Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 29, 2026

List of electronic laboratory notebook software packages

An electronic lab notebook 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.

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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. It is incomplete, as a recent review listed 96 active & 76 inactive (172 total) ELN products.4 Notably, this review and other lists of ELN software often do not include widely used generic notetaking software like Onenote, Notion, Jupyter etc, due to their lack ELN nominal features like time-stamping and append-only editing. Some ELNs are web-based; others are used on premise and a few are available for both environments.

ELN Software

Name Developer(s) Initial release Country of origin 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance Information
Lab Thread Lab Thread Ltd. 202656 United Kingdom

21 CFR Part 11 compliance available for Pro plans7

IGOR - Your Personal Lab Assistant Wildfell Software, LLC 2023 United States 21 CFR Part 118
OpreX Informatics Manager Yokogawa Electric 20239 Japan
ChemExplorer Labio a.s. 202310 Czech Republic
CellPort CellPort Software, LLC 2021 United States 21 CFR Part 11
Colabra Colabra Inc. 202111 United States Paid plans12
Scispot Scispot.io Inc. 20211314 Canada
Polar IDBS 202015 United Kingdom 21 CFR Part 11 16
Laby KYLI SAS 2019 France
Genemod17 Genemod, Inc. 2018 United States 21 CFR Part 11
CDD Vault ELN Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. 20181819202122 United States 21 CFR Part 11 23
Uncountable Uncountable Inc. 20182425 United States 26
E-Workbook IDBS 201727 United Kingdom 21 CFR Part 11 16
Signals Notebook Revvity 201728 United States 29
Pillar Science Pillar Science 201730 Canada
Labii Labii Inc. 201631 United States 32
Chemia ELN Chemiasoft Pvt ltd 2016 India [21 CFR Part 11]
Mbook Mestrelab Research 2015 Spain
SciNote ELN By SciNote LLC 2015 United States
Labstep Labstep 2015 United Kingdom
RND NOTE Cyberline Co., Ltd. 2015 South Korea
Open Science Framework (OSF) Center for Open Science 2013 United States
Labfolder Labforward GmbH 2012 Germany
Benchling Benchling, Inc. 2012 United States
Labguru Biodata Ltd 2011 United States 21 CFR Part 11
Scilligence ELN Scilligence 2011 United States
Arxspan ELN Bruker, Inc. 2011 United States
SciSure SciSure 2010 The Netherlands
LabWare LabWare ELN 2010 United States
LabArchives LabArchives LLC 2009 United States
Sapio Seamless ELN Sapio Sciences LLC 2007 United States
LabVantage 8 LabVantage Solutions, Inc. 2007 United States
CERF ELN Lab-Ally LLC 2006 United States
Logilab ELN Agaram Technologies 2003 India
LabCollector AgileBio 2002 France

Open-source ELN software

ELN software Language base License Hosted on Other info
OpenWetWare PHP GPL v2 / MIT Server
elabFTW PHP GNU AGPLv3 Personal computer or server Developed at Curie Institute, Paris33
CFWPELN (Cloneable Free WP ELN) PHP GNU General Public License Personal computer or server Uses WordPress, developed at University of Houston34
OpenBIS Java, Python Apache License 2.0 Personal computer or server Developed at ETH Zürich
Kadi4Mat Python, VueJS Apache License 2.0 Personal computer or server Developed at KIT Karlsruhe
Chemotion ELN Ruby on Rails GNU AGPLv3 Personal computer or server Developed at KIT Karlsruhe
RSpace Java, JavaScript GNU AGPLv3 Server 21 CFR Part 11 compliant
SciPeaks Java, JavaScript BSD 3-Clause License Personal computer or server Developed at Zakodium Sàrl, EPFL Spinoff, Lausanne, Switzerland35
References

References

  1. Myers J, Mendoza E, Hoopes B (2001). A Collaborative Electronic Notebook. Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications.
  2. Myers J (2003). Collaborative Electronic Notebooks as Electronic Records:Design Issues for the Secure Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) (PDF). Proceedings of the 2003 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-10-15. Retrieved 2017-11-14.
  3. Perkel JM (June 2011). "Coding your way out of a problem". Nature Methods. 8 (7): 541–3. doi:10.1038/nmeth.1631. PMID 21716280. S2CID 13175560.
  4. Higgins, Stuart G.; Nogiwa-Valdez, Akemi A.; Stevens, Molly M. (2022-01-14). "Considerations for implementing electronic laboratory notebooks in an academic research environment". Nature Protocols. 17 (2). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 179–189. doi:10.1038/s41596-021-00645-8. hdl:10044/1/91747. ISSN 1754-2189. PMID 35031789. S2CID 245965212.
  5. "Lab Thread Launches Free Unified Lab Software Platform to Accelerate Academic Research".
  6. "Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News Product to Watch: Lab Thread - Unified Lab Software Platform".
  7. "Lab Thread Pricing". www.labthread.com. Retrieved 2026-04-08.
  8. "Regulatory Compliance". IGOR | Lab Notebook and LIMS Software for Research. Retrieved 2026-02-06.
  9. "Yokogawa to Release OpreX Informatics Manager, Enabling Integrated Management of Experimental Data and Research Resources in the Cloud | Yokogawa Electric Corporation". www.yokogawa.com. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
  10. "Advantages of using an electronic laboratory notebook software | Labio a.s.". www.chemexplorer.net. 2024-01-05. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  11. "Colabra raises $1.5 million for its online and mobile scientific collaboration software". www.eurekalert.org. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  12. "Pricing". www.colabra.app. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
  13. "Scispot.io launches a no-code digital operating platform for bioentrepreneurs to democratize life science". Wiley Analytical Science.
  14. "Tech lets bioentrepreneurs run start-ups from coffee shops". Drug Discovery World.
  15. "IDBS Launches The E-WorkBook Cloud (ELN)". IDBS. 2017-01-11. Retrieved 2025-01-27.
  16. "Comprehensive GxP solutions". IDBS. Retrieved 2025-01-27.
  17. "Streamlined lab organization and collaborative editing". Genemod. Retrieved 2024-07-08.
  18. "CDD Vault Update: CDD Vault is Now and ELN". Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc.
  19. CDD Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) - Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc. (CDD)
  20. "Electronic Lab Notebooks: What They Are (And Why You Need One)". Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc.
  21. "Capterra: Reviews of CDD Vault".
  22. "ELN Finder: CDD Vault".
  23. "Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) Software for Secure, Compliant Scientific Research". CDD Vault ELN. Retrieved 2026-03-25.
  24. "Uncountable Web Platform Reviews & Product Details". G2. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  25. "Streamlining R&D for material formulation". MIT Startup Exchange. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  26. "Technology - Uncountable". www.uncountable.com. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
  27. "IDBS Launches The E-WorkBook Cloud (ELN)". IDBS. 2017-01-11. Retrieved 2025-01-27.
  28. "New Cloud-Based PerkinElmer Signals™ Notebook Helps Scientists Accelerate Drug Discovery Research". PerkinElmer, Inc. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
  29. "Revvity Signals Data Sheet" (PDF). revvitysignals.com. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  30. "Pillar Science Pricing, Alternatives & More 2022 - Capterra". www.capterra.com. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
  31. "Labii will now offer ELN & LIMS to all MBC BioLabs startups". BioSpace. Retrieved 2022-02-08.
  32. "Labii Regulation". Labii Regulation. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  33. "Biostars". 2014-09-10. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  34. "Implementation of an Electronic Lab Notebook to Integrate Research and Education in an Undergraduate Biotechnology Program" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  35. "Zakodium". 2026-07-10. Retrieved 2026-07-10.