Welcome to the PHP Web Museum
A collection of reconstructed websites, content management systems and forum engines from the age of dial-up turned broadband, GeoCities turned MySpace, and PHP 4 turned PHP 5.
Between roughly 2002 and 2009, a handful of PHP-based content management systems and forum packages defined the look of the ordinary web. Before social networks absorbed most of this activity, millions of small communities, hobbyist news portals and personal weblogs ran on software with names like PHP-Nuke, phpBB and vBulletin. This museum rebuilds them as small, navigable websites that look and behave the way they did when they were simply normal.
Each exhibit below pairs a short written history with a working reconstruction of a fictional site built on that software, captured at a specific date. Browse the exhibits by category, or see the timeline for how they relate chronologically.
Browse by Category
Content Management SystemsPHP-Nuke, PostNuke, Mambo, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, XOOPS, e107. Era: 2002–2010 |
ForumsphpBB, phpBB 3, vBulletin, Invision Power Board, Simple Machines Forum, PunBB, MyBB, Vanilla. Era: 2002–2010 |
Other Web SoftwareMediaWiki, Coppermine Photo Gallery, osCommerce. Era: 2003–2010 |
TimelineA chronological map of releases, forks and the slow decline of the PHP-powered open web. 2000–2012 |
Recently Added Exhibits
- phpBB 2 — Pixel Arena Forums — gaming community, subSilver theme
- Joomla 1.5 — Orbital Design Studio small design/technology company
- vBulletin 3 — Overclock Hardware Forums large enthusiast community
- WordPress 2 — a personal technology blog Kubrick theme
- MediaWiki — the Retrocomputing Wiki MonoBook skin