Table 1 Comparison of the functionality of currently available systematic review management software packages
Software name | Ownership | Website | Descriptiona | Intended field(s) of research | Available support | Stages of the SR process supportedb | Web–online | Downloadable | Supports offline working | Supports team of reviewers | Text mining features (for screening, data extraction or synthesis) | Open source | Costc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CADIMA [32] | JKI—Julius Kühn-Institut | https://www.cadima.info/index.php/area/evidenceSynthesisDatabase | “CADIMA supports the conduct of systematic reviews and evidence/systematic maps by the provision of a freely available online tool.” | Any, particularly suitable for Environmental Evidence systematic maps and reviews | Development team is available to provide support or software modifications | Qu, Pi, Du, Sc, Co, Cr, Do | Yes | No | Yes (at data coding stage) | Yes | Text mining capabilities in development | No | Free |
Colandr | Conservation International | “computer-assisted systematic mapping software for evidence synthesis” | Any, particularly suitable for environment and development sectors | Colandr Community website, videos, documentation | Pi, Se, Du, Sc, Co, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | Machine learning approaches to assist with article screening and data extraction | Yes | Free | |
Covidence [33] | Covidence is a non-profit organisation | “Covidence is a not-for-profit service working in partnership with Cochrane to improve the production and use of systematic reviews for health and wellbeing.” | Healthcare and medical science, designed for Cochrane reviews | Detailed help documentation and demonstration videos. Contact support available | Du, Sc, Co, Cr | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Range of packages e.g. ‘Single’: $240 USD per year, one review, unlimited reviewers | |
DistillerSR [34] | Privately held, Evidence Partners | https://www.evidencepartners.com/products/distillersr-systematic-review-software/ | “DistillerSR is the world’s most used systematic review software. It was designed from the ground up to give you a better review experience, faster project completion and transparent, audit-ready results.” | Any | 8X5 live technical support and detailed user manual with explanatory videos. Support for international character sets | Se (PubMed), Du, Sc, Co, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | In develoment. Currently supports keyword highlightingd | No | Range of packages e.g. Student FREE: USD$0 and’Faculty’: USD$75 per month |
Early review organizing software (EROS) [35] | Institute of Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy | “EROS is a new web-based software designed specifically to perform the first stages of a systematic review.” | Healthcare and medical science | Email support and a user guide | Sc, Co, Cr | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | A donation for development (USD 600 per year for a team of up to four reviewers) is requested for non-Cochrane reviews (Cochrane reviews can use Covidence for free) | |
EPPI-Reviewer 4 [36] | EPPI-Centre | http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/CMS/Default.aspx?alias=eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/er4& | “EPPI-Reviewer 4 is a multi-user web-based application for managing and analyzing data for use in research synthesis.” | Any | Detailed user manual and developers are available with advice and to make modification where possible | Se, Du, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | Text mining to assist with identifying relevant studies | No | User fee £10 per user per month, plus shareable review fee £35 per month |
Collaborative initiative | “HAWC is a modular, content management system designed to store, display, and synthesize multiple data sources for the purpose of producing human health assessments of chemicals.” | Healthcare and medical science | Online documentation http://hawc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and Github repository. Requires knowledge of Python to run and to interpret help documentation | Se, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | Unavailable | Yes | Free | ||
METAGEAR package for R [39] | Marc J. Lajeunesse | http://lajeunesse.myweb.usf.edu/metagear/metagear_basic_vignette.html#introduction | “The metagear package for R contains tools for facilitating systematic reviews, data extraction, and meta-analyses.” | Any | Online documentation and the developer is available for questions. Requires knowledge of R in order to run the software although there is a GUI interface for abstract screening | Sc, Co, Sy | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | Yes | “PDF downloader to automate the retrieval of journal articles from online data bases; automated data extractions from scatter-plots, box-plots and bar-plots” | Yes | Free |
PARSIFAL | Parsifal is a non-profit organisation | “Parsifal is an online tool designed to support researchers to perform systematic literature reviews within the context of Software Engineering.” | Software engineering | FAQs, online videos, Github repository (https://github.com/vitorfs/parsifal) and email support available | Pi, Se, Du, Sc, Co, Sy | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Free | |
Rayyan [40] | Qatar Computing Research Institute | “Authors create systematic reviews, collaborate on them, maintain them over time and get suggestions for article inclusion.” | Any, close alignment with Cochrane reviews | Online forum | Pi, Se, Du, Sc | Yes | No | Yes, using a mobile app | Yes | The support vector machine classifier learns from users’ decisions about including and excluding studies and scores unclassified studies for likely relevance. Similarity graph function for exploring citation networks | No | Free | |
REviewER | Empirical Software Engineering Group | “REviewER aims at assisting researchers in the laborious process of conduction of systematic reviews.” | Any, particularly software engineering. | GitHub repository (https://github.com/bfsc/reviewer). No user guide. Advanced coding skills required | Qu, Pi, Se, Du, Sc | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | Yes | No | Yes | Free | |
RevMan 5 [41] (this software is no longer being developed) | Cochrane Community | http://community.cochrane.org/tools/review-production-tools/revman-5 | “Review Manager 5 (RevMan 5) is the software used for preparing and maintaining Cochrane Reviews.” | Healthcare and medical science, designed for Cochrane reviews | Online documentation. RevMan 5 support accounts are only available to registered Cochrane authors | Pi, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do d | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | Yes (cannot edit simultaneously) | No | No | RevMan 5 is free for Cochrane Reviewers or purely academic use. Commercial users require a license |
RevMan Web (will be available for beta-testing in 2017, building on RevMan 5) | Cochrane Community | http://community.cochrane.org/tools/review-production-tools/revman-web | “RevMan Web is a new, web-based platform for preparing and maintaining Cochrane Reviews.” | Healthcare and medical science, designed for Cochrane reviews | RevMan Web will integrate with several other Cochrane software packages | Unavailable | Yes | Unavailable | Unavailable | Unavailable | Unavailable | Unavailable | Unavailable |
SESRA (supporting systematic literature reviews in software engineering) [29] | UNIVALI—Universidade do Vale do Itajaí | “Collaborative research, automated searches, online reference management, support to all the process phases and activities.” | Any, particularly designed for software engineering | User guide and introductory videos available in Portuguese only | Qu, Pi, Sc, Co, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Proposed in future | Free | |
SLR-tool [42] | ALARCOS Research Group | “…a free tool… to be used by researchers from any discipline, and not only Software Engineering.” | Any, particularly designed for software engineering | Unavailable | Qu, Pi, Du, Sc, Co, Cr, Do | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | No | Yes, for example “…to cluster the documents by using the similarities among them, highlighting key words that identify each group of documents.” | No | Free | |
SLuRp (systematic literature unified Review program) [43] | See authors | “…to support the complex task of managing large numbers of papers, sharing tasks amongst a research team and following the arduous and rigorous SLR methodology recommended by Kitchenham and Charters.” | Software engineering | No user guide, minimal support information on product website. Requires use of MySql and Tomcat to run | Se, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do | Partially | Unavailable | Unavailable | Yes | No | Yes | Free | |
SRDB.PRO—systematic review intelligence Platform | Privately held | “…the first, enterprise level Business Intelligence platform designed specifically to improve the way in which the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare consultancies conduct systematic reviews and data analysis.” | Healthcare and medical science, targeting the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare consultancies | User guide. Phone and email support | Se (PubMed), Du, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | Yes | No | No | SRDB.PRO Hosted is free for non-commercial use and starts at £70/USD$119 per month for 1 active user. SRDB.PRO Enterprise is more expensive | |
SRDR (systematic review data repository) | Brown Evidence-based Practice Center | “…a Web-based tool for data extraction and storage of systematic review data.” | Healthcare and medical science | User manual, FAQs and training videos | Se, Co, Sy | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Free | |
StArt (state of the art through systematic review) [44] | Laboratory of Research on Software Engineering (LaPES) | “…aims to help the researcher, giving support to the application of this technique [systematic review]” | Software engineering | The online StArt community provides a forum, tutorials and videos | Pi, Du, Sc, Co, Cr, Sy, Do | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | No | Yes, calculates scores of likely relevance of articles and similarity between articles | No | Free | |
SUMARI (system for the unified management, assessment and review of information). (designed to replace JBI CReMS software) | Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) | “SUMARI supports 10 review types, including reviews of effectiveness, qualitative research, economic evaluations, prevalence/incidence, aetiology/risk, mixed methods, umbrella/overviews, text/opinion, diagnostic test accuracy and scoping reviews.” | Healthcare and medical science, also social sciences and humanities | FAQs and video tutorials | Se, Sc (full text only), Co, Cr, Sy, Do | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Limited access beyond JBI special users initially. Subscriptions will be made available via Wolters Kluwer | |
SWIFT-review (Sciome workbench for interactive computer-facilitated text-mining) [45] | Privately held, Sciome | “a freely available interactive workbench which provides numerous tools to assist with problem formulation and literature prioritization.” | Healthcare and medical science | Tutorial and user guide | Se (PubMed), Sc (works in concert with SWIFT-ACTIVE Screener), Co, Sy, Do | No | Yes | Yes, package operates offline | Yes | Yes, the “software utilizes recently developed statistical modeling and machine learning methods that allow users to identify over-represented topics within the literature corpus and to rank-order titles and abstracts for manual screening.” | No | Free | |
SyRF (systematic review and meta-analysis facility) [46] | CAMARADES and NC3Rs | “SyRF is a fully integrated online platform for performing systematic reviews of preclinical studies.” | Preclinical studies e.g. experimental animal studies | Online contact form, online tutorials available on request. User guide, video tutorial and in app tutorials in development | Qu, Pi, Se (PubMed), Sc, Co, Cr, Sy | Yes | No (under development) | No (offline app under development) | Yes | Risk of bias items can be automatically extracted and machine learning is available to aid the screening process for English articles | No | Free |