as funds dry up, I mat need to move to cheaper shared hosting from a fully config'ed VPS.
what do i need to know about ?
for fully config'ed VPS do you mean a managed VPS?
If it's unmanaged VPS, imho you are paying a lot for that VPS and for what you get. I don't know where your hosting is located, but have a look at linode or digitalocean, they have locations almost everywhere and they start from 5-10$/month.
Unless you've done some really strange things (we know you like to tinker), you should be able to migrate the database and forum files to shared hosting pretty much as is. In the worst case, you can import the db into a scratch install, then clean it up, reinstall themes and mods, get it running. Then you can get back to tweaking. It's mostly dependent on php and mysql.
Looking at your site's stats, it would easily work in a $5/month DigitalOcean VPS. We get more traffic than you do, and we're fine on one.
https://m.do.co/c/8c1717acb1c6 gets you two months of credit with them (referral link) - you'd struggle to spend it all in that time.
If you're not already doing so, be brutal about blocking unwanted bots on a server / Apache level, rather than letting them use PHP / database resources.
(Also looking... never have so many mods been gathered together in one place since Brighton beach in the 1960s ;D )
Quote from: SomeoneElse on May 20, 2020, 04:48:57 AM
(Also looking... never have so many mods been gathered together in one place since Brighton beach in the 1960s ;D )
Now that's funny. I got a good chuckle out that one :) I assume that you are not young as you'd have to been there (time wise) to even know about them.
Oh and to you and others, thanks for the help ... I am going to miss not having my own VPS though.