SciNote

SciNote is an electronic lab notebook with an open-source core and a hosted commercial tier, widely adopted in academic and small-biotech labs. It sits between fully open, self-hosted options such as eLabFTW and the heavier commercial platforms, and its project-management framing distinguishes it from notebook-only tools.

What it does

Work is organised as projects, experiments and tasks rather than a flat chronological notebook, which suits labs running several parallel lines of work. It covers protocol templates, inventory, result attachment, team assignment and commenting, with versioning and audit trails for compliance. The open-source edition is self-hostable; the hosted tiers add support and compliance features.

Strengths

• Free tier and an open-source self-hostable core.
• Project and task structure rather than a chronological log.
• Inventory and protocol management included.
• Audit trails and versioning for regulated environments.
• Approachable interface that lowers adoption resistance.

Limitations

The split between open-source and commercial editions means some features you may assume are present sit behind a paid tier — check before committing. It has no molecular-biology design tooling, so it does not compete with Benchling for cloning and sequence work. Self-hosting carries the usual maintenance burden.