Abstrackr vs SyRF
Abstrackr
abstrackr.comSyRF
syrf.org.ukSide by side
| Figure | Abstrackr | SyRF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Systematic Review Software | 8.0 (#9) | 7.1 (#26) |
| Intended users | The site describes Abstrackr as serving researchers, librarians, and review teams conducting systematic reviews. | SyRF is intended for researchers conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of preclinical studies. |
| Purpose | Abstrackr is a citation-screening tool for systematic reviews. | SyRF supports evidence synthesis and systematic reviews of preclinical research, including storing extracted data and providing educational resources and guidance. |
| Support | The site directs users to its community forum for methodology questions and workflow discussions. | The guide directs users to contact the SyRF Help Desk for help with manual screening-disagreement reconciliation. |
Plans
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.
SyRF
SyRF is a web platform for researchers conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of preclinical studies. It supports collaborative projects, configurable workflows, study screening, annotation, data extraction, and educational guidance. By default, two reviewers assess studies against inclusion and exclusion criteria, with a third reviewer handling disagreements. Student projects can enable single screening, though the guide does not recommend it for journal-bound reviews. Administrators create annotation questions and assign them to workflow stages; graph extraction requires data extraction and annotation together. Studies and associated data, including quantitative results for analysis in R or SAS, can be downloaded. References must be deduplicated and supplied as EndNote Desktop XML or CSV. Full-text PDFs may be linked, but users provide the files separately for SyRF staff to process and store. Projects can be public or private, and each project currently supports one criteria set. SyRF is free online, with a minimum feature set under continuous development.