Hi @Shiv, yes @Darren_Murphy was correct regarding DNS. Here was Namecheap’s specific answer:
“Yes, you may point this subdomain to another host by creating NS records for the subdomain forum with third-party nameservers in value or by creating A or CNAME record for it.”
For me, I actually would prefer the forum.xyz.com or community.xyz.com as well. I definitely don’t want to pay $600 for a .forum domain but the other domains aren’t too bad, maybe (edit: just checked and saw xyzforum.com also going for $485, huh?? But xyzforum.net goes for $10)
Regarding forum platforms, the other ones I looked at were Discourse, Circle and Tribe. I believe Glide is Discourse and I personally prefer Discourse in general based on my behavior pattern with other forums I’m a member of. Lastly, if you want a free one that has way more bugs than the ones just listed but has been gaining credibility in the social impact space, is Hylo. I believe they’re a cooperative and open source so they espouse social/environmental values which isn’t normally the case with majority of companies so kinda cool.
Good luck!