Litstream vs Universal SLR Assistant
Litstream
icf.comUniversal SLR Assistant
sadeghanisi.github.ioSide by side
| Figure | Litstream | Universal SLR Assistant |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Systematic Review Software | 6.8 (#27) | 8.2 (#6) |
| Intended users | ICF says its literature review tools have been used by state and federal agencies, nonprofits, watchdogs, and private researchers. | It is intended for PhD students, researchers, professors, evidence synthesis teams, and systematic or scoping review authors. |
| Purpose | Litstream helps researchers collaborate on literature screening and data extraction while tracking review work across team members. | Universal SLR Assistant supports systematic and scoping review workflows with AI-assisted screening, extraction, and reproducible outputs. |
| Review workflow | Managers can design review steps, assign work, and monitor progress at a granular level. | The workflow covers reference import, abstract screening, full-text PDF processing, structured extraction, and export. |
| Support | ICF offers expert support across review design and execution, including search strategies, criteria, study quality assessment, data integration, and training for collaborators. | The project directs users to the Complete User Guide, in-app Help panel, output logs, tests, and GitHub issues for support. |
Plans
In their own words
Universal SLR Assistant
Universal SLR Assistant supports systematic and scoping reviews with AI-assisted screening, extraction, and reproducible outputs. It provides a desktop interface and a browser-based local Web App, and imports RIS, BibTeX, CSV, and plain-text references, including exports from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Its workflow covers abstract screening, full-text PDF processing, structured extraction, and export; likely duplicates are identified by DOI and fuzzy title matching. Workspace mode stores references, PDF metadata, review items, decisions, and audit events in a local SQLite workspace, separating AI suggestions from human decisions. Exports can include decision files and logs, exclusion reasons, PRISMA-ready counts, a methods disclosure draft, and a manifest. The project supports a range of cloud and local AI providers. Cloud providers receive submitted paper text, while Ollama or another local endpoint can keep it on the user's computer or local network. AI results are assistance only: people must verify them and make final review and reporting decisions. The software is free under the MIT License; cloud AI provider API fees may apply.