benchling.com

[sklasfeld]

Benchling is an online lab notebook specifically made for people doing biology. I like it because it is the first electronic lab notebook (of all the ones I previously tried) that I can add code to and that people who do not code also like to use. It also connects to my Google account which is nice. You can share your entries with collaborators and it has a function to make a lab group. Sometimes the formatting can be weird and the protocol section is limited to only two bullet points deep so I use the notebook for everything. Since it is a new site, the people who work there are very quick to help if you have any questions. However, one time they messaged me because they noticed that I was having formatting issues which is creepy.

[bemert]

I considered using benchling during a lab rotation but I wanted my PI to be able to add comments so moved to google docs instead. Agreed that the developers were very responsive and the ability to integrate code may make it superior to google docs alone (although jupyter notebooks may be best). Like google docs, notebooks should be backed up periodically in case the site fails, which is less likely with the former.

[apexamodi]

I switched to Benchling from Evernote because of its integration with useful biology wet/computational lab notebook tools. For exampling it has cloning/sequencing visualization tools and you can add in excel tables to record results, as well as code. It's also easy to keep track of and organize projects and dates of experiments. In terms of transparency, it enables you to add collaborators to projects and share results with collaborators. It's also constantly being improved and seems to have potential become even more computational notebook friendly.