LabArchives

Overview

LabArchives brings electronic lab notebooks together with separate inventory and resource-scheduling applications for research organizations. It is best suited to labs that need more than a place to store experimental notes; for a notebook-only user, the broader suite and its paid tiers may be more than necessary.

Key features

The ELN for Research is designed to record, organize, search and share scientific data. Its built-in widgets and support for custom widgets let teams shape entries around their work, while integrations include GraphPad Prism, SnapGene, REDCap, Jupyter and Protocols.io. Audit trails, electronic signatures and approval workflows support controlled recordkeeping; offline access, API access and exports as PDF or read-only offline HTML in a ZIP add flexibility for handling records outside the live workspace.

Inventory organizes, tracks and orders laboratory stock, while Scheduler manages equipment and other lab resources. The combined ELN and Inventory plans link reagents to experiments and automatically debit inventory items, a practical advantage for labs that want materials and experimental records connected rather than maintained separately.

LabArchives states that it has FedRAMP, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications, supports HIPAA and GDPR requirements, and complies with 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA and NIST 800-171. These capabilities make the suite relevant to teams with formal recordkeeping needs, though they may be unnecessary overhead for a small group seeking a basic notebook.

Pricing

The Free plan costs nothing and includes two owned notebooks, 1GB per user, a 25MB file limit, and SnapGene and GraphPad Prism integrations. It is a useful starting point for individual or small-scale work, but the notebook, storage and file-size caps make it a constrained choice for growing projects or larger research files.

Professional Academic costs $330 a year per user; Professional Corporate costs $575 a year per user. Both provide unlimited owned notebooks, 100GB per user, a 250MB file limit, and NIH Data Management Mandates & Sharing support. Those higher limits address the Free plan's clearest constraints, with the Academic tier priced for academic users and the Corporate tier for commercial organizations.

Inventory Free costs nothing for 90 days and includes ELN for Research integration, custom inventory categories and custom storage locations. After the 90-day period, ongoing inventory access calls for a paid tier: Inventory Academic is $99 a year per user and Inventory Corporate is $199 a year per user, each adding parent/child item relationships to those inventory capabilities.

For teams needing notebooks and inventory together, ELN + Inventory Academic costs $360 a year per user, while ELN + Inventory Corporate costs $675 a year per user. Both include the Inventory application, unlimited inventory items, links between reagents and experiments, and automatic inventory debiting. ELN for Education is priced on request per student / term and includes course management tools, making it a term-based option for teaching rather than a general per-user research subscription.

Enterprise ELN has custom pricing and includes unlimited storage, files up to 16GB, advanced security and usage reports, SAML SSO, a Developer API, an uptime guarantee and SLA, and a dedicated success manager. It is the tier for organizations that need those enterprise provisions; its custom pricing makes it a different buying decision from the published per-user plans.

Platforms

The ELN runs in browsers on Windows, macOS and Linux devices, and is optimized for mobile browsers with direct image, video and audio capture. Android users can install an app from Google Play, but it wraps the browser-based session. The platform list also includes iOS, Android and API access; the available access routes make it workable across desktop and mobile environments without implying a separate native iOS app.

Who it's for

LabArchives is a strong fit for academic, nonprofit and commercial research groups that need scientific records alongside inventory or shared-equipment scheduling. LabArchives says it serves 750,000 scientists. Its support offering includes a Help Center with a knowledge base, FAQs and application support staff, as well as regular training webinars, which can help teams adopting a broader suite. A group that only needs a straightforward notebook, or cannot justify per-user subscriptions for higher limits, should weigh narrower alternatives.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Separate notebook, inventory and scheduling applications cover connected lab workflows rather than documentation alone.
• Pros: The combined ELN and Inventory plans connect reagents to experiments and debit stock automatically, reducing separation between records and inventory management.
• Pros: Professional plans raise storage from 1GB to 100GB per user and the per-file limit from 25MB to 250MB, while Enterprise ELN supports files up to 16GB.
• Cons: The Free plan's two owned notebooks, 1GB per user and 25MB file limit may be restrictive for active or data-heavy work.
• Cons: Inventory Free lasts only 90 days, so it is not a continuing free inventory tier.
• Cons: The Android app wraps the browser-based session, and mobile access depends on the mobile browser experience.

Alternatives

For a broad comparison, start with Electronic Lab Notebook Software or, when equipment scheduling is the priority, Equipment Scheduling Software.

Choose LabCollector ELN if its free Startup Pack's three users and 1,000 data records suit a small team better than LabArchives' two-notebook free plan. Labfolder is another freemium option, with pricing dependent on user count and available by quote. Consider eLabFTW if free, self-hosted software under AGPLv3 fits your needs and you can take on server hosting and administration.

NETVIBES is another alternative. SciNote has a free plan for one user with a dedicated workspace and no guaranteed support; its premium plans require a quote. Academic researchers may prefer Benchling Notebook for its free Notebook and Molecular Biology plan. LabKey ELN and Chemotion ELN are also alternatives.

Verdict

Choose LabArchives if your research group needs a connected notebook, inventory and scheduling suite, especially when controlled records and higher storage limits matter. Its main advantage is the link between experiments and lab operations; look elsewhere if you need only a basic notebook, want ongoing free inventory, or cannot justify the paid per-user tiers.