A public test forum runs at evebb.net.

eveBB is fast, light, user-friendly forum software for your website: fewer features, faster pages, and code you can actually read. It runs on modern PHP, works with MySQL, SQLite or PostgreSQL, and keeps itself up to date with a built-in one-click updater.

The current version is in the latest_version file, with packaged builds on the releases page. Boards update themselves through the built-in one-click updater (Admin → Maintenance).

How versions are numbered, how releases are cut and verified, and what each release channel means is described in RELEASES.md. Documentation lives in the wiki.

• Runs on modern PHP: fully compatible with PHP 8.1–8.4.
• A PDO database layer alongside the classic drivers: MySQL (PDO), SQLite3 (no database server needed — the forum runs on a single file), and PostgreSQL (PDO).
• The classic mysqli and pgsql drivers are retained and fixed for PHP 8.
• Modern security plumbing: random_bytes() entropy, bcrypt password hashing with transparent migration of legacy hashes, hardened CSRF checks.
• A real test suite: unit and characterization tests, a driver-agnostic database contract suite, and a scripted end-to-end suite covering install, login, posting, search, and registration.

• PHP 8.1 or later
• One of: MySQL/MariaDB (via mysqli or PDO), SQLite 3.35+ (via PDO), PostgreSQL 10+ (via pgsql or PDO)
• mbstring extension recommended (a native fallback is bundled)

1. Upload the files to your web server.
2. Point your browser at install.php and follow the instructions.
3. When the installer finishes, remove install.php (the admin index will offer to do this for you).

For SQLite, enter a writable file path (for example data/forum.sqlite) as the database name — no database server or credentials are needed.

No web host? A single cloud-init file turns a fresh £5/$6 Ubuntu cloud server (DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Hetzner…) into a ready-to-install eveBB forum — see Install on a Cloud Server in the wiki.

The database schema is fully compatible with FluxBB 1.5.x, so an existing FluxBB board switches to eveBB in place — no migration scripts. Copy your config.php into a fresh eveBB tree (keeping your img/avatars and any custom styles), then open the forum. Boards older than 1.5 (1.4/1.2) are redirected to the bundled db_update.php automatically. Take a database backup first, as you would for any upgrade.

php tests/lite/run.php tests/functions tests/characterization   # unit tests
DB_TYPE=sqlite DB_NAME=/tmp/t.sqlite \
  php tests/lite/run.php tests/integration                      # DB contract
DB_TYPE=sqlite DB_NAME=/tmp/e2e.sqlite ./tests/e2e/run.sh       # end-to-end

The bundled tests/lite runner is PHPUnit-API-compatible; the same test files run unchanged under real PHPUnit (composer install && composer test).

eveBB is free software released under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later.

It is based on FluxBB, copyright (C) 2008–2012 the FluxBB team, which was in turn based on PunBB, copyright (C) 2002–2008 Rickard Andersson. All original copyright notices are retained in the source files. Thanks to both projects for two decades of lean forum software.

• SCEditor (js/sceditor/) — the visual editor, copyright (C) 2011–2017 Sam Clarke, MIT License.
• Silk icons (js/sceditor/themes/famfamfam.png) — editor toolbar icons by Mark James, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
• Nomicons emoticons (js/sceditor/emoticons/) — "The Full Monty Emoticons" by Oscar Gruno and Andy Fedosjeenko, distributed with SCEditor.
• Smilies (img/smilies/) — from Google's Noto Emoji project, Apache License 2.0.
• UTF-8 library (include/utf8/) — the phputf8 library by Harry Fuecks and contributors, portions ported from Mozilla code by Henri Sivonen; inherited from FluxBB with all notices retained.

See js/sceditor/CREDITS.md and docs/copyright-audit.md for the full provenance audit.