Repository github.com/ckan/ckan Available in Multilingual | License AGPL | |
Original author(s) Stable release 2.6.0 / 2 November 2016 (2016-11-02) | ||
The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) is a web-based open source management system for the storage and distribution of open data. Being initially inspired by the package management capabilities of Linux, CKAN has developed into a powerful data catalogue system that is mainly used by public institutions seeking to share their data with the general public.
Contents
CKAN's codebase is maintained by Open Knowledge International. The system is used both as a public platform on Datahub and in various government data catalogues, such as the UK's data.gov.uk, the Dutch National Data Register, the United States government's Data.gov and the Australian government's "Gov 2.0". The state government of South Australia also makes government data freely available to the public on the CKAN platform.
Internal technology
CKAN's back end, the part running on the Web server, is written mainly in Python. The web pages it offers to user browsers include Javascript. CKAN maintains information about the data sets to be offered to users in PostgreSQL databases. Searches are implemented by Solr. CKAN installations can be queried through Web APIs.
Similar projects and alternatives
Dataverse provides similar functions and is widely used for open data. DSpace is another alternative to CKAN for storing scientific data.