[7] Openbox is designed to be small, fast, and fully compliant with the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) and Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH).

[8] It supports many features such as menus by which the user can control applications or which display various dynamic information.

[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The creator and primary author of Openbox is Dana Jansens of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

[1][17] Openbox provides a right-click (or any other key-binding) "root menu" on the desktop,[5] and allows users to configure the way windows are managed.

Extending Openbox with other small programs that add icons, taskbars,[5] launchers, eyecandy and others is common.