ASReview vs Bango

ASReview is a free, open-source tool that uses AI-aided active learning to prioritize records for systematic review screening, with a human making screening decisions. Its site says the approach can reduce screening workload by up to 95%. Users can simulate AI-aided review to compare models, while Crowdscreen supports parallel screening with access managed by administrators through a private login system. The described model families are ELAS-Ultra, ELAS-Heavy, and language-agnostic ELAS-L; ELAS-Heavy and ELAS-L require the Dory package. ASReview works with reference managers including EndNote and PubMed, and imports and exports CSV, RIS, and XLSX files. Documentation includes a Python API, while the institutional workflow also describes a REST API and CLI for automation. In a local setup, data stays on the user's computer; server deployments keep it in the organization's environment and follow its policies. Support includes documentation, tutorials, videos, community discussion, and organizational workshops and consultancy. ASReview LAB costs nothing with no licensing fees or subscriptions, though running hardware or a server may incur costs.

Bango automates abstract screening for systematic literature reviews by assessing articles against criteria users define. Its AI screening returns decisions along with reasoning, matched rules, suggested tags, and confidence scores. Projects can import RIS and BibTeX files or Zotero collections, with up to 10,000 articles supported per project. Bibliometric analysis includes co-authorship networks, citation graphs, keyword maps, publication timelines, author rankings, and co-citation analysis. Bango can produce PRISMA 2020 flow diagrams from record counts and export them as SVG or PNG. It also supports Zotero import and export and can generate Boolean search strings for several research indexes and libraries. The maker says project data stays on the user's computer, with no cloud uploads, login, or account required. The README describes locally encrypted API keys and backups that omit credentials. AI connections include hosted providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Mistral AI, and z.ai, as well as local and other OpenAI-compatible endpoints. Bango runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, though macOS builds support Apple Silicon only. The Free plan is free, with no subscription, paywall, or limits.