LIMS Buyer's Guide

The LIMS Buyer's Guide was a publication focused on providing information about laboratory information management systems (LIMS) with public pricing. It was offered by the Laboratory Informatics Institute (LII), an open trade association associated with LabLynx, Inc.^[1]^[2]

In 2013, the LII and LabLynx discontinued publishing a copyrighted version and chose to release future guides to the public domain via this wiki. Per the Creative Commons license and the copyright terms of this site, you are free to copy, adapt, distribute, and transmit this guide as long as you 1. give proper attribution and 2. distribute the work only under the same or a similar license.

About this guide

What exactly is a laboratory information management system (LIMS) or laboratory information system (LIS) anyway? Do I need one? What options are available and how do I compare them? What about a request for information (RFI), request for proposal (RFP), or request for quotation (RFQ)? These are questions laboratory professionals typically ponder upon finding themselves charged with the mission of finding software for their lab. It can be a daunting proposition, and there doesn't seem to be any objective reference to help with it all. This guide hopes to change that.

For this free public domain version of the guide, we've added more vendors, updated new information, and added links to video demonstrations of their systems, with the goal of providing the accurate information you need to make decisions for your lab. This guide also strives to be different from any buyer's guide that has ever come before by including pricing. For the first time you have real information as well as pricing so you can quickly pursue only the vendors and products that make sense for you and your lab. While in the past vendors have refrained from providing public pricing, the trend is arguably changing towards a more open information process, though not without its own set of caveats.^[3] In theory, that means prices should decrease as LIMS become commodities that labs can compare and contrast in a more competitive fashion.

At the core all labs are in the business of producing reports, data... essentially information.^[4] Everything else is just a means to that central goal. So in a very real sense, information management is the core of any lab. In a world where we use the latest technology for most of our daily tasks and pleasures, why do so many labs still rely on hand-written notes and spreadsheets? Spend thousands of dollars on a sophisticated analytical instrument yet hesitate when faced with purchasing an information management system? Why? The primary reason is price priorities.

Since LIMS are increasingly becoming commodities, driving down prices, potential buyers don't need to make the tough decision of one or the other anymore. As technology has improved, smaller LIMS companies have emerged, along with affordable SaaS online subscription models that are trustworthy. This means any lab can put their resources where they belong: in information and its management.

Notes about the content

The LIMS Buyers Guide is here to help you wade through the mire. Use the information and vendor profiles to get a feel for what's out there and what makes the most sense. This guide contains information on everything from "what is a LIMS?" to maintaining and supporting your system. Additionally, whether you call it a LIMS, LIS, or even a LMS, in the end it's simply a tool to better manage your lab's data. This guide will refer to it all as “LIMS” for the sake of simplicity and consistency, though this guide may include systems officially dubbed as a LIS. Finally, a primary criterion for inclusion in this guide is publicly available pricing information that can thusly be cited. If citeable public pricing is not available, the vendor will not be listed in this guide. Any inappropriate additions will be removed.

How do I find the right LIMS, and how much will it cost?

OK, LIMS are getting more affordable, but where do you start? You may know the needs of your lab and how it runs, but perhaps you don't know LIMS and are intimidated by all the options. Take heart! This guide features a compiled list of major and minor players to help you make initial comparisons. However, you'll first need to gauge your lab's informatics needs in order to determine which products are worth investigating further. Of course your lab's analysis requirements, reporting and data sharing constraints, instrument interfacing, barcoding needs, quality assurance processes, etc. are very important factors. But LIMS vary in numerous ways, and other important factors exist. Price should certainly be considered, although value is ultimately more important than a low price. Other important considerations:

Should we purchase licenses or "rent" them via subscription?
Does the software need to be on-site, or is a SaaS hosted option more practical?
Is a modular or complete system better for us?
What is the best licensing/rental scheme for us? Show we consider site, named user, concurrent user, or workstation licenses?
Is the company qualified and trustworthy?

Purchase vs. subscribe

In the past this was not an option. But much like the recent trend toward leasing cars rather than finding a large amount of money for up-front purchasing, labs can choose to pay only the cost of services (setup, training, report configuration, instrument interfaces, data migration, custom functions, etc.) and get started on a monthly subscription rather than buy licenses outright. When does this make sense? Subscriptions make sense primarily:

...if a large lump sum is hard to get budgeted. If your business cash flow will support the regular subscription fee but finding license fees is more problematic, then a subscription may be right for you. But do the math. Calculate project costs over a reasonable period (e.g. five years) to make sure it is a value proposition. Be sure to include maintenance and support in your figures; this is often included in a subscription but not in a license.
...if you may need to reduce the number of users. Once you buy licenses, they are yours. You can't "un-buy" them. But with a subscription you can raise and lower the number of users, workstations, etc. as you need to.
...if you may need to bail. Business decisions often need to be dynamic. Your lab may decide to go into another area of analysis, and if your LIMS isn't versatile enough to support the change, you have potentially wasted a lot of money.

On the other hand, it may be important to you to have the LIMS source code. Some subscriptions allow you just as much access to it as if you had purchased licenses, while others may not give you the access you seek. Confirm this with the vendor. Alos, ask whether you get to keep an image of the database should you decide to end your subscription.

Onsite vs. SaaS

A small but growing number of LIMS vendors will actually host your system on their servers for you or cloud-host it elsewhere. We refer to software accessed via the Internet rather than your workstation or server as software as a service or SaaS. Most of us already make copious use of SaaS whenever we "Google" something. Cloudhosted SaaS is characterized by multiple load-balanced servers that allow resources to be strategically used, and virtualized servers that allow for the creation of custom environments.To decide if SaaS is for you or if you should go the traditional route, here are some points to consider:

If you have a small or overworked IT department, or none at all, then it may make sense to let the LIMS provider take care of those functions rather than invest in additional hardware, personnel, and other resources just to support your LIMS. If you are a large company with an extensive and capable IT department, then you may prefer the LIMS and its database to reside on premises.
IT techs cite security as a major reason to keep a LIMS on lab premises. The truth is, if the vendor uses a SAS-70 or SAS 70 Type II data center to host, with GxP SOPs, your system and data are probably a lot safer than on a typical business infrastructure. Ask the vendor.
If you decide to have your system hosted, ensure it's not by Bob and his buddy in their basement. The vendor needs to have been around awhile, have solid references, and feature good customer service.
A reputable SaaS host will guarantee you high availability, approaching 100% up time, with quick and responsive catastrophe response. Redundant components and infrastructure (power, cooling, etc.) allow them to do that.