[1] It is maintained by the Centre for Digital Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, and as of 2022,[update] it has "394,867 registered users, including the majority of professional philosophers and graduate students".

[2] PhilPapers receives financial support from other organizations, including a substantial grant in early 2009 from the Joint Information Systems Committee in the United Kingdom.

[5] In addition to archiving papers, the editors run and publish the most extensive ongoing survey of academic philosophers.

It contained listings for a range of philosophical publications, including books, anthologies, scholarly journals, dissertations, and other documents.

[7] The first version of the database was launched by the Philosophy Documentation Center in 2011[8] after a multi-year planning and development process, with technical support from Makrolog Content Management.