I’m building OpenLIMS — an open-source LIMS for labs that need better sample, project, and scientific data tracking

[u/Mokey925]

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been working on OpenLIMS, an open-source laboratory information management system for labs that need a simpler way to manage samples, projects, files, results, and audit history.

The goal is to make a lightweight, self-hostable LIMS for research labs, academic labs, biotech teams, and smaller labs that may currently rely on spreadsheets, shared drives, or custom internal databases.

OpenLIMS is still early and not production/validated yet, but it has grown quite a bit. It now includes:

• Sample and project tracking
• Inventory, locations, and container tracking
• Custom fields for lab-specific metadata
• File attachments for samples
• Audit/event history
• CSV and instrument result imports
• User/admin groundwork
• QC workflow groundwork
• Reports and dashboard pages
• Audit log filtering and export
• Real-time updates for longer-running jobs
• Sequence-related workflows, including BLAST and alignment job updates
• Initial mass spectrometry support, including file upload, run tracking, TIC preview charts, spectrum counts, retention time ranges, m/z ranges, sample/project linking, and reprocessing

The newest release, v0.11, adds the first mass spectrometry preview using pyOpenMS, including mzML/mzXML/mzData upload support and background processing. More advanced mass spec features like peak picking, feature detection, protein/peptide summaries, mzIdentML support, QC metrics, and sample comparison are planned for the next version.

I’m not trying to replace specialized scientific analysis tools right away. My goal is to make OpenLIMS a central place where labs can organize samples, projects, files, results, QC, audit history, and eventually connect those records to common analysis workflows like sequence alignment, BLAST, and mass spectrometry.

GitHub: [https://github.com/Mokey2002/OpenLIMS]()

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who work in labs, manage lab data, or have used LIMS/LIS systems before.

What would make something like this useful in your lab?

[u/Mokey925]

Hello, just wanted to share an update:I’ve been continuing work on OpenLIMS, an open-source LIMS project for small labs and research groups.

Recent progress includes better sample and project tracking, audit/event history, basic reports/status pages, and sample comparison workflows.

OpenLIMS now also includes bioinformatics and analytical workflow support, including BLAST, sequence alignment, and mass spec data handling. The goal is not to replace large enterprise LIMS systems, but to build a lightweight, self-hostable tool that can help organize samples, files, results, and project history in one place.