What is CKAN?

CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network), is an open-source data management system designed to help organizations share and manage their data more effectively. CKAN makes it easy to publish, share and work with data and metadata. It provides a powerful platform for cataloging, storing, and accessing datasets with a rich front-end, full API (for both data and catalog), visualization tools, and more.

What is CKAN used for?

CKAN provides a flexible and powerful platform for managing, sharing, and discovering data in a variety of contexts. It makes data more accessible and discoverable while ensuring its protection and compliance with industry regulations. CKAN’s data discovery and search capabilities, user-friendly interface, support for a variety of data formats, and integration with other software systems through APIs make it an excellent solution for organizations looking to improve their data management practices.

Why is CKAN so popular for open data?

CKAN has gained significant popularity for open data portals due to its flexibility, scalability, and user-friendliness. CKAN has a user-friendly interface that allows technical and non-technical users to easily manage data on the platform. Additionally, the platform is highly customizable, allowing organizations to tailor it to their specific needs and requirements. CKAN's extensibility also allows users to add functionality to the platform through custom extensions and plugins, making it more versatile for open data.

What features do we get out of the box with CKAN?

CKAN itself is a fully-featured data management platform. Out of the box, one gets user management, dataset management, search and discovery over metadata, metadata customization, data storage, a data API, and more (for example tools to integrate source data into the CKAN catalog). Additionally, CKAN has a rich ecosystem of over a hundred extensions that can be used to further customize the platform.

Can CKAN be also used for internal data management?

Yes, CKAN can be used for internal data management. In fact, one of the common use cases for CKAN is managing data within an organization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Helpful answers to your most common questions.

Still have questions?

We're here to help! Contact us now.