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Research · head to head

LabArchives vs Terra

LabArchives logo

LabArchives

Research

Electronic lab notebook with witnessing, version history and long-term institutional retention

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Terra logo

Terra

Research

Open biomedical research platform for genomic analysis, priced only by the cloud you consume

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: LabArchives the corporate rate is roughly 75 per cent above the academic rate for the same product, so a university spinout crossing into commercial status faces a step change in cost at exactly the point its budget is tightest.; Terra the absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • They diverge on capability: LabArchives covers Versioned entries, Terra covers No platform licence fee.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which LabArchives and Terra actually diverge.

Attributes where LabArchives and Terra differ
AttributeLabArchivesTerra
Pricing modelPer user per yearOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Research).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in LabArchives

  • Versioned entries
  • Witnessing and signing
  • Inventory
  • Scheduler
  • Education edition
  • Single sign-on
  • Structured data entry
  • DOI and repository publishing

Only in Terra

  • No platform licence fee
  • Cloud pass-through billing
  • WDL workflow execution
  • Notebook environments
  • Controlled-access data
  • Workspace sharing
  • Compliance posture
  • Multi-cloud

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

LabArchives

  • A university group that must keep research records after a PhD student leaves, rather than losing them with a laptopnot Terra
  • A core facility that needs instrument booking and a shared record of who ran what and whennot Terra
  • A small biotech building patent-defensible evidence of invention with witnessed, timestamped entriesnot Terra
  • A teaching department running undergraduate laboratory courses where instructors need to see and grade notebook worknot Terra

Terra

  • A genomics lab running whole-genome alignment and variant calling pipelines without provisioning or maintaining a local clusternot LabArchives
  • A consortium sharing controlled-access human data across institutions where the data cannot be copied to each sitenot LabArchives
  • A health system analysing patient genomic data under a HIPAA business associate agreementnot LabArchives
  • A federal or federally funded project needing FedRAMP Moderate authorisation for its analysis environmentnot LabArchives

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

LabArchives

  • The corporate rate is roughly 75 per cent above the academic rate for the same product, so a university spinout crossing into commercial status faces a step change in cost at exactly the point its budget is tightest.
  • Inventory and Scheduler are separate per-user line items, so a lab that assumed one price per person for a working system ends up paying two or three.
  • It is now a Dotmatics product inside a large scientific software portfolio, which puts roadmap priority with enterprise pharmaceutical buyers rather than with the academic labs that made it popular.
  • The interface is functional rather than pleasant, and adoption typically fails not on features but on researchers quietly continuing to keep notes elsewhere; you need a mandate, not a rollout email.
  • Instrument integration is thin compared with dedicated laboratory information management systems, so automated capture from analytical equipment usually still means manual upload or custom scripting.

Terra

  • The absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • Cost governance is entirely the customer responsibility, and grant-funded groups without a cloud engineer routinely overspend before anyone reads the Google or Azure bill in enough detail to find the cause.
  • It assumes genuine bioinformatics competence: writing or adapting WDL workflows, managing data tables and debugging failed tasks are all on you, so a wet lab without computational staff cannot use it productively.
  • Feature parity between the Google Cloud and Azure deployments is not identical, so a decision on cloud provider constrains which capabilities and datasets you can reach and is expensive to reverse later.
  • It is a research platform rather than a regulated clinical system: it is not a validated GxP environment and does not carry the qualification package a diagnostic or submission workflow would require, so clinical use needs additional infrastructure and validation you provide yourself.

Pricing, plan by plan

LabArchives

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Limited storage
    • Core notebook and versioning
    • Intended for evaluation and individual use
  • Professional (Academic)$330/year
    • Full ELN with witnessing and signing
    • Academic rate per user per year
    • Corporate rate is $575 per user per year
  • ELN plus Inventory bundle$360/year
    • Notebook plus sample and reagent inventory
    • Academic rate; corporate rate is $675 per user per year
  • Inventory standalone$99/year
    • Sample tracking without the notebook
    • Academic rate; corporate rate is $199 per user per year

Terra

Free
  • Terra platformFree
    • No charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support
    • Workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included
    • Available on Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
  • Cloud consumption$undefined/month
    • Google Cloud or Azure charges passed through at cost with no markup
    • Running notebook virtual machines around 0.22 USD per hour, roughly 0.027 USD per hour when paused
    • Storage billed continuously on workspace buckets and intermediate workflow outputs

Which should you pick?

Choose LabArchives if

  • You need versioned entries.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want witnessing and signing.
LabArchives review

Choose Terra if

  • You need no platform licence fee.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
  • You also want cloud pass-through billing.
Terra review

Questions people ask

Is LabArchives or Terra better?
Neither clearly leads. LabArchives starts at Free and Terra at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, LabArchives or Terra?
LabArchives starts at Free and Terra at Free.
Does LabArchives or Terra run on more platforms?
LabArchives runs on Web, iOS, Android. Terra runs on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
Can I use LabArchives for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is LabArchives best used for?
LabArchives is most often used for a university group that must keep research records after a phd student leaves, rather than losing them with a laptop, a core facility that needs instrument booking and a shared record of who ran what and when, a small biotech building patent-defensible evidence of invention with witnessed, timestamped entries, a teaching department running undergraduate laboratory courses where instructors need to see and grade notebook work. Of those, a university group that must keep research records after a phd student leaves, rather than losing them with a laptop and a core facility that needs instrument booking and a shared record of who ran what and when are not what Terra is typically brought in for.
What can LabArchives do that Terra cannot?
LabArchives covers Versioned entries, Witnessing and signing, Inventory, Scheduler. Terra covers No platform licence fee, Cloud pass-through billing, WDL workflow execution, Notebook environments.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

LabArchives: Does LabArchives satisfy patent evidence requirements?

Its versioning, timestamping and witnessed signatures are designed for that purpose, and it is widely accepted for it, but the legal weight depends on your institution's process being followed, not on the software alone.

Terra: Is Terra really free?

The platform is. There is no licence fee. Everything you pay is Google Cloud or Azure compute, storage and egress, passed through at cost.

LabArchives: Who owns LabArchives?

Dotmatics. The product is branded LabArchives by Dotmatics and shares that company's corporate footprint.

Terra: What actually drives the bill?

Running virtual machines and stored data. Pausing notebooks drops a virtual machine from about 0.22 to about 0.027 dollars an hour, and deleting intermediate workflow outputs is the other main saving.

LabArchives: Is there really a free tier?

Yes, with limited storage. It is suitable for trialling or a single researcher, not for a group that needs retention guarantees.

Terra: Can I use it with protected health information?

Yes. Terra signs HIPAA business associate agreements and GDPR data processing agreements, and the Azure deployment holds FedRAMP Moderate authorisation.

LabArchives: Can we export everything if we leave?

Yes, notebooks export in bulk, but exported archives lose much of the interactive structure, so treat the export as an archive rather than as a migration path into another ELN.

Terra: Is it validated for clinical or GxP use?

No. It is a research platform. Regulated clinical or submission workflows need validation and controls you build yourself.

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