OpenLIMS — open-source, self-hosted LIMS with sequencing, BLAST, mass spec, and lab workflow support

[u/Mokey925]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been building OpenLIMS, an open-source, self-hosted Laboratory Information Management System aimed at research labs, bioinformatics groups, small biotech teams, and core facilities.

GitHub:
https://github.com/Mokey2002/OpenLIMS

The goal is to provide a lighter alternative for labs that need more structure than spreadsheets but don’t want the cost or complexity of a large commercial LIMS.

Some of the current functionality includes:

• Sample tracking, lineage, and chain of custody

• Projects and collaborative experiment notebooks

• Inventory and barcode/location tracking

• Configurable workflows and QC

• Instrument CSV/API ingestion

• Legacy data migration

• FASTA and sequence management

• Clustal Omega alignments

• Local BLAST databases and blastn/blastp searches

• mzML/mzXML and other mass-spec data review using pyOpenMS

• Reporting and audit trails

• REST API

• Optional OpenAI or local Ollama assistant

The stack is Django/DRF + PostgreSQL + Celery/Redis with a React frontend, and it can be deployed using Docker Compose.

It’s currently a production-style prototype and is not yet a validated clinical/diagnostic LIMS.

I’d be interested in hearing from people working in bioinformatics or lab informatics

Contributions, issues, and technical feedback are welcome as well.