A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is a software-based laboratory and information management system that provides streamlined workflow automation and management. This type of software is typically used in analytical laboratories such as R&D labs, in-process testing labs and quality assurance labs.
A LIMS seeks to embrace the way you work, offering single sample, batch samples and manual or automated methods, producing reports for internal or external customer use. Management of resources is an important characteristic of planning work allocation against availability and for auto analysers around calibration and maintenance schedules.
There are a number of benefits a LIMS brings to the laboratory environment, most significantly; increased productivity and improved data quality, both of which reduce operating costs and free up human resources from mundane activities. This type of software also serves to improve capacity, offering faster turnaround time for customers, higher accuracy and quality control, live searches, and can interface with other departments.
The task of selecting the best LIMS for an organization can be complicated, in part, because many terms used to describe very different LIMS and system architectures are used interchangeably.
Our ratings chart below captures our recommendations. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
Click the links in the table below to learn more about each LIMS.
| Laboratory Information Management System | |
|---|---|
| eLabFTW | Electronic lab notebook manager for research teams |
| SENAITE | Enterprise Open Source Laboratory System |
| OpenMRS | Enterprise electronic medical record system platform |
| Bika LIMS | Powerful, flexible web based LIMS with full content management integration |
| Occhiolino | Modern Laboratory Information Management System |
| C4G BLIS | Track patients, specimens and laboratory results |
| OpenELIS | Designed for resource-constrained laboratories |
| FreeLIMS | Lets users perform Bio-Informatics |
| MetaLIMS | LIMS for small metagenomic laboratories |
| GNomEx | Genomic LIMS and Data Repository |
| Baobab LIMS | LIMS for biobanking |
| Open-LIMS | Management for projects, samples and their related data |
This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |