The platform
SENAITE LIMS
A free, open-source Laboratory Information Management System that manages the entire workflow — from sample registration to verified, published results. No license fees. Full code ownership.
SENAITE is built on Plone and Zope, two enterprise-grade technologies that have run production content systems for two decades. The framework gives you a battle-tested security model, a real workflow engine, role-based access control, and a full audit trail out of the box. We layered the laboratory domain on top.
We are its core developers and maintainers. When you work with us, you work with the people who write the code, not a reseller who learned it second hand.
- Sample management. Register samples, assign analysis services, track every state from reception to publication.
- Worksheets. Organise analyses into worksheets with reference samples, duplicates, and blanks for QC.
- Result entry & verification. Manual entry or instrument import. Multi-level verification keeps data integrity intact.
- Instrument interfaces. Serial, file-based, ASTM, HL7 v2 over MLLP. We wrote the senaite.astm transport.
- Calculations. Formulas across interim fields, dependent analyses, and custom Python expressions.
- Reporting. Certificates of analysis as PDF. Templates are yours to brand.
- Client portal. Direct access for your customers to their samples and reports, in their own login.
- Audit trail. Every action logged. Who did what, when, and from where.
- Water & environmental. Municipal utilities, environmental monitoring agencies, wastewater plants.
- Mining & metals. Exploration labs, processing plants, quality control.
- Food & beverage. QA and regulatory-compliance testing.
- Clinical & veterinary. Hospital labs, diagnostic centres, veterinary labs.
- Agriculture. Soil analysis, fertilizer testing, crop research.
- Industrial QC. Manufacturing, materials testing, R&D.
From single-site labs to multi-location enterprises, SENAITE scales to fit. Configuration carries the weight; the core stays small.
- No license fees. The software is free. You pay for the services you actually use: setup, customisation, training, support.
- Code ownership. Read, modify, extend every line. No black boxes, no hidden dependencies.
- No vendor lock-in. Your data is yours. If you ever want to move on, nothing stops you.
- Community-driven. Developed in the open on GitHub. Bug reports, feature requests, and contributions from labs worldwide shape the roadmap.
- Auditable. Your IT team can review exactly what runs in your network before it goes live. Regulators can too.
- Python. The language of science. Well-documented, widely used, easy to extend.
- Plone / Zope. Enterprise content framework with security, workflow, and roles baked in.
- JSON API. RESTful API for integrations, dashboards, and quality-assurance layers like SENAITY.
- Docker. Containerised deployment for reproducible installs across staging and production.
- Buildout. Declarative configuration so a single command rebuilds your exact environment.
The fastest way to look at SENAITE is to pull the public Docker image and run it on your laptop.
docker pull senaite/senaite:2.x
docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 senaite/senaite:2.x
Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser and
you have a working SENAITE instance. See our walk-through
for a guided first sample: Run SENAITE in less than 5 minutes.
Want demo data so the system is not empty? One more command:
docker exec -it $(docker ps -q -f ancestor=senaite/senaite:2.x) \
bin/instance run -O senaite_test_skin/scripts/install.pyPulling instruments into SENAITE? Our senaite.astm transport listens for ASTM and HL7 v2 messages and forwards them into the LIMS through a single push consumer. It is under active development on the 2.x branch — install from GitHub when you are ready to wire up instruments.
Need production instead of evaluation? The SENAITE Enterprise VM ships the same stack we run for paying customers — preinstalled SENAITE 2.x on a hardened Debian 13 server with ZEO cluster, HAProxy, NGINX, Munin monitoring, automated backups, and the SENAITE Starter add-on. Delivered in three working days.
How we help
As the core developers, the full range of services
Considering SENAITE for your lab?
Tell us about your laboratory and the systems you run today. We will reply with the next step — usually the 3-day workshop, sometimes a paid discovery first.