Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Link Robins Managed Flarum Hosting.
Do I need to bring my own domain?
No — every plan includes a free yourname.linkrobins.cc address with DNS and SSL handled entirely by us. If you prefer your own domain, connecting it is a single CNAME record with any DNS provider, and your SSL certificate is issued and renewed automatically. Your dashboard shows the exact record to create and the live status until it goes active.
Can I migrate an existing Flarum forum?
Yes — and it's built into signup. Tick the migration option at checkout and upload a database SQL export; it is imported automatically while your forum is being deployed. For larger or more complex moves, contact us via the chat widget and we'll guide you through it.
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept credit and debit cards, processed securely via Stripe. Your card details are never stored on our servers.
What happens if my forum outgrows its current plan?
We believe in full transparency, not upselling. Your hosting dashboard shows your forum's live CPU and RAM usage in real time so you always know exactly where you stand. If your resources are consistently maxing out, it's entirely up to you to reach out and request an upgrade — we'll never push you to spend more. When you do upgrade, your forum and all its data remain intact throughout the process.
Is my forum backed up?
Yes. Your entire forum — database and all uploaded files — is backed up off-site automatically every week on every plan, and you can switch to daily backups as an add-on from your hosting panel. You can also trigger an on-demand database backup at any time from your hosting dashboard.
Is there an uptime SLA?
Yes — and it pays out automatically. If your forum's monthly uptime falls below 95% due to our infrastructure, we credit 10% of that month's fee to your account on our own initiative; it's deducted from your next invoice and noted in your dashboard changelog. You never have to ask, open a ticket, or prove anything. Scheduled maintenance and downtime caused by third-party extensions or custom code you install are excluded.
What happens during maintenance or updates?
Scheduled maintenance is announced at least 24 hours in advance via your dashboard or email. Routine automated updates — such as container restarts or software patches — may cause brief unavailability, typically just a few minutes. These are excluded from our uptime guarantee and are performed to keep your forum secure and up to date.
My CPU spikes when I use the dashboard tools — is that normal?
Yes, completely normal. Tools like Repair and Run Migrations invoke Composer, which updates PHP packages and rebuilds your forum's dependencies. Composer is intentionally resource-intensive and will cause a temporary CPU and RAM spike that subsides once the operation completes. This is expected behavior and not a sign of a problem with your forum.
Is video hosting supported?
No — direct video hosting is not supported. We recommend embedding videos from third-party providers such as YouTube or Vimeo. This keeps your forum fast and your storage usage focused on community content.
Can I install custom Flarum extensions?
All plans include core extensions such as file uploads and realtime, plus the Flarum Extension Manager which lets you install and manage extensions directly from your admin panel. Note that downtime caused by incompatible third-party extensions falls outside our uptime guarantee.
Does my forum have search?
Yes — every forum includes fast, typo-tolerant search powered by our own self-hosted search service. Members find the right discussion even when they misspell the query, and results come back instantly. It indexes your forum's own content and runs entirely on our infrastructure, with nothing for you to install or configure.
Do I get visitor analytics?
Yes — every forum includes a visitor-analytics dashboard, updated every few minutes — visits, top discussions, traffic sources, and country breakdowns. It is our own self-hosted, privacy-preserving system: cookieless, no third-party scripts, and no raw visitor IPs stored. There is no Google Analytics to wire up and nothing slowing your pages down.
Can I host multiple forums?
Yes. Each forum is its own subscription — add as many as you want from your account. You can cancel any individual forum without affecting the others.
Can I cancel a subscription?
Yes, you can cancel any forum's subscription at any time. You'll retain access to that forum until the end of its current billing cycle. Each forum is cancelled independently — your other forums (if any) keep running. We do not offer refunds for partial months, as outlined in our
Terms of Service.
How does pricing work as my forum grows?
It stays simple: one flat $100/year, with no usage-based billing and no surprise overage. The plan includes a fixed, generous amount of CPU and RAM — enough for the vast majority of communities — and your dashboard shows your live usage so you always know where you stand. If your forum genuinely outgrows it, just reach out and we'll move you to a larger plan; your forum and all its data stay intact.
What happens when a subscription expires?
Each forum has its own subscription. If a forum's subscription expires or is cancelled, that specific forum will be taken offline. Its data is retained for a short grace period, but we recommend downloading a database backup from your dashboard before cancelling. Your other forums (and your free monitoring) are unaffected.
Do you offer refunds?
Fees are non-refundable as outlined in our
Terms of Service. Downtime is handled differently: if our infrastructure causes your forum's monthly uptime to fall below 95%, a credit is applied to your account automatically — see
our SLA. And restoring your community is always our highest priority if anything goes wrong.
What is your uptime guarantee?
We target 99.9% uptime for our hosting infrastructure, publicly monitored at
linkrobins.com/status/uptime — by the same monitoring product our customers use. That target is backed by a real guarantee: months below 95% earn an automatic service credit (
see our SLA). Critical downtime is treated with the highest priority, 24/7.
Is the monitoring really free?
Yes — free forever, no credit card, no expiry. That includes uptime, SSL, and domain-expiry checks every minute, Flarum-aware monitoring via your forum's API, incident alerts (email, webhooks, Discord, Slack, Telegram and more), monthly uptime reports, and public status pages you can host on your own domain with categories, incident timelines, and email subscriptions for your members. Hosting is the paid product; monitoring is our gift to the Flarum ecosystem.
How do I get support?
Your hosting dashboard includes built-in repair tools — Clear Cache, Publish Assets, Run Migrations, and a full Repair — so you can resolve many common issues yourself without waiting. For anything beyond that, support is available via the chat widget in your dashboard. As a veteran-owned operation run outside of traditional business hours, our support window is 24 to 48 hours. Every issue is taken seriously and resolved as quickly as possible.
Can I use the platform for bulk email or marketing?
No. The built-in email outbox is strictly for transactional forum notifications. Bulk marketing, newsletters, and unsolicited email are prohibited under our Acceptable Use Policy and may result in immediate suspension.
