The PirateBox was designed in 2011 by David Darts, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University under Free Art License.

It has since become highly popular in Western Europe, particularly in France by Jean Debaecker, and its development is largely maintained by Matthias Strubel.

The usage of the PirateBox-Concept turns slowly away from common local filesharing to purposes in education, concerning public schools[2] or private events like CryptoParties,[3] a crucial point also being circumvention of censorship[4] since it can be operated behind strong physical barriers.

On 17 November 2019, Matthias Strubel announced the closure of the Pirate Box project, citing more routers having locked firmware and browsers forcing https.

[8] Several educational projects use the devices to deliver content to students allowing them to share by chat or forum.