Forums represent a fundamental platform for social networking and information sharing. There are available many types of forum software for any operating system and made in various programming languages.

An application that must be available over the Internet is usually programmed with server side programming languages such as PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.NET and more.Most of present open source applications running on server side are made in PHP programming language, due to many advantages provided both for programmer and user.

phpBB (PHP Bulletin Board) is a forum application compatible with any operating system that provides support for PHP. Its backend is formed by an SQL database, which can be FireBird, MySQL, MS SQL Server 2000, Oracle, PostgreSQL and SQLite. This application was downloaded more than 1,500,000 times, being the most used forum software in the world by the companies or regular Internet users.

phpBB version 3 Olympus provides "enhanced collaboration features, better security and delegated administration features, extended support for open source and commercial database management systems, and optimisation for mobile devices and search engines", according to phpBB Group. All previous features and the new implemented ones make from phpBB a flexible tool both for end-user and programmer.

Due to a professionally made modular design, the layout supports complete customization at any level. There are available many add-ons (extensions) and themes that allow anyone to personalize the forum functionality and appearance. Forums based on phpBB framework can be easily implemented in any content management system or other type of website.

The most important aspect that must be mentioned about phpBB is that its open source license makes it available for any purpose. If you want to implement a professional collaboration platform into your website, phpBB 3.0 could be what you need to download.