The Explorer can be used standalone (just download and use) or can be embedded into your own site. Recline builds on the powerful but lightweight Backbone framework making it extremely easy to extend and adapt. The library's modular design mean means you only have to take what you need.
Max Ogden was developing Recline as the frontend data browser and editor for his http://datacouch.com/ project. Meanwhile, Rufus Pollock and the CKAN team at the Open Knowledge Foundation had been working on a Data Explorer for use in the DataHub and CKAN software.
When they met up, they realized that they were pretty much working on the same thing and so decided to join forces to produce the new Recline Data Explorer.
The new project forked off Max's original recline codebase combining some portions of the original Data Explorer. However, it has been rewritten from the ground up using Backbone.