Debunking the reasons why more labs don't use professional Open Source
A recent Reddit post on why more labs don't use professional open-source LIMS drew meaningful comment
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20 October 2025. Cape Town OS LIMS Quality acknowledgedSome posters acknowledged Open Source LIMS quality and capability, but there is a general under appreciation of how sophisticated and robust mature OS LIMS have become. Today’s Open Source LIMS are every bit as good as proprietary systems
Some FUD still yesAlarmingly, some of the 2000s’ OS FUD still endures — the worst being “They say they’re free but they’re actually not.” Those were student projects by software enthusiasts, professionals still are, but not free
No OS proponent says it works out free - the code is yes, and down loaders can install and configure their own LIMS making use of online content. If you want to make it happen in reasonable time, make use of professional services
LIMS sucksThere’s general negativity around LIMS and LIMS implementation projects. Acceptance is hard to come by; users expect easy-to-learn systems, not something on par with Financial or HR Management systems
BlockersIn heavily regulated disciplines like pharma, OS LIMS lacking formal system validation and vendor qualification are blockers. Many do ISO 17025 OK
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OS LIMS not assessed professionallyFor a fair comparison, Open Source LIMS deserves to be assessed alongside closed source in acquisition projects, using the same criteria including cost breakdowns, which is difficult to advertise upfront because of how variable some items are
A small wine lab's LIMS can be configured in 25 hours, while commercial food safety labs test hundreds of different sample types, each with its own specification, 100 + hours
Ditto for big storage configurations. Number of users and their skills levels determine how much training and support is required
Cost items to compareThey should be:
Paper based labs. SpreadsheetsOffice suites are used in research labs for rich content management
A post, 'most of the field is managed by paper notebooks and boss spoken orders xd' got many upvotes. The downvotes were likely by the open source opponents?
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