Rayyan vs Universal SLR Assistant

Rayyan is a platform for teams carrying out systematic evidence reviews, with workflows intended to be transparent, auditable, and reproducible. Its process spans reference import, collaboration, deduplication, title and abstract screening, full-text screening, data extraction, risk-of-bias assessment, and reporting. ResearchPilot AI Reviewer screens articles against criteria set by the user and gives decisions with reasoning notes. The Analyzer suggests inclusion or exclusion with justification, while the researcher retains final decision-making. ResearchPilot can also extract answers to custom questions from PDFs and metadata, highlight relevant passages, and let users inspect the answers. References are imported from exported files rather than a direct database connection. The API offers programmatic access to reviews, references, decisions, and metadata, plus workflow automation and external integrations. Rayyan is available on Android, iOS, web, and through an API. The Free plan allows three active reviews and two free reviewers; paid options start at $8.33 a month per seat, billed annually. Free mobile access is limited; Essential and higher provide unlimited mobile access.

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.