Best Self Hosted Alternatives to data.world

Datasette is an open source tool for exploring and publishing data, turning SQLite databases into an interactive website with a built-in JSON API. It is designed to help share, browse, and query datasets in a user-friendly way, while remaining extensible through plugins.

Key Features

• Interactive web interface for browsing databases, tables, rows, and running SQL queries
• Automatic JSON API for databases, tables, queries, and metadata
• Plugin ecosystem for authentication, permissions, search, UI customization, and integrations
• Configuration via JSON/YAML files for titles, licenses, sources, and instance settings
• Deployment-friendly workflows, including container-based publishing and hosted runtime options

Use Cases

• Publish public datasets for journalism, research, museums, archives, or government transparency
• Provide a lightweight internal data browser and query UI for SQLite-based projects
• Build data-backed prototypes and share queryable datasets with an API for downstream tools

Limitations and Considerations

• Primarily centered around SQLite as the underlying database engine; other databases typically require extraction or mirroring into SQLite
• Advanced write operations and multi-user editing workflows are not the primary focus compared to full database admin platforms

Datasette is a practical choice for quickly turning SQLite data into a shareable, searchable web application with an API. Its plugin architecture and emphasis on publishing make it especially useful for organizations and individuals who need to make datasets explorable without building a custom application from scratch.

CKAN is an open-source data management system (DMS) used to power data portals and data hubs. It helps organizations catalog datasets, publish metadata, and make data discoverable and accessible through a web interface and APIs.

Key Features

• Dataset and metadata catalog with search and browsing
• Organization and group structures for managing publishers and collections
• API access for dataset, metadata, and catalog operations
• Extensible architecture via plugins (CKAN extensions)
• Web-based user interface for publishing and managing datasets

Use Cases

• Government open data portals for publishing and discovering public datasets
• Enterprise internal data catalogs for managing and sharing data assets
• Community or research data hubs for aggregating datasets across organizations

CKAN provides a mature, widely adopted platform for running full-featured data portals, combining a catalog UI with programmatic access and an extension ecosystem to adapt to different publishing needs.