Mahara is an open source e-portfolio application created by the New Zealand government that allows users to create and maintain a digital portfolio of their learning and work. It provides social networking features to allow users to interact. Mahara can be installed on a server and requires additional software like Apache and PostgreSQL to run. It offers a demo site for trial use that resets daily, requiring exported portfolios to retain work. The main Mahara features include profile creation, journaling, file storage, resume building, collections, sharing, exporting, groups, and messaging capabilities.