DataSF

What DataSF does

DataSF is the Office of the Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, operating as a municipal government department under the City Administrator. Its mandate is to transform how San Francisco works with data by empowering data use in decision-making and service delivery across city departments. The organization serves two distinct user populations: internal San Francisco city staff who need to manage and access departmental data, and the general public, researchers, and developers who need access to municipal datasets for transparency, research, and application development.

DataSF's core platform consists of the public-facing Open Data Portal (data.sfgov.org), which allows users to search, browse, and access city datasets by topic, department, data type, or tag, and a separate Internal Data Portal (data.staff.sf.gov) for city staff to manage datasets and access internal data resources. Supporting services include the Data Academy training program for staff skill development, the DataScienceSF initiative for analytics resources, Open Data Developer Resources for third-party developers, Data Sharing and Publishing guidance covering the city's data inventory and publishing process, and a library of case studies demonstrating real-world data impact. The organization also maintains Data Standards and Quality Resources, including policies and a guidebook governing data trustworthiness.

DataSF's business model is government funding: it is wholly funded through San Francisco municipal budget allocations and does not generate commercial revenue. All open data services are provided free of charge to the public, researchers, and developers. There are no pricing tiers, no external investors, and no private equity or venture capital ownership. As a municipal entity, demand generation occurs through the sf.gov portal, a Substack blog, Twitter/X, and informational case studies rather than commercial marketing channels.

Name

DataSF

Legal name

The Office of the Chief Data Officer, City and County of San Francisco

Website

https://datasf.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Short description

DataSF is the Office of the Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, operating public and internal open data portals, Data Academy training, and the DataScienceSF analytics initiative for city departments and the general public, funded through the municipal budget.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Municipal Open Data Services

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821)

SIC

Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Governance Platforms (Policies, Stewardship, Workflows) (HDAEADAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Data Platforms & Modern Data Stack Services (Lakehouse, DW, MDM) (BPAEAHAC), Data Observability & Monitoring (HDAEADAI)

Keywords

• Open government data
• Municipal data portal
• Civic data publishing
• Open data platform
• Government data services

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. Government Funding: DataSF is a department of the San Francisco City Administrator's office and is funded through municipal government budgets. No commercial revenue generation from public data services.

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

DataSF operates as the Office of the Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, providing open data services to the public, city staff, researchers, and developers. It maintains the public-facing Open Data Portal (data.sfgov.org) for discovering and downloading city datasets, an Internal Data Portal (data.staff.sf.gov) for city employees, the Data Academy training program for staff data skills, DataScienceSF analytics initiatives, developer documentation, and data sharing and publishing guidance.

Product overview

DataSF is The Office of the Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, focused on transforming the way San Francisco works with data. The organization operates as a unified platform of interconnected data services rather than a traditional product company. Its core offerings include the public-facing Open Data Portal (for discovering and accessing city datasets), the Internal Data Portal (for city staff dataset management), Data Academy (training for staff on data skills), DataScienceSF (data science resources), Open Data Developer Resources (developer documentation), and Data Sharing and Publishing guidance. The portfolio centers on making city data accessible, usable, and impactful for both the public and city employees.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Data Academy: Training program for City staff to explore, refine and enhance skills in data use, data management, and process improvement.
• DataScienceSF

Products and services

• Open Data Portal
• Internal Data Portal
• Data Academy
• DataScienceSF
• Open Data Developer Resources
• Data Sharing and Publishing
• DataSF Case Studies

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• Esri ArcGIS Hub: Esri's ArcGIS Hub is an open data and community engagement platform used by many U.S. cities for geospatial open data publishing. It overlaps materially with DataSF's portal function, especially for location-based municipal datasets, though Esri operates as a broad GIS incumbent.
• Granicus: Granicus provides government experience and digital services platforms used by thousands of municipalities for communications, records, and civic engagement. It overlaps with DataSF's civic transparency mandate as a broad incumbent serving the same government customer base.
• Accela: Accela is a major government technology platform covering permitting, licensing, and civic engagement across hundreds of municipalities. It is a broad incumbent in the same government technology category where DataSF operates, though focused on regulatory transactions rather than open data publishing.

Direct peers

• CKAN (Open Knowledge Foundation): CKAN is the leading open-source data management platform used by numerous national and municipal governments for open data publishing. Many government data portals, including some city-level implementations, are built on CKAN, making it a direct technical and functional peer to DataSF's Open Data Portal.
• OpenDataSoft: OpenDataSoft provides an open data portal and data marketplace platform used by cities and enterprises worldwide. It directly competes with the function DataSF's portal serves, with overlapping features around dataset publishing, APIs, and visualization.
• Socrata (Tyler Technologies): Socrata, now part of Tyler Technologies, is the dominant commercial provider of open data portal platforms for state and municipal governments. It is the closest commercial analog to DataSF's Open Data Portal, serving the same government customer segment with similar functionality.
• DKAN: DKAN is an open-source open data platform built on Drupal that powers government data portals globally. It is a direct technical alternative to DataSF's portal and is used by multiple U.S. municipalities for similar transparency and publishing use cases.

Emerging players

• Junar: Junar is a cloud-based open data platform specifically targeted at city and state governments. It serves a similar municipal open data publishing function as DataSF, though with a smaller market footprint and commercial SaaS model.

Regional players

• City of New York Open Data (NYC Open Data): NYC Open Data is the open data portal for New York City, operating as a municipal government program analogous to DataSF. It serves a similar function (public open data publishing and developer ecosystem) but for a different geography, making it a direct municipal peer rather than a competitor.

Others

• Salesforce Government Cloud / Tableau: Salesforce and its Tableau subsidiary provide data infrastructure, visualization, and analytics tools widely adopted by government agencies for open data dashboards and performance reporting. They serve as enabling ecosystem tools that complement rather than directly compete with DataSF's publishing platform.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/datasf

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 DataSF