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SciNote is a cloud-based electronic lab notebook (ELN) made by SciNote, LLC, of Middleton, Wisconsin, with lab inventory, compliance and team-management tools. It also has an open-source codebase on GitHub. This page is for lab managers and researchers deciding whether SciNote belongs on a shortlist of electronic lab notebooks. Facts below come from SciNote’s own website and its GitHub repository, both read on 2026-11-07, and are attributed to the vendor where they are vendor statements.
What SciNote is
SciNote describes itself as a cloud-based ELN with lab inventory, compliance and team-management tools. The vendor lists these capabilities on its homepage:
- Projects, experiments and tasks, with protocol checklists.
- Protocol and SOP templates, and an integration with protocols.io.
- Full-text search across projects, experiments and files.
- A report generator.
- Lab inventory with stock tracking and labeling.
- Comments, tagging and notifications for teams.
- Android and iOS mobile apps, and automatic backup.
- An integrations and API section.
The Project, Experiment, Task hierarchy
SciNote organises work in three nested levels: projects contain experiments, and experiments contain tasks. Protocols attach to tasks as checklists. For a lab manager this resembles a common paper-notebook habit (a study, a run, a procedure), which gives a practical test when comparing ELNs: check whether your lab’s existing study and run naming maps cleanly onto this structure before migrating records.
Who makes it and where the code lives
The commercial product is published by SciNote, LLC. SciNote offers a free edition for individual users ("SciNote Free") and paid Premium plans listed on its Plans page; plan contents and prices are set by the vendor and are not reproduced here.
Separately, the SciNote web application is published as open source on GitHub (scinote-eln/scinote-web). Its README calls it an "open source electronic lab notebook (ELN)" for life science students, researchers, lab technicians and group leaders. The repository is licensed under MPL-2.0, is a Ruby on Rails application, is maintained by BioSistemika USA, LLC, and includes Dockerfiles; installation steps are in the project wiki under "Build & run". The practical distinction: the open-source repository is code you would host and maintain yourself, whereas the hosted product is the vendor’s cloud service. Confirm which one a given feature list refers to.
The vendor’s homepage also states that it is used by FDA, USDA and scientists in more than 100 countries. That is a vendor claim and this page does not independently verify it.
Compliance: what the vendor states and what your lab must still do
SciNote states that its electronic signatures, audit trail, time stamps, activity log and access controls support 21 CFR Part 11 and GLP/GMP requirements, and it publishes a data-protection whitepaper that mentions GDPR. These are vendor statements about supporting features, not a certification of your lab’s compliance. Regulated labs normally still have to validate a system for their own intended use. Use this split as a checklist:
| Question | Who answers it | CASRAI guide |
|---|---|---|
| Does the software provide audit trail, e-signature and access-control features? | Vendor documentation, checked against your own demo | 21 CFR Part 11 compliance checklist |
| Is the system validated for your intended use? | Your lab or institution | ELN validation for Part 11 and GxP |
| What validation approach and documentation apply? | Your quality unit | Computer system validation (CSV, GAMP 5, IQ/OQ/PQ) |
Finding SciNote and exploring its structure
The vendor site is scinote.net, where the Plans section lists the free and Premium options and the sign-in is reached from the site header. The product structure the vendor describes is a project, an experiment inside it, and tasks with protocol checklists inside the experiment. For self-hosting, follow the "Build & run" page in the scinote-web GitHub wiki.
Strengths and limits
- Strength: a free individual edition and an open-source codebase. Both are stated on the vendor’s pages.
- Strength: inventory and protocols in one system. The vendor lists lab inventory and SOP/protocol templates alongside the notebook.
- Limit: compliance claims are vendor statements. They support but do not replace validation.
- Limit: self-hosting is your responsibility. The GitHub repository is application code; hosting, backup and security of a self-run instance fall to the lab.
Alternatives
Other ELN and lab-informatics platforms are covered elsewhere on CASRAI. The table points to those pages rather than restating their features.
| Platform | Where it is covered on CASRAI |
|---|---|
| Benchling, LabArchives (compared with SciNote) | Benchling pricing vs LabArchives and SciNote |
| Dotmatics | Dotmatics: what it is, who owns it, what it includes |
| Labguru | Labguru |
| LabKey Server | LabKey Server: open-source research data platform and LIMS |
For general selection criteria, see how to choose an electronic lab notebook.
FAQ
What is SciNote?
SciNote is a cloud-based electronic lab notebook with lab inventory, compliance and team-management tools, made by SciNote, LLC (vendor website, read 2026-11-07).
Is SciNote open source?
The scinote-web application is published on GitHub under the MPL-2.0 licence and maintained by BioSistemika USA, LLC (repository README, read 2026-11-07). The vendor’s hosted service is a separate offering.
Is there a free version?
The vendor names "SciNote Free" for individual users, plus paid Premium plans on its Plans page.
Is SciNote 21 CFR Part 11 compliant?
The vendor states that its e-signature, audit-trail, time-stamp, activity-log and access-control features support Part 11 and GLP/GMP requirements. Whether a lab’s use is compliant depends on the lab’s own validation.
Sources
- SciNote homepage, scinote.net, read 2026-11-07.
- scinote-eln/scinote-web README, github.com/scinote-eln/scinote-web, read 2026-11-07.
