[3] Features of phpBB include support for multiple database engines (MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle Database),[4] flat message structure (as opposed to threaded), hierarchical subforums, topic split/merge/lock, user groups, multiple attachments per post, full-text search, plugins and various notification options (e-mail, Jabber instant messaging, ATOM feeds).

[5] phpBB was founded by James Atkinson as a simple UBB-like forum for his own website on June 17, 2000.

Nathan Codding and John Abela joined the development team after phpBB's CVS repository was moved to SourceForge.net, and work on version 1.0.0 began.

[6] phpBB 1.0.0 was released on December 16, 2000,[7] with subsequent improvements to the 1.x codebase coming in two more major installments.

During the lifetime of the 1.x series, Bart van Bragt, Paul S. Owen (former co-manager of the project), Jonathan Haase, and Frank Feingold joined the team.

After a year of development and extensive testing, phpBB 2.0.0, dubbed the "Super Furry" version, was released on April 4, 2002, three days later than intended.

Developed during 2001–2002, the source code was written primarily to run on PHP 3.0 and 4.0 (version 2.0.13 upped the minimum requirement to PHP 4.0.3 due to a necessary security fix), and by the time that phpBB3 was released in late 2007, the developers and other team members felt that it no longer met their quality coding standards, and announced plans for the retirement/end of support of 2.0.x within a few months of 3.0.0's release.

[15] In September 2005, Paul Owen resigned as the Development Team Leader and Meik Sievertsen was promoted to the role.

At the end of May, an announcement was made that Jonathan "SHS`" Stanley, the other co-Project Manager, was stepping down as well for personal reasons.

[20][21] On July 7, 2007, the teams announced that phpBB had been nominated as a finalist for the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards in the category of "Best Project for Communications".

[23][24] phpBB also won a "Thingamagoop" from Bleep Labs, and "bragging rights for a full year.

It was recorded by a rotating group of phpBB team members with occasional guests, and discussed a number of phpBB-related topics, as well as answering questions e-mailed in from listeners.

[35] On June 10, 2009, phpBB's Development Team revealed that the next phpBB3 release, 3.0.6, would include a significant number of new features.

[39] The developers previewed their planned feature list at Londonvasion, and new features include a complete overhaul of the Moderator Control Panel (MCP) and moderation capabilities, implementation of AJAX where it is applicable and helpful, a trigger-based event system, a completely rewritten BBCode system, RSS feed support, enhancements to custom profile fields, enhancements to private messaging, a new authentication system with OpenID support, and numerous other small changes and features.

[51] It was built upon 3.2 "Rhea" and it's their big step towards a more modern base while maintaining a clear update path.

The latest updates to the branch focus on stability improvements and user interface enhancements.

The term is capitalized to distinguish code modifications from forum moderators, the latter of which is often abbreviated as "mods".

Modifications referred to in this manner are not authored by the phpBB developers and do not enjoy the same level of support as unmodified official code.

MODX is an XML-based document format developed by the phpBB Extensions Team that is used to describe the steps required to modify the source code of a web application in order to install a modification.

The phpBB Extensions Team requires that MODs submitted to its database conform to the MODX specifications and other policies.

[55] AutoMOD is a tool developed by the phpBB Extensions Team that parses and automatically installs phpBB3 MODs distributed in the MODX format.

[59] AutoMOD is the successor to EasyMOD, a tool for phpBB2 which was also developed by the phpBB Extensions Team and performed essentially the same task.

[65] In December 2004, a large number of Web sites were defaced by the Santy worm, which used vulnerabilities in outdated versions of phpBB2 to overwrite PHP and HTML pages.

[67] The phpBB Group, attempting to learn from previous failures, performed a codebase security audit before the release of 2.0.18.

[19] Changes were made to phpBB2 to avoid problems in the future, such as a re-authentication system for the administration panel, backported from phpBB3.

This was introduced after a cookie verification issue allowed attackers to gain administrator access.

[70] In November 2005, the phpBB Group announced a new Incident Investigation Team (IIT), a sub-team of their Support Team, which is responsible for assisting users in the cleanup and repair of an attacked phpBB installation and investigating reports of new exploits.

phpBB3 has improved its anti-spam options available to forum administrators, including a new CAPTCHA system, suspensions, user logging, and other various features.

[77] phpBB has a community of users who contribute to the overall project with content such as Extensions, MODs, and Styles.

Community users are encouraged to participate in these support requests and to contribute to the overall betterment of phpBB core code.