eLABJournal vs Paperpile
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
eLABJournal
Digitize your research with this electronic lab notebook. Browse your lab notebook, scan sample barcodes, view protocols, and manage equipment bookings. Secure your account with two-step verification and receive important notifications.
- Browse lab notebook
- Scan sample barcodes
- View protocols
- Manage equipment bookings
- Take notes and pictures
- Two-step account verification
- Receive stock and experiment notifications
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eLabNext aims to improve research processes with lab digitization. Our product eLabJournal offers more than just an electronic lab notebook. Whether you’re just starting up, a small or large academic institution, or globally operating company, your R&D lab can benefit from the elevating power of eLabNext. Our mobile app extends the functionality of the web application and offers the following features: • Browsing through your lab notebook • Scanning of 2D barcodes of samples, sample series, equipment to view information • View protocols or procedures and walk through them step by step • Show and make bookings for equipment • Make notes or take pictures and sync them with eLabNext • Two-step verification with push notification to secure your account • Receive notifications when consumables run out of stock or when experiments require signing
Paperpile
Organize and manage your research papers effortlessly. Collect, read, and annotate PDFs from millions of academic journals. Beat paper chaos with a tidy digital library.
- Search millions of academic papers
- Collect PDFs with one tap
- Organize with folders and labels
- Read and annotate PDFs
- Highlight and add notes
- Browser integration for saving
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Get a head start for you research and finally beat the paper chaos on your desk. With Paperpile you have all your research PDFs in one place — nice and tidy. Paperpile makes it easier than ever to collect, manage, read, and annotate your papers. FIND & COLLECT - Search millions of papers from 20,000+ academic journals right in the app. - Add new papers to your collection with one tap and the PDF will be downloaded automatically. - Save directly from your browser to your Paperpile library - User your university's off-campus proxy access to get restricted content behind paywalls. MANAGE & ORGANIZE - Bring structure to your library with folders and subfolders - Organize your library visually with colored labels - Mark important papers with stars. - Search your library to find the paper you need fast. READ & ANNOTATE - Read like on paper with a fast and slick PDF viewer experience - Highlight important sections in different colors - Add notes and never forget an important idea. - Add hand-drawn annotations - with your fingers or your Apple Pencil The Paperpile App requires a Paperpile account.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: eLABJournal at 5.0 against Paperpile's 4.5. Paperpile's advantage is ratings volume (131 vs 8). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
eLABJournal holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paperpile has 131 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | eLABJournal | Paperpile |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (8 ratings) — better | 4.5 (131 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 71.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 131 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 242 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bio-ITech BV | Paperpile LLC |
Customer experience
eLABJournal
Paperpile
Bugs and requests
eLABJournal
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Paperpile
Reported bugs
12 issues- App crashes frequently on iPad and iOS devices
- Highlighting disappears when revisiting papers
- Overlapping annotations delete together when removing one
- Sync failures requiring logout/login cycles
- Annotations not syncing between iPad and web versions
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- PDF metadata recognition failures when adding papers
- Settings reset when returning to previously edited files
- App incompatible with older iOS versions (iOS 12)
- Login authentication errors with university accounts
- App crashes without reliable internet connection
- Search functionality broken after updates
- Annotations not saving/loading on iOS 14.4.2
Requested features
17 requests- Dark mode implementation
- Edit citation metadata on mobile app
- Change PDF file functionality
- Save to downloads feature
- Dictionary/lookup function for reading
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- Cite while you write feature
- BibTeX export capability
- Ability to upload PDFs directly from mobile app
- Support for Safari and other browsers
- Desktop application version
- Shared library access in mobile app
- Advanced sorting options (by title, author, date)
- Custom color options for annotations
- Paste images into PDFs
- Shape snapping for drawing tools
- University email authentication
- Paper rating system beyond stars
In-app purchases
eLABJournal
No in-app purchases
Paperpile
No in-app purchases









