This article is co-authored with Sergey Motornyuk and Anastasiia Shevtsova
The challenge of building data portals
Whether you’re a government department or agency, a research institution, a not for profit or a corporation, effective data sharing is increasingly critical. You need a platform that handles everything from dataset management to user access, metadata standards to API provisioning.
Many organizations turn to CKAN – the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network – the world’s leading open source data management system.
But here’s the challenge: with hundreds of CKAN implementations worldwide, how do you know what works? Which extensions are reliable? And if you’re building a portal, where do you start?
What is Datashades.info?
Think of Datashades.info as your intelligence platform for CKAN portals worldwide. Datashades.info tracks real metrics from hundreds of CKAN implementations across governments, universities, NGOs, and enterprises, providing the insights you need to build better data infrastructure.
Whether you’re exploring CKAN for the first time, planning your implementation, or optimizing an existing portal, Datashades.info offers data-driven intelligence that replaces guesswork with evidence.
What you’ll discover
Real performance benchmarks
See actual user counts, dataset volumes, and engagement statistics from CKAN portals across sectors and continents. Understand what success looks like for organizations like yours.
Plugin and technology Insights
Discover which CKAN extensions organizations are actually using in production. Learn from proven implementations rather than experimenting blindly.
Historical performance trends
Track how portals evolve over time. Watch dataset growth, user engagement patterns, and technology adoption across the entire CKAN ecosystem.
Who can benefit from Datashades?
Organizations exploring CKAN
Research what’s possible before committing resources. See real-world examples from your sector and understand realistic timelines and expectations.
Teams planning a CKAN implementation
Make informed decisions about plugins, themes, and architecture. Build your requirements based on proven patterns, not theoretical possibilities.
Data managers optimizing existing portals
Benchmark your performance against similar organizations. Identify opportunities for improvement based on what’s working elsewhere.
Procurement and IT leaders
Evaluate CKAN capabilities with concrete evidence. Build business cases using real data such as versions, and plugins implementations.
Why this matters
From research breakthroughs to policy formulation, from business decisions to community engagement, the systems that manage and share data matter immensely.
Datashades.info ensures you build on proven foundations rather than reinventing solutions. The site provides competitive intelligence that helps organizations of all types deploy better data infrastructure more rapidly.
Built by CKAN experts and community reach
Datashades.info comes from Link Digital, co-stewards of the CKAN open source project. For almost two decades, we’ve implemented CKAN-powered data portals worldwide.
Datashades.info is our way of helping build a more capable, evidence-informed data community. It connects users with CKAN experts and a global open-source community dedicated to advancing open data practices and offering direct access to shared experience, practical insights, and tailored support for open data strategies.
Start your research
Visit Datashades.info to explore the CKAN global landscape. See which approaches are thriving, learn from their technical choices, and discover what makes data infrastructure work in the real world.
Because whether you’re publishing government transparency data, sharing research datasets, or building corporate data platforms, informed decisions lead to better outcomes.
Datashades.info is maintained by Link Digital, co-stewards of the CKAN open source project and specialists in building data infrastructure for organizations worldwide.
