For a new forum, I’d usually start with shared hosting first. Most small forums run fine there, and you can always upgrade later once traffic grows. Shared hosting is cheaper and easier to manage, while VPS is better once you start getting heavier traffic or need more control.
For specs, a small forum typically does fine with 1–2 GB RAM and normal bandwidth, and then you can scale as the community grows.
About Digitalcloud — it seems to have decent feedback and a good trust score with positive user reviews about stability and support, but it’s still a relatively small provider so I’d compare options first.
Personally, I’ve had a solid experience with Fresh Roasted Hosting. Their shared plans work well for forums starting out, and the support team is pretty helpful if you ever need to scale later.
