What Ed-Fi does

Ed-Fi Alliance is a U.S.-based, membership-driven non-profit organization founded in 2012 and headquartered in Austin, Texas. It develops and maintains the Ed-Fi Data Standard — an open-source, CEDS-aligned K-12 education data model — and the companion Ed-Fi Technology Suite, which together solve data interoperability between student information systems, assessment platforms, gradebooks, attendance systems, and educator records. Its primary users are State Education Agencies (SEAs), Local Education Agencies / school districts (LEAs), Education Service Agencies (ESAs), education technology vendors, and Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs).

The core technology product is the Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform, a relational database (PostgreSQL or Microsoft SQL Server) paired with a C# REST API that operationalizes the Data Standard as a vendor-neutral, multi-tenant ODS. The MetaEd IDE, built on a domain-specific language, auto-generates SQL scripts, XSD, API code, and documentation from a single source-of-truth definition, enabling extensible local schemas. Supporting modules include the Admin App v4 and Admin API (deployment management), API Publisher (instance-to-instance synchronization), Ed-Fi OneRoster (1EdTech-certified bridge to OneRoster v1.2), and the Data Import tool for CSV bulk-loading. The organization ships Docker images and deployment templates for Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.

Ed-Fi Alliance operates a freemium non-profit model. The standard, reference platform, and most tooling are distributed free under open-source licenses via GitHub, Docker Hub, and the cloud marketplaces. Revenue is generated through membership dues, grants, partner sponsorships (e.g., Ed-Fi Summit), certification and badge fees for technology providers, and implementation services channeled through a network of badged Managed Service Providers. Adoption currently covers roughly 26% of U.S. states, 8 million students, and 41 certified technology vendors.

Name

Ed-Fi

Legal name

Ed-Fi Alliance, LLC

Website

https://ed-fi.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Ed-Fi Alliance is a non-profit, open-source standards organization that develops the Ed-Fi Data Standard and ODS/API Platform for K-12 education data interoperability, serving state education agencies, districts, education service agencies, and education technology vendors across the United States.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Education Data Interoperability

NAICS

Educational Support Services (61171), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Standards & Interoperability (CEDS, Ed-Fi, IMS) (EDADAIAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

Learning Data Infrastructure & Interoperability (LRS, xAPI/LTI/OneRoster, Data Pipelines) (EDAFAFAJ), Assessment Interoperability, Integrations & Standards (QTI/LTI/OneRoster) (EDAFADAK)

Keywords

• K-12 education data
• Open-source data standards
• Education data interoperability
• Student information systems
• Education analytics APIs

Headquarters

HQ city

Austin

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Open Source / Non-Profit Model: Ed-Fi Alliance operates as a non-profit alliance providing free, open-source technology and data standards for K-12 education. The organization is funded through membership, grants, and partnerships rather than product licensing fees. Technology providers can obtain Ed-Fi certifications and badges that demonstrate conformance to the standard.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Ed-Fi Alliance develops and maintains the Ed-Fi Data Standard, an open-source, CEDS-aligned K-12 education data standard, and the Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform, a relational database paired with a REST API that serves as an Operational Data Store for student-centric education data. It also offers supporting tools including the MetaEd IDE, Admin App/API, API Publisher, OneRoster Service, Data Import utility, and the Ed-Fi Exchange community hub for extensions and integrations.

Product overview

Ed-Fi is a K-12 education data interoperability alliance offering an open-source technology suite built around the Ed-Fi Data Standard. The core product is the Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform — a relational database (PostgreSQL or SQL Server) paired with a C# REST API — which serves as the Operational Data Store for student-centric K-12 data. The Ed-Fi Data Standard (CEDS-aligned) provides the foundational data model for all artifacts. Supporting the core platform, MetaEd IDE auto-generates Ed-Fi artifacts from a domain-specific language, and the Ed-Fi Exchange hosts community-contributed extensions and plugins. Key add-on modules include the Admin App v4 (web-based deployment management), the Admin API (programmatic administration), the API Publisher (data synchronization between ODS instances), the OneRoster Service (1EdTech OneRoster v1.2 bridge), and the Data Import tool (CSV bulk loading). The Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM) extends the core standard to cover the full educator career lifecycle.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Ed-Fi Data Standard: The open-source K-12 education data standard developed by the alliance for student data interoperability
• Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform
• Ed-Fi Academy
• Ed-Fi Exchange
• Ed-Fi Certification
• MetaEd

Products and services

• Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform The core implementation of the Ed-Fi Data Standard: a relational database (PostgreSQL or Microsoft SQL Server) paired with a REST API written in C#. Serves as the central Operational Data Store (ODS) and API for hosting student-centric K-12 education data. Tuned for the security and performance needs of K-12 organizations and their technology vendors. Available in versions 8.0 (upcoming), 7.3 (current), 7.2, 7.1, 6.2, and 5.4.
• Ed-Fi Data Standard An open-source, CEDS-aligned data standard and the foundational specification for the Ed-Fi technology suite. Models student-centric K-12 information including academic outcomes, enrollment, grades, assessments, attendance, discipline, and educator data. Governed through a community RFC process and available in multiple active versions with an extension framework for local customization.
• MetaEd IDE A technology framework using an Ed-Fi-aligned domain-specific language (DSL) that auto-generates software, database, and data standard artifacts (XSD files, SQL scripts, technical documentation) from a single source definition. The Visual Studio Code-based IDE is freely available to community members and supports generation of Ed-Fi Extensions and all related artifacts.
• Ed-Fi ODS Admin API An API-based administrative interface for the Ed-Fi ODS/API Platform. Available as standalone binaries or Docker deployment. Supports managing both ODS/API 6.x and 7.x lines from a single environment, includes multiple client credential support for vendor applications, and exposes tenant management endpoints.
• Ed-Fi Admin App v4 A web-based administrative platform that replaces the legacy Ed-Fi ODS Admin App and Ed-Fi Sandbox Admin UI. Provides a unified interface for managing client credentials, database instances, and API health across multiple environments and tenants. Designed for IT staff managing large-scale Ed-Fi API deployments at managed service providers, state agencies, and data hubs.
• Ed-Fi API Publisher A utility that moves data and changes from one Ed-Fi ODS/API instance to another of the same version. Operates as a standard API client against both source and target endpoints, supporting Pull, Push, and Publishing data movement models. Performs full initial publishing followed by incremental change publishing using Change Queries.
• Ed-Fi OneRoster Service A Node.js application that serves a 1EdTech OneRoster v1.2 Rostering API from data in an Ed-Fi ODS. Reads from a separate oneroster12 schema and exposes standard OneRoster endpoints over OAuth 2.0. Supports single-tenant, multi-tenant, and context-routed deployments. Certified by 1EdTech against OneRoster v1.2 Rostering Core.
• Data Import A multi-project C# .NET solution with a web administration panel and command-line server components for processing data. Simplifies loading of CSV data into the Ed-Fi ODS/API where vendor API integration is not possible. Supports SFTP, FTPS, website, or manual upload; maps CSV columns to Ed-Fi API endpoints. Licensed under Apache 2.0.
• Ed-Fi Exchange A technology hub for community contributions aligned to the Ed-Fi Data Standard and Implementation Suite. Hosts extensions to the Ed-Fi Data Standard, ODS and API plugins, Ed-Fi Dashboard plugins, technical white papers, and implementation project overviews contributed by states, districts, technology providers, and the Ed-Fi Alliance.
• Educator Preparation Data Model (EPDM) A data model (previously called Teacher Preparation Data Model) that extends the Ed-Fi Data Standard to manage data on an educator's full-career lifecycle—from pre-enrollment through educator preparation programs, certification, in-service K-12 work, and student outcomes. Accompanied by use case documents covering educator workforce, apprenticeship, clinical experience, and program diversity and persistence.

Quantifiable outcome

• 90% of transfer students get services within 24 hours (Michigan Data Hub)
• +8 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability1 record

Feature9 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• 1EdTech ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoint effort between Ed-Fi Alliance and 1EdTech to address K-12 rostering data fragmentation. The Ed-Fi OneRoster service is the first production artifact of this collaboration. A joint Steering Committee sets the direction of the work. The OneRoster service is 1EdTech OneRoster v1.2 certified.
• Managed Service Providers (MSPs)coreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerBadged MSPs and consultants provide Ed-Fi implementation services including hosting, maintenance, integration debugging, vendor support, and best practices. Ed-Fi recommends hiring badged MSPs or consultants for faster implementation progress. MSPs have done the work repeatedly and understand common gotchas.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Education (M365 Education): Provides Azure-hosted infrastructure on which many Ed-Fi ODS/API deployments run, plus Microsoft School Data Sync and Teams for Education rostering. Comparable as a hyperscaler whose cloud platform and education-specific data services overlap with Ed-Fi's deployment and roster integration layer.
• Illuminate Education: A commercial K-12 data and analytics platform serving districts and SEAs with assessment, MTSS, and reporting tools. Comparable as an alternative data infrastructure vendor that some states pair with or substitute for Ed-Fi implementations.
• PowerSchool: The largest U.S. K-12 Student Information System vendor. PowerSchool integrates with the Ed-Fi ODS/API and competes for the same district data layer, but operates as a much broader commercial platform spanning SIS, LMS, talent, and finance — overlapping with Ed-Fi in state-wide data interoperability deployments.

Direct peers

• Clever: An education data integration platform (now part of Kahoot) that handles rostering and SSO between SIS systems and edtech applications. Clever has an Ed-Fi Exchange integration tool and competes in the same K-12 data interoperability layer, though with a more commercial, vendor-mediated model.
• Common Education Data Standards (CEDS): The federal Common Education Data Standards initiative, maintained by the U.S. Department of Education/NCES. Ed-Fi explicitly aligns to CEDS; CEDS represents the upstream schema layer that Ed-Fi implements, making it a direct adjacent standard with overlapping scope and shared audience of state education agencies.
• 1EdTech Consortium: The dominant K-12 interoperability standards body with which Ed-Fi co-develops the OneRoster service. 1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) governs LTI, OneRoster, QTI, and Competency Frameworks — directly comparable as a non-profit standards alliance serving the same SEA, district, and vendor ecosystem.
• Education Analytics: A non-profit education data organization explicitly named by Ed-Fi as a recommended replacement (via its Earthmover and Lightbeam products) for the sunset Data Import tool. Comparable as a non-profit K-12 data analytics and pipeline provider serving SEAs and ESAs.

Others

• SIF Association (legacy): The legacy Schools Interoperability Framework association, which historically defined K-12 data exchange before Ed-Fi's rise. Comparable as the predecessor standards body in the same K-12 interoperability category, now largely supplanted by Ed-Fi and 1EdTech.

Emerging players

• NWEA (MAP Growth): A major K-12 assessment provider whose MAP Growth data is frequently loaded into Ed-Fi ODS via vendor integrations. Comparable as an adjacent ecosystem participant whose assessment data feeds Ed-Fi implementations and whose alignment affects Ed-Fi value delivery.

Regional players

• Aequitas Solutions (Infinite Campus): A SIS vendor with strong K-12 adoption in certain U.S. regions that integrates with Ed-Fi ODS/API and competes as an alternative state-wide data platform for SEAs needing integrated SIS + interoperability.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/edfialliance
• GitHubgithub.com/Ed-Fi-Alliance-oss
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/edfialliance

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ed-Fi