Blog

After months of development, CKAN 2.12 is nearly ready — and it's more than just another release. As the last in the 2.x series, it lays the architectural groundwork for CKAN 3.0 while delivering meaningful improvements to file management, data store performance, and the user interface. Here's a full recap of what the core team shared at Monthly Live Session #40 on February 18, 2026.

A year of performance breakthroughs, community growth, and the foundations being laid for CKAN's next chapter — as the project approaches its 20th anniversary.

CKAN turns 20. Explore how an open-source experiment became global data infrastructure, powering governments, research, and public-interest data worldwide.

A recap of CKAN Monthly Live #39 covering POSE Phase II updates, the two upcoming storytelling workshops, a preview of the CKAN Ecosystem Catalog, and how the community can plug into CKAN@20 anniversary activities in 2026.

CKAN's new interface brings WCAG 2.2 AAA-compliant accessibility, mobile-responsive design, HTMX-powered performance improvements, and a modern design system to the world's leading open data platform. The revamp eliminates technical barriers for smaller organizations while maintaining CKAN's extensive feature set. The update is now in the master branch, with release targeted for 2026 and full integration in CKAN 3.0.

CKAN 2.12 solves the large dataset download problem. A 13-million-record dataset that took 30 minutes — or timed out — now downloads in 2 minutes.

The Open Knowledge Foundation and datHere have announced a collaboration focused on advancing open, FAIR, and AI-ready data infrastructure. This post provides context on how the work relates to CKAN and the broader open data ecosystem.

How open-source, responsible AI, and digital public infrastructure shaped the conversation in Vitoria-Gasteiz.