LabID vs RSpace
LabID
labintegrateddata.orgRSpace
researchspace.comSide by side
| Figure | LabID | RSpace |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $500/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 6 |
| Spec score · Life Sciences Software | 7.8 (#9) | 8.8 (#2) |
| Spec score · Electronic Lab Notebook Software | 7.7 (#15) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Deployment | Organizations can deploy LabID on their own infrastructure and customize inventory models, vocabularies, workflows, and integrations. | Enterprise customers can choose on-premises deployment or a private AWS instance in a location of their choice. |
| Integrations | The site describes integrations with Galaxy, WorkflowHub, Git, S3 storage, and LibreOffice document editing. | The site advertises more than 20 integrations spanning storage, repositories, data-management-plan tools, chemistry, biology, instruments and collaboration software. |
| Intended users | The documentation describes LabID as designed for scientists and research groups managing lab inventory, notes, and datasets. | The company describes its work as serving researchers, research data managers, librarians, stewards, research computing specialists, and policymakers. |
| Inventory | Users can track and share consumables, equipment, and storage locations, and add specialized inventory types. | Its integrated inventory system manages samples alongside experimental documentation. |
| Support | The team directs users to its Slack community and provides the contact email [email protected] for questions and support requests. | The contact page offers a support team and knowledge base, while Enterprise includes live chat and premium email support. |
Plans
RSpace
- RSpace Open SourceFree
- Team (Academia)$6,000 a year
- Team (Commercial)$12,000 a year
- Enterprise (Academia)$34,000 a year
- Enterprise (Commercial)$34,000 a year
- InfrastructurePriced on request
In their own words
LabID
LabID is a platform for research teams to manage lab inventory, electronic lab notes, research data, and metadata. Teams can track and share consumables, equipment, storage locations, and specialized inventory types. Its notebook supports formatted notes with tables and pictures, plus links to protocols and lab items, attachments, comments, and sharing. Notes can be timestamped using RFC 3161-compliant digital timestamps and exported as PDF or static HTML.
For data management, LabID registers raw and derived datasets, records assay metadata, and connects datasets to their originating samples and specimens. Teams can register, version, and share workflows from Git, WorkflowHub, or Galaxy, then track runs and provenance. Integrations include Galaxy, WorkflowHub, Git, S3 storage, and LibreOffice document editing. A CLI and API support automated ingestion and custom data-registration clients. Organizations can self-host LabID and customize inventory models, vocabularies, workflows, and integrations. The free, open-source deployment costs nothing. The EMBL installation is only available under VPN; users outside EMBL can deploy their own instance.
RSpace
RSpace is an open-source electronic research notebook and research data management platform for research workflows. Its web application supports real-time collaboration, granular sharing controls, comments and annotations, with full-text and metadata search. Chemistry teams can draw compounds and calculate stoichiometry for reaction planning, while RSpace Inventory tracks samples alongside notebook documentation. Forms provide structured fields and ontology integration for FAIR metadata. Records can be exported as HTML, XML, PDF, DOC, JSON and RO-Crate. A RESTful API supports custom integrations. RSpace states that data is encrypted at rest and over networks and supports 21 CFR Part 11 and GLP. Research Space identifies ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification. Deployment can be self-installed, managed in a private AWS instance, or run on premises for Enterprise. Plans include a free open-source option, Team plans at $6,000 a year and $12,000 a year, and Enterprise at $34,000 a year.