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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.