Direct comparison
Editorial Manager vs ScholarOne vs OJS Compared
Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, and OJS compared: ownership, who uses each, and what authors/editors should expect from submission to decision.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | Editorial Manager | ScholarOne Manuscripts | OJS (Open Journal Systems) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor / steward | Aries Systems Corporation, an Elsevier company since 2018 | Silverchair, which acquired ScholarOne Manuscripts and Conferences from Clarivate in a deal that closed Nov 12, 2024 | Public Knowledge Project (PKP), a unit of Simon Fraser University |
| Licence / cost model | Proprietary u2014 licensed to a publisher/journal by Aries Systems | Proprietary u2014 licensed to a publisher/journal by Silverchair | Free, open source (GNU GPLv3) u2014 self-host, or pay a host/support provider (incl. PKP Publishing Services) |
| Typical publisher profile | Large commercial and society publishers, incl. Elsevier's own portfolio and Cell Press | Large commercial and society publishers, incl. Wiley's journal portfolio | Open-access, diamond/no-fee, university-press, and society journals u2014 ~44,000 journals in 148 countries per PKP |
| How an author identifies it | editorialmanager.com, per-journal branded portal | Silverchair/ScholarOne-branded submission URL, per-journal portal | The journal's own domain u2014 no shared vendor URL; look and required fields vary by installation |
| CRediT role capture (mid-2026) | Native, structured, since Editorial Manager 13.0 (2016); optional or required per journal | Native, structured; used across large portfolios such as Wiley's | Core support new in OJS 3.6; earlier versions relied on a community plugin, not built-in capture |
| JATS XML output | Native, with vocab-term-identifier tagging per ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 | Native | Not automatic in core u2014 depends on a plugin (e.g. PKP's JATS Template plugin) being installed |
| Peer-review workflow support | Enterprise-configurable, with a dedicated Aries/Elsevier account team | Enterprise-configurable, with a dedicated Silverchair account team | Configurable via open-source plugins; usually self-managed by the editorial team, or supported via PKP Publishing Services |
| Roadmap / feature control | Set by Aries Systems/Elsevier; publishers request features via the vendor relationship | Set by Silverchair; publishers request features via the vendor relationship | Set by PKP with an open community process (GitHub, PKP Community Forum); anyone can build a plugin |
| Current release status | Continuously updated SaaS; no publisher-facing version number | Continuously updated SaaS; no publisher-facing version number | OJS 3.4.0-10 (Nov 2025) is the current LTS release, supported to at least Jan 2027; OJS 3.5.0-4 (Apr 2026) and the OJS 3.6 line are newer, non-LTS releases |
Common questions
FAQ
Do I choose which submission system to use as an author?+
No u2014 the journal you're submitting to has already selected one. Which system it is has no bearing on manuscript quality or acceptance odds; it only affects the mechanics of submitting, tracking status, and completing peer-review steps.
How can I tell which system a journal uses before I submit?+
Check the journal's 'submit a manuscript' or author-guidelines page, which links directly to the submission portal. The URL is also a signal: editorialmanager.com for Editorial Manager, or a Silverchair/ScholarOne-branded submission URL for ScholarOne; an OJS-based journal typically submits through its own journal website, since OJS has no shared vendor domain.
Does the system a journal uses affect how my CRediT contributor statement is captured?+
It can. Editorial Manager and ScholarOne both offer native, structured CRediT role capture at submission. On an OJS-based journal, whether contributor roles are captured in structured form depends on whether that installation has adopted OJS's newer core CRediT support (OJS 3.6) or a CRediT plugin u2014 check the journal's own submission instructions if this matters for your funder or institutional reporting.
