Top Rated Benchling Alternatives
All-in-one suite that is much more than electronic lab notebook or inventory Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It is a bit of a learning curve, but that is unavoidable for this much of an all-round solution Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
62 out of 63 Total Reviews for Benchling
Overall Review Sentiment for Benchling
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I liked the ease of use as a digital laboratory notebook, the ability to add in functional tables, link detailed protocols, and tag people. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I disliked the use of benchling as a data and sample tracking system. It was very difficult to both use and navigate even after getting something more complex built out for our use. We ended up scraping our use it for that purpose. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I love the integration of an electronic lab notebook with a suite of tools for molecular cloning. As a molecular biologist, I use benchling constantly and it has made me a better scientist. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The worst thing about Benchling by far is the file management. It is tedious to move and duplicate files and challenging to search for files. Copying and pasting files is very clunky. I don't understand why they can't just do a normal file management set up like other programs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Setting up new entity schemas and templates for users is super fast, thanks largely to the easy to use interface, and the great selection of built-in entities to choose from (dropdowns, dates, Sequence data etc). This allows us to very quickly set up new classes of data, and new types of document. The flexibility this comes with allows us to store a great variety of data within benchling, so we can have everything organized in one place. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The most obvious struggle with benchling is transferring objects from the test instance of benchling, to the live instance. Though it is great that these 2 instances are kept totally seperate, it does mean that I am repeating the process of object setup everytime I want to create a new entity schema or notebook template etc. Some mechanism to download finished objects from test and upload to live would save so much time and human error. additionally There are still some niche functionalities that would be useful for us, such as linking out to internal web-apps. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I have worked for many companies and they all use benchling, the best part is Benchling's versatility (i.e. designing plasmids, ELNs, SOPs) and its ease of use - it is very to use and learn it. It also helps that it is a website and not an app and can be accessed anywhere. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The downsides of benchling is sometimes it is unclear where the document is within projects. It sometimes is hard to organize documents within these subcategories. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Benchling is very easy to use, with a lot of readily available online training courses and webinars. It's been great for everyday note taking, SOP writing and sample tracking. It makes sharing experimental details and lab notes simple across the organisation simple and user friendly. Benchling offers much more than being an electronic lab book. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Sometimes it can be a bit slow, specially when trying to upload gel images onto the notebook entry. The sequence data analysis feature is a bit basic, and doesn't let you link specific sequences to particular entities in your notebook entry. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
the user-friendly interface and the template tab makes easy and fast to keep record of the experiment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I can't think of any disadvatages. It would be great to have customisable tag/category for the template to simplify the search. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Benchling is a great resource, you can easily use it as an electronic lab book and auto-populate things like SOPs, while also updating procedures. It's a great way to keep track of work and the insights are very helpful for tracking changes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Benchling isn't necessarily intuitive, it does take a while to get used to it. The training helps and time is important, you have to practice using it to really get the value out of it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Benchling enables you to define a rich, biologically-aware data model, which connects to inventory, sample management, and structured electronic notebook entries. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Benchling has a good API and Python SDK, but lacks good documentation and does not have sufficient examples or guides for developers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The Registry system is an excellent tool for collecting characteristic data for sample lots, linking that information back to early discovery sequence data, and bringing that information into the ELN and Insights dashboards. We are getting a full view of individual sample lots and can also look at metrics in aggregate for pipeline QC. The Registry is very easy to configure and maintain. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It's very pricey, particularly the Lab Automation module, and we have to watch how we use the different application licenses. The company also has preferred partners for specific support projects, like legacy data imports, and seems unable or unwilling to engage other service providers for those tasks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
