it online for members. After the grace period the board will be deleted automatically. And honestly, I'm around, if you want to pause it for longer than 90 days, just send me a PM and I'll make sure nothing gets deleted.

Fair enough, i just wasnt sure if it would be downgraded or just stay with the last version you had before it expired, or how that would work, thanks for clarifying.