As we approach the end of 2025, the open data ecosystem continues to rapidly evolve. And Link Digital and its global team of CKAN experts are central to this.
Link Digital’s deep knowledge of and involvement in the governance, community engagement and technical development aspects of CKAN – including being a co-steward of the software and a key player in core tech team meetings – positions us as trusted advisors on open data to governments, NGOs, research institutions, and academic organizations globally.
Let’s look at some of the remarkable contributions that Link Digital has made over the last year, that are reshaping how organizations worldwide manage, share, and leverage their data assets.
Enhanced user experience and file management
Leading the technical upgrades emerging from Link Digital’s expert team this year have been Senior Solutions Architects Ian Ward and Adrià Mercader, whose contributions are setting new standards for data portal functionality.
Ward’s Table Designer feature enables partial dataset updates rather than complete file reloads, dramatically reducing page latency for large datasets. The integration of HTMX for dynamic content refreshing provides smoother, faster interactions essential for large-scale portals.
Working collaboratively with two of our developers, Sergey Motornyuk and Oleksandr Cherniavskyi, Ward has also improved CKAN’s file management capabilities.
Their joint efforts have produced advanced file handling systems that treat files as first-class entities with detailed metadata and version history, enabling better tracking, audit trails, and sharing flexibility. The system now supports resumable uploads, multi-cloud storage, and eager data validation, addressing real-world challenges like unstable connections and heterogeneous infrastructure.
Advanced File Management Systems
Motornyuk’s work on comprehensive file management systems has elevated CKAN’s capabilities to enterprise-level standards. By treating files as first-class entities with detailed metadata and version history, organizations now have better tracking, audit trails, and sharing flexibility. The support for resumable uploads and multi-cloud storage addresses real-world challenges like unstable connections and heterogeneous infrastructure.
15x faster: CKAN 2.12 to revolutionise large dataset downloads
Working with one of our developers, Yan Rudenko, Ward was also central to changes that will be available in the next version of CKAN – 2.12 – which will deliver a 15x performance boost to large data downloads on CKAN.
You can read about this significant development on our site here.
Keep your CKAN healthy!
Yan Rudenko developed ckanext-selfinfo, a comprehensive administrative extension to take CKAN portal management to a whole new level. It provides a variety of capabilities for administrators to address and resolve issues quickly, ultimately improving service delivery.
In the latest version of this tool, a new lightweight tracking system has been introduced to replace traditional Google Analytics. With increasing legal restrictions on sharing user data with external systems, in‑house tracking provides a safer approach. This system also opens new opportunities for enhancing user experience, allowing us to display informative metrics on the homepage, datasets, and other areas of the portal.
Watch: ckanext-selfinfo | Real time system info and error tracking for CKAN
New search functionality
Mercader’s enhancements to CKAN’s search functionality will allow choosing the search backend and searching across different CKAN entities in the next CKAN major version. He has also worked on improved Metadata interoperability that includes support for Dataset Series in ckanext-dcat and support for the ML Commons Croissant standard. Croissant is a metadata format for machine learning (ML) datasets that combines information about the dataset metadata, its resources, and data structure to make existing datasets more discoverable and interoperable across different tools.
Also read: Bridging CKAN and Machine Learning: Introducing Support for the Croissant Standard
Platform integration and visual innovation
Sergey Shchedrin has developed the CKAN Sync for Drupal module, enabling seamless integration between CKAN and Drupal platforms via RESTful API. This breakthrough represents an exciting advancement in maximizing the native interoperability between two acknowledged Digital Public Goods, enabling organizations to deliver sophisticated and interactive data sharing applications that combine the best of both platforms. Read more about CKAN Sync for Drupal here.
Cherniavskyi has been a major contributor to CKAN’s extension ecosystem with several groundbreaking developments. His ckanext-blocksmith brings drag-and-drop page building capabilities to CKAN using the GrapesJS framework, empowering non-developers to create engaging, data-driven pages with modular content blocks.
Additionally, Cherniavskyi has been one of the top contributors, alongside CKAN expert Tome Petrovski, to ckanext-charts over the past two years, building upon the foundation initially created by Motornyuk during Link Digital’s work with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. With Cherniavskyi’s work, this extension has evolved to enable data managers to create, edit, embed, and share interactive charts directly from tabular datasets, providing dynamic visualizations that enhance data interaction and presentation.
Developer accessibility and education
Brett Jones has championed CKAN development accessibility through his GitHub Codespaces demonstrations, enabling browser-based development and removing traditional setup barriers. His comprehensive installation walkthroughs have become essential community resources. You can view these demonstrations here on Link Digital’s Youtube channel.
A new GeoPackage Extension for CKAN
One of Link Digital’s standout achievements of 2025 has been Link Digital’s advancement of GIS-capable data portals. Our comprehensive approach to geospatial data management has enabled organisations to create online repositories that efficiently catalogue and share geographic information both internally and externally.
The latest of these is a new extension to enable the viewing of GeoPackages in CKAN, developed by our Canadian subsidiary, Datashades Ltd., in the process of working on the Quebec Regional Transport Authority Data Platform. Referred to locally as the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain, ARTM is the government transportation authority that plans, finances, and integrates public transport in Greater Montreal in Quebec, Canada. A GeoPackage is a file format that enables the design and viewing of maps with layers, a GeoPackage.
A year of transformative impact
Link Digital’s global team of CKAN experts have delivered remarkable value throughout 2025, combining technical excellence with deep understanding of organisational needs. Their contributions have not only advanced the CKAN platform itself but have also empowered organisations worldwide to unlock the full potential of data.
From amazing user experience improvements to advanced search capabilities, and comprehensive file management systems to sophisticated geospatial solutions, Link Digital’s expertise has been instrumental in shaping the future of data management.
Link Digital’s commitment to avoiding vendor lock-in and maximizing data interoperability ensures that organizations can build sustainable, long-term data management solutions that grow with their needs.
Ready to upgrade your data management capabilities? Contact Link Digital to discover how their expertise can benefit your organization.
