Abstrackr vs RevMan
Abstrackr
abstrackr.comRevMan
cochrane.orgSide by side
| Figure | Abstrackr | RevMan |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | £6.67/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 11 |
| Spec score · Literature Review Software | 8.0 (#7) | 8.7 (#3) |
| Spec score · Systematic Review Software | 8.0 (#9) | 8.7 (#3) |
| Intended users | The site describes Abstrackr as serving researchers, librarians, and review teams conducting systematic reviews. | RevMan supports diagnostic test accuracy, intervention, methodology, overview, prognosis, qualitative, and flexible review types. |
| Purpose | Abstrackr is a citation-screening tool for systematic reviews. | RevMan is Cochrane’s software for producing transparent systematic reviews, guiding authors from structured data entry and analysis through result visualization. |
| Support | The site directs users to its community forum for methodology questions and workflow discussions. | Cochrane directs users to its Support Team and provides how-to articles, screencasts and release notes. |
Plans
RevMan
- Cochrane author accessFree
- Cochrane author accessFree
- Practice reviewFree
- Individual student annual subscription£80 a year
- Student£80 a year
- Academic£100 a year
- Individual academic annual subscription£100 a year
- Individual standard annual subscription£130 a year
- Standard rate£130 a year
- OrganizationPriced on request
In their own words
Abstrackr
Abstrackr is a free web tool for screening citations in systematic reviews. It supports solo work, blinded team screening, pilot rounds, and conflict resolution. After about 100 labels, machine learning ranks remaining citations by predicted relevance. A live PRISMA flow table records screening thresholds, resolved conflicts, exclusion reasons by tag, and analysis of the model’s stop point. Citations can be imported from PubMed, Scopus, or Embase, or uploaded as RIS and CSV files. The service deduplicates records by DOI and PMID and can merge remaining near-duplicates. Results export as CSV or RIS, with a full JSONL download for DuckDB queries. Blinding starts enabled, and changes are logged with user, reason, timestamp, and project snapshots. Member and Leader roles have no stated team-size limit, while reminders arrive 7, 4, and 1 day before deadlines. No installation is needed, and the site directs methodology questions to its community forum.
RevMan
RevMan is Cochrane’s software for building systematic reviews, from structured data entry and analysis to presenting results. It supports diagnostic test accuracy, intervention, methodology, overview, prognosis, qualitative, and flexible review types. Authors can edit separate parts of a review at the same time and see who else is working on it. Analysis options include pairwise meta-analyses, sensitivity and subgroup analyses, and fixed-effects, random-effects, Mantel-Haenszel, and inverse-variance models. Built-in outputs include forest, SROC, and funnel plots, risk-of-bias assessments, and PRISMA flow diagrams. Authors can work from ready-made or custom templates and structured headings with Cochrane methodological guidance. RevMan imports study data and references from Covidence, and RIS reference imports can draw on Crossref, PubMed, or CRS. A free practice review is deleted after 30 days and permits one person, with no data export. Free access is also available to authors working on Cochrane Reviews. Individual annual plans are £80 a year for eligible students, £100 a year for eligible academics, and £130 a year for standard subscriptions; VAT applies in the EU and UK.