CKAN Turns 20
20
2006 – 2026 Celebrating 20 years of open data →
20

Twenty years of powering
open data worldwide

What started as a scrappy tool inspired by a Perl archive has become the world's leading open data infrastructure — powering governments, researchers, and NGOs on every continent.

Take part in the celebration Read our stories
20
Years open source
1,000+
Data portals worldwide
5,000
GitHub stars
200+
Contributors
Our Story
From a frustrated student to global infrastructure

In the early 2000s, Rufus Pollock was trying to answer big questions — how many people can the Earth support? The data was either impossible to find or locked behind paywalls costing thousands of dollars.

Inspired by CPAN — the Perl package archive — he built CKAN: a catalog for data. Two decades later, it powers national open data portals on every continent, from data.gov to open.canada.ca to datos.gob.mx.

CKAN is now recognized as a Digital Public Good, helping achieve 9 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

You'd read a book with loads of data... but when you went looking for the datasets, they just weren't available. The data existed — it just wasn't findable. That was the problem CKAN was built to solve.
— Rufus Pollock, Founder of CKAN
History
Twenty years, one milestone at a time

Click any event to learn more.

Major milestone
Release
Adoption
Community
2006
CKAN v0.1 — the first commitMilestone▼
Rufus Pollock releases the first version of CKAN under the Open Knowledge Foundation. Inspired by CPAN, it was a simple catalog for open datasets, built to solve a personal frustration: public data was impossible to find.
CKAN was never meant to become a big open source project. It started because I needed something that didn't exist — a CPAN for data.— Rufus Pollock, Founder
2009
data.gov.uk launches on CKANAdoption▼
The UK Government launches its official open data portal powered by CKAN — one of the first major government portals in the world to go live. It sets a precedent for national open data infrastructure and sparks global interest.
2010
CKAN 1.0 — production readyRelease▼
The first stable release brings critical improvements to authorization, search, and resource previews — establishing CKAN as production-ready infrastructure for governments and institutions.
2011
CKAN 1.3 — harvesting & federationRelease▼
CKAN 1.3 introduces harvesting capabilities, letting portals aggregate and import datasets from external sources. A pivotal step toward federated open data ecosystems.
2013
CKAN 2.0 & DATA.GOV migrationMilestone▼
A major architectural overhaul brings scalability and a powerful plugin system. The US Government migrates Data.gov to CKAN, consolidating hundreds of thousands of federal datasets.
The plugin architecture was a bet that the community would build things we hadn't thought of. That bet paid off.— Ian Ward, Lead Developer
2015
Linked data, previews & visualizationsRelease▼
CKAN 2.3 and 2.4 bring support for linked data and in-browser data visualizations. Open data becomes genuinely accessible, not just technically available.
2018
1,000+ active portals worldwideMilestone▼
CKAN surpasses 1,000 active data portals worldwide, spanning every continent. Datashades index tracks some of them.
2021
Datopian & Link Digital become co-stewardsCommunity▼
A new stewardship model is established. Datopian and Link Digital join as co-stewards. The Open Knowledge Foundation remains as purpose trustee, ensuring CKAN's open ethos endures.
2023
Recognized as a Digital Public GoodMilestone▼
CKAN is officially recognized as a Digital Public Good by the DPGA, reinforcing its role in achieving 9 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
2026
20th Anniversary — the celebration yearMilestone▼
CKAN turns 20. The global community gathers to celebrate two decades of open source, open data, and open collaboration. You're part of this moment.
Global Reach
Open data,
everywhere

CKAN is the backbone of open data infrastructure on every continent — powering national governments, intergovernmental bodies, and research institutions since 2006.

0+
Active portals
0
Continents
0+
Countries
20
Years running
Featured portals
Portals by region

CKAN's reach spans every continent, with the strongest presence in Europe and Asia–Pacific.

🌍 Europe400+
data.gov.uk · data.gov.fr · govdata.de · opendata.swiss · and hundreds more
🌏 Asia–Pacific250+
data.gov.au · data.gov.sg · data.gov.in · data.govt.nz · and more
🌎 Americas200+
catalog.data.gov · open.canada.ca · dados.gov.br · datos.gob.mx · and more
🌍 Africa100+
data.humdata.org · opendata.go.ke · data.gov.za · data.gov.gh
🕌 Middle East50+
data.gov.ae · bayanat.ae · opendata.gov.qa
Ecosystem Catalogue
Discover the CKAN ecosystem
in one place

ecosystem.ckan.org is where the CKAN world comes together — a living catalog of CKAN-powered portals, extensions, and datasets from across the globe.

Explore ecosystem.ckan.org
📊
1k
Extensions
🌐
700
Sites
60+
Countries
20 Stories for 20 Years
The stories that shaped open data

One story published each month throughout 2026 — from the first commit to the portals that changed how citizens access public information.

Showing 1 published of 20 stories · All stories publishing throughout 2026
Community Voices
The people who built, shaped,
and championed CKAN
"
I've spent years showing up for CKAN — at the White House Open Data Roundtable, building Datashades globally. I do it because I believe open data changes lives. CKAN is the infrastructure that makes it possible.
SC
Steven De Costa
Co-Steward · Link Digital
"
What keeps me coming back to CKAN is the community. Twenty years in, it's still a place where a single motivated contributor can make a real difference. The codebase has grown enormously, but that spirit hasn't changed.
AM
Adrià Mercader
Lead Developer · CKAN Tech Team
"
The plugin architecture we introduced in CKAN 2.0 was a bet that the community would build things we hadn't thought of. That bet paid off in ways we couldn't have predicted.
IW
Ian Ward
CKAN Tech Team · Link Digital
"
Open data is only as good as the infrastructure behind it. CKAN has been that bedrock — reliable, extensible, community-driven — for governments and organisations around the world for two decades.
JN
Joel Natividad
CEO · datHere
"
The most underrated thing about CKAN is its community. People from dozens of countries, different governments, different languages — all working toward the same goal. Coordinating that over 20 years is itself an extraordinary achievement.
YP
Yoana Popova
Marketing & Comms Lead · Datopian
"
CKAN is proof that open source and open data go hand in hand. In Latin America, it's been a catalyst for transparency and civic participation. Twenty years later, it remains the tool we trust most.
PB
Patricio del Boca
CKAN Tech Team · OKF
"
Working on CKAN showed me how open source can genuinely serve the public good. Every line of code has real-world impact — datasets that governments publish, citizens that access public information. That's deeply motivating.
SM
Sergey Motornyuk
CKAN Tech Team · Link Digital
"
CKAN gave us the foundation to build open data portals that actually serve citizens. The extensibility is second to none — we've customized it for local needs without losing the benefits of a global community.
ES
Eric Soroos
CKAN Tech Team · Derilinx
Get Involved

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