An electronic lab notebook (also known as electronic laboratory notebook, or ELN) is a computer program designed to replace paper laboratory notebooks. Lab notebooks in general are used by scientists, engineers, and technicians to document research, experiments, and procedures performed in a laboratory. A lab notebook is often maintained to be a legal document and may be used in a court of law as evidence. Similar to an inventor's notebook, the lab notebook is also often referred to in patent prosecution and intellectual property litigation. Electronic lab notebooks are a fairly new technology and offer many benefits to the user as well as organizations. For example: electronic lab notebooks are easier to search upon, simplify data copying and backups, and support collaboration amongst many users.[1] ELNs can have fine-grained access controls, and can be more secure than their paper counterparts.[2] They also allow the direct incorporation of data from instruments, replacing the practice of printing out data to be stapled into a paper notebook.[3] This is a list of ELN software packages.
Name | Price | Features |
---|---|---|
Arxspan[4] | Academic and enterprise | ELN and productivity suite for life science research |
Benchling[5] | Free and enterprise | Notebook for life science research |
Chemia ELN | Enterprise | A complete ELN for Chemistry and Pharma R&D with features for Sample tracking, Routine Analysis and Method development. |
Docollab | Free and enterprise | A simple way to take notes and organize projects |
eLabJournal | Classroom, academic and enterprise | Comprehensive electronic lab notebook with sample tracking and SOP integration |
Elements | Free $9.99-$720/seat/month | – |
Exemplar ELN | starter and enterprise editions | Complete ELN solution that includes complete LIMS functionality |
hivebench | Free and enterprise | Plan. Experiment. Publish. |
IDBS E-WorkBook ELN [6] | Enterprise | Enterprise, cloud based, cross-displicinary ELN for scientific R&D data management |
LabArchives | Free, classroom, academic, $99–$198/seat/year and Enterprise | Organize and manage all laboratory data safely |
labfolder | Free and enterprise | An electronic lab notebook that optimizes life science research |
Labguru ELN | Enterprise & Academic | Electronic Lab notebook and Lab Inventory Management Platform. Run your lab more efficiently and maximize your research output. Plan and document experiments, track progress, streamline lab logistics, and share results. |
Labii ELN & LIMS[7] | $0.1/record, or $80/seat/month, 50% off for academic | 1) The only Pay-Per-Use ELN, start documenting for as low as pennies per record[8]; 2) Customizable to meet your specific requirement[9]; 3) Extend the functionality in your ELN & LIMS by adding widgets[10]. |
Labstep[11] | Free and enterprise | Timeline-centric electronic lab notebook |
LLMS | ELN and LIMS from Lyons Information Systems | Record AATCC and ASTM test results that automatically determines pass/fail test status of jobs within a testing laboratory. |
Jawslab | Free, $10/month and enterprise | Secured cloud-based Electronic laboratory assistant |
Riffyn SDE[12] | Small Business/Lab & Enterprise | Alternative to ELN and LIMS. The cloud-based Riffyn Scientific Development Environment provides experimental design, lab execution, sample tracking, and realtime data shaping for multivariate analysis and integration with both cloud and local data pipelines. |
RSpace[13] | Per user/year - list price
| |
SciCord [14] | Per user/year
|
Intuitive ELN/LIMS hybrid design to handle all lab needs. Secure, low maintenance cloud based system. Configurable settings to fit user requirements. Direct instrument connectivity to ensure data integrity. Flexible ability to extract results/metadata/variables for statistical data analysis and trending. Sample/Chemical/Equipment inventory and management capabilities. |
ScienceDesk[15] | Free, academic and enterprise | Smart ELN, sample management, and scientific data management with integrated data analysis. |
Scilligence[16] | Software Solution for Industry and Academia | Cross-platform electronic lab notebook for chemistry and biology supporting all disciplines of research including medicinal chemistry, process chemistry, bioassays, HTS, in vivo pharmacology, and toxicology. |
sciNote | Free and Enterprise | Open source. The easiest way to organize scientific data and store it securely in one place. |
ELN software | Language base | License | Hosted on | Other info |
---|---|---|---|---|
eLabFTW | PHP/MySQL | AGPL v3 | Easy to install on your own server | Runs in Docker containers |
OpenWetWare | PHP | GPL v2 | MIT | Based on MediaWiki |
sciNote[17] | Ruby on Rails 4.2.3 | MPL 2.0 | Amazon | JS Framework: Bootstrap 3, jQuery, DB: PostgreSQL 9.4 |
ELOG | C | GPL v3 or later | Install on a personal computer or server | Developed at PSI for the MEG experiment. It can be used to create both personal and common logbooks. |
Electronic Collaboration Logbook (ECL) | python 2.7 apache PostgreSQL Django | BSD? | install on a server | Developed at Fermilab |
Jupyter | Python plus over 40 supported languages | BSD | Install on a personal computer or server | As opposed to the experiment documentation of an ELN, the pages created in the Jupyter Notebook act as a "computational record of [an interactive computing] session, interleaving executable code with explanatory text, mathematics, and rich representations of resulting objects."[18] |