What Omeka does

Omeka is an open-source web publishing platform purpose-built for libraries, archives, museums, and digital humanities scholars to share digital collections and create media-rich online exhibits. The platform is offered in two core variants: Omeka Classic (released February 2008) for individual projects and educators, and Omeka S (launched October 2012) for institutions managing multiple sites from a single installation. The technology is built on PHP with MySQL/PostgreSQL support, adhering to Dublin Core metadata standards for interoperability. Omeka S extends the architecture with JSON-LD as its native data format and RDF vocabularies, enabling integration with the Linked Open Data ecosystem. The product suite is extended by approximately 100 community-developed plugins (ExhibitBuilder, Geolocation, Zotero Import, IIIF Toolkit, OAI-PMH Harvester, Neatline geospatial suite, etc.) and 17+ themes, with internationalization across dozens of languages via Transifex. Omeka.net, launched in 2010, provides a hosted service alternative for users without server management capability and has hosted nearly 83,000 users and 50,000+ sites. Omeka Services provides paid training (offered three times annually), direct support, isolated managed hosting, and custom development. The project has been downloaded over 500,000 times since 2008. Since 2016, Omeka has operated under the fiscal stewardship of Digital Scholar (Corporation for Digital Scholarship), a nonprofit organization based in Vienna, Virginia. The platform's sustainability is supported by grants from IMLS, Mellon Foundation, Library of Congress, Sloan Foundation, NEH, Getty Foundation, and Kress Foundation, combined with fee-based services and Omeka.net subscriptions. The core team comprises approximately 10 staff members under Director Sharon Leon (also COO of Digital Scholar) and Lead Developer John Flatness.

Name

Omeka

Legal name

Corporation for Digital Scholarship

Website

https://omeka.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Omeka is an open-source web publishing platform for libraries, archives, museums, and scholars to share digital collections and create media-rich online exhibits, offered as Omeka Classic, Omeka S, the hosted Omeka.net service, and paid professional services under nonprofit stewardship.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Salisbury

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Open-Source Software Distribution: Omeka Classic and Omeka S are free, open-source software distributed under GNU General Public License. Revenue is not generated directly from software sales.
2. Omeka Services: Paid services including intensive training with experienced instructors (offered three times annually), direct support and consultation, isolated hosting, and custom development by the Omeka team.
3. Omeka.net Hosted Service: Hosted solution for running Omeka Classic without server management. Provides a cost-effective alternative for users who cannot host their own installations, with subscription fees supporting project sustainability.
4. Foundation and Institutional Funding: Ongoing support from organizations including Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Library of Congress, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Getty Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Omeka provides open-source web publishing platforms (Omeka Classic and Omeka S) for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits, designed for libraries, archives, museums, scholars, educators, and enthusiasts. The platforms adhere to Dublin Core metadata standards with a plugin architecture and flexible theme API. It also operates Omeka.net, a hosted service eliminating server management, and offers paid Omeka Services including instructor-led training, isolated hosting, support plans, and custom development engagements.

Product overview

Omeka is a suite of open-source web publishing platforms for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits, administered by Digital Scholar. The portfolio consists of two core platforms — Omeka Classic and Omeka S — plus the hosted Omeka.net service. Omeka Classic is a server-installed CMS for individual projects and educators, supporting Dublin Core metadata standards with a plugin and theme architecture. Omeka S is an institutional platform with JSON-LD native format and RDF vocabularies for Linked Open Data, supporting multi-site administration from a single installation. Both platforms are extended by a library of over 100 plugins (e.g., ExhibitBuilder, Geolocation, Zotero Import, IIIF Toolkit) and over 17 themes. Omeka.net provides a hosted alternative for users without server access. The Omeka Team also offers professional services including training, support, isolated hosting, and custom development.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Omeka Classic: Web publishing platform for individual projects and educators, designed for scholars, museums, libraries, archives, and enthusiasts.
• Omeka S
• Omeka.net

Products and services

• Omeka Classic Open-source web publishing platform for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits, designed for scholars, museums, libraries, archives, and enthusiasts. Adheres to Dublin Core metadata standards with an extensible plugin architecture and rich theme API. Free to download under GPLv3 and self-hosted by users.
• Omeka S Web publishing platform for institutions managing a sharable resource pool across multiple sites. Uses JSON-LD as its native data format and includes RDF vocabularies for Linked Open Data interoperability, offering single-point administration for software upgrades and site extensions across institutional networks.
• Omeka.net Hosted service option for publishing digital collections and exhibits, allowing users to run Omeka Classic without managing installation or hosting themselves. Reasonable subscription fees support project sustainability.
• Omeka Services

Quantifiable outcome

• 500,000+ downloads since 2008
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration13 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Digital ScholarcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016Nonprofit company dedicated to sustaining critical open-source infrastructure for digital humanities. Provides fiscal stewardship and independence for Omeka project since 2016.
• University of Virginia Libraries' Scholar LabcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2010Partnership with RRCHNM supported building and testing of Neatline suite of plugins for creating geospatial scholarship. Example of cross-institutional developer collaboration.
• Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2007Original developer of Omeka Classic in 2007 with funding from IMLS. The center continues as a key institutional partner supporting Omeka development and community engagement.
• IdeumminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIMLS-funded partnership to connect Omeka Classic's online collections with museum gallery touch tables and tablet installations as Omeka Everywhere.
• University of ConnecticutminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIMLS-funded partnership for Omeka Everywhere to connect online collections with museum installations.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• WordPress: General-purpose open-source CMS with extensive plugin ecosystem that can be extended for digital collections and exhibit publishing. Competes with Omeka for individual educators, students, and smaller institutions needing simple web publishing, though lacking Omeka's built-in Dublin Core metadata standards.
• Drupal: General-purpose open-source CMS that can be configured for digital collections and exhibits with custom modules. While not specialized for LAM like Omeka, it competes for the same institutional web-publishing budgets and is the foundation for several LAM-specific platforms like Islandora.

Emerging players

• Mukurtu: Open-source platform designed for Indigenous communities to manage and share digital cultural heritage with culturally sensitive access protocols. Overlaps with Omeka's cultural-heritage digital collection use cases while addressing a specialized segment with unique community-driven governance features.
• Scalar: Open-source digital publishing platform designed for long-form, media-rich scholarly publications from the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture. Overlaps with Omeka's media-rich exhibit capabilities for digital humanities scholars, though focused more on nonlinear scholarly narratives than collection management.

Direct peers

• CollectiveAccess: Open-source collections management and publishing software used by museums, archives, and galleries to catalog and publish digital and physical collections. Directly comparable to Omeka in the GLAM space, serving similar customers with overlapping metadata and publishing workflows.
• ContentDM: OCLC's digital collection management software widely used by libraries, archives, and museums to build and publish digital collections. It is the most direct commercial competitor to Omeka in the LAM digital-publishing space, serving the same institutional customers with overlapping functionality.
• DSpace: Open-source institutional repository platform widely used by academic libraries for managing and publishing scholarly outputs and digital collections. Competes with Omeka for institutional repository use cases, though more focused on research outputs than curated digital exhibits.
• ArchivesSpace: Open-source archives management application serving the archival description and public access needs of archives and special collections. Comparable to Omeka as a LAM-sector open-source platform, though focused on archival description rather than digital exhibits.
• Islandora: Open-source digital asset management and repository platform built on Drupal, used by cultural heritage institutions for managing and publishing digital collections. Comparable to Omeka S in targeting institutional repositories with linked data and multi-site capabilities, and competing for the same grant-funded cultural-heritage deployments.
• Hyrax / Samvera: Open-source digital repository framework built on Ruby on Rails, used by academic and cultural institutions for managing digital collections with linked data support. Directly comparable to Omeka S in the institutional digital repository space with overlapping target customers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks4 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/omeka
• GitHubgithub.com/omeka
• YouTubevimeo.com/omeka
• Facebookfacebook.com/OmekaServices
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/omeka

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

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 Omeka