Introduction

This post explains some of the new features introduced in eLabFTW 5.6. The complete list of changes is available on the release page.

A note about “stable” releases

eLabFTW is a living project — “stable” should not be taken to mean that it is no longer evolving. Version 5.6.0 is production-ready, but minor bugs will surface once it is in wide use, and patches will follow.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on June 16, 2026

In this meeting, we talked about how eLabFTW supports open science and interoperability via the .eln file format. Specifically, we discussed two projects closely related to eLabFTW:

• The ELN Consortium - This is a group of ELN editors and vendors who work to support interoperability between ELNs via the .eln file format. We talked about the goals of the consortium and how to get involved. The ELN Consortium was created by Nico Carpi and Dr. Stefan Brinkman to develop a standardized file format based on the ROCrate specification using JSON-LD and Zip archives. To learn more about the ELN Consortium, visit the website https://the.elnconsortium.org/ and the GitHub page https://github.com/theelnconsortium

🌟 Communauté Francophone eLabFTW du 9 Juin 2026

Cette première rencontre de la communauté francophone eLabFTW a permis d’échanger autour de plusieurs sujets liés au déploiement, à l’adoption et aux usages d’eLabFTW. La réunion s’est ouverte par une présentation d’Élodie Papin, du Centre de Documentation de l’Université de Lorraine, consacrée à l’utilisation d’eLabFTW au sein de l’UL.

Elle a été suivie d’une session de questions réponses sur divers sujets.

Voir l’enregistrement

Lien Youtube

🌟 Summary of the RDM club meeting on June 2nd, 2026

The RDM Club meeting on 2 June 2026 featured a presentation by Alexander Bardel about the Austrian ELN community, which includes individuals from a network of universities in Austria who collaborate to provide sustainable Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) services.

The community aims to represent shared interests, develop national support structures, and promote interoperability, sustainability, and user-centred Research Data Management (RDM) infrastructure. Motivated by Austrian Open Science policies and long-term sustainability goals, the project has established cross-institutional collaborations, organised community events, and conducted an ELN feature survey. Although the funded project is ending, the community plans to continue through mailing lists, chat channels, shared training materials, internal documentation, and a future community platform for ELN operators. Participants agreed that while national coordination is valuable, support networks should remain as close to researchers as possible.

🌟 Summary of the RDM club meeting on March 31, 2026

In this meeting, we discussed ideas for improving workflow and project management capabilities in eLabFTW.

Participants reported that they currently used project management functions in OpenProject, GitLab, and Redmine, along with Gantt charts, Kanban boards, saved searches, and template recommendations. There was interest in better representing research workflows and relationships by integrating parent-child and many-to-many relationships between experiment and resource entities.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on April 28, 2026

This eLabFTW Community Meeting featured two presentations from the community:

• Dionyssis Antypas (Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center) - “elAPI Plugins: Facilitating Batch Uploads and Downloads from eLabFTW”
• Leonid Bovkun (Postdoc, Chair for Applied Physics, University of Würzburg) - “Bridging people, data, and infrared devices: a User’s perspective for collaborative research and development using elabFTW”

In the first presentation, Dionyssis described how the elAPI Plugins desktop application enables batch upload and download of research data to eLabFTW through Excel and CSV files. The application makes it possible to import data into existing templates in eLabFTW, thus improving options for data standardization. In the second presentation, Leonid shared how physicists use eLabFTW for project management in quantum device development, highlighting the challenges of tracking complex experimental data across different instruments and team members.

eLabFTW release schedule

eLabFTW follows a frequent release model: new minor versions are published regularly, and patch releases are issued when needed. We do not provide Long Term Support (LTS) versions.

This post explains why.

Release schedules are a tradeoff

Software projects adopt many different release strategies. Some publish major versions on a fixed schedule. Some release continuously. Others have long gaps between releases.

No single approach is objectively best. Each model comes with tradeoffs between stability, maintenance effort, development speed, and security response. The right choice depends on the nature of the software and the resources available to maintain it.

🌟 RDM Club Meeting 6

Thank you to everyone who attended the most recent RDM Club meeting, which was held on January 27, 2026.

In this meeting we first discussed the template sharing website, and attendees suggested additional improvements to add before we open the site to the public. Some great ideas and improvements were considered, and we are hard at work implementing them now! We hope that the template sharing website will be open to the public soon.

Introduction

«Wait a minute! Wasn’t 5.4 released not long ago?» you might be thinking. And you are right. eLabFTW 5.5 follows closely the release of 5.4, as we have modified our release process to allow faster iterations and longer support for older releases. But this change also makes it difficult to continue release 5.4, so we decided to quickly jump to 5.5 which uses the new build process.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on February 24, 2026 - new documentation website and perspectives

In this eLabFTW Community Meeting, we discussed the new documentation website based on Docusaurus. We then went over some of the major new features of 5.4, and talked about the planned changes for the new edit page User Interface (see Discussion).

Watch recording

Youtube link

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.4 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

Important note about 5.4.0

Use directly 5.4.1!

A note about “stable” releases

eLabFTW is a living project — “stable” would imply it is no longer evolving. Version 5.4.0 is production-ready, but minor bugs will surface once it is in wide use, and patches will follow.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on November 25, 2025 - PASTA-ELN, AI & Interface Updates

In this eLabFTW Community Meeting, we welcomed two presenters. First, Steffen Brinckmann gave a presentation on data synchronization between PASTA-ELN and eLabFTW, with a technical demonstration of PASTA-ELN and its integration capabilities. Second, Nandjafot Mendy gave a presentation about plans for the integration of AI tools into ELNs. We also discussed improvements to the user interface, such as navigation enhancements and new accessibility features. The team responded to various technical questions and development plans, including template sharing and interoperability standards, while touching on future improvements like dark mode development.

🌟 RDM Club Meeting 5

Thank you to everyone who attended the latest eLabFTW RDM Club meeting, which was held on November 27, 2025. In this meeting, we presented the new features of the pre-Alpha version of the ELN template sharing hub to members of the RDM Club.

The template hub is now undergoing user testing, and once we are able to incorporate user feedback, it will be opened to the public. Very exciting!

🌟 RDM Club Meeting 4

Thank you to everyone who attended this RDM club meeting, which was held on Sept 30, 2025. In this meeting, we discussed the continued development of the ELN Community template sharing website.

Specifically, we considered the following:

• Whether users should be able to delete templates. Attendees pointed out that it is important to make sure that the metadata is retained so that people know why a specific template got deleted.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on September 23, 2025 - Automatisation and Processing Pipelines with eLabFTW & Nyarlathotep

In this session, Phillip Seeber presented Nyarlathotep, a program to automate analysis of ElabFTW experiments.

That is, it enables automated processing of (raw) data uploaded to eLabFTW. It does so by scanning an eLabFTW instance for experiments with a “magic” tag, Nyarlathotep-Do. Based on the other tags of the experiment, Nyarlathotep will choose a registered analysis program, pass experiments and attached files to the analyser and store the output in the corresponding eLabFTW experiment.

PID4NFDI :: Metadata & PID Workflows

Joint Workshop for ELN and DMP Tools :: September 22/23 2025

This is a recording of the lightning talk given on the second day of the meeting, about Persistent Identifiers in eLabFTW ELN.

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.3 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

A note about “stable” releases

eLabFTW is a living project — “stable” would imply it is no longer evolving. Version 5.3.0 is production-ready, but minor bugs will surface once it is in wide use, and patches will follow.

🌟 RDM Club Meeting 3

Thank you to everyone who attended the 3rd RDM club meeting, which took place on July 1. In this meeting, we launched the new template sharing platform, which is now up for testing over the summer by members of the RDM club. The platform is in a very early stage, but it enables users to log in with an ORCID ID, and to upload and download template files. We are planning to add more features in the autumn of 2025 according to user feedback. Nicolas Carpi explained the basics of the platform, and then the group discussed its design.

🌟 RDM Club Meetings 1 and 2 - recap

We are pleased to announce that we have a new regular community event specifically for Research Data Managers and other data professionals who support users of eLabFTW!

The eLabFTW RDM club was created to enable RDMs from all over the world to share strategies for supporting users of eLabFTW at their institutions. This club will start off with monthly informal meetings, and may eventually include working groups and real life meet-ups (!). For now, the meetings are not recorded (to encourage discussion), but there will be a blog post with a recap of each meeting.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on June 10, 2025

In this session, the author of OpenCloning, a cloning tool for molecular biologists, presents the integration within eLabFTW and basic functions of the software.

Then Nico presents the latest changes in the new version and discusses upcoming features.

There is a Q&A session afterwards.

Watch recording

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.2 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

A note about “stable” releases

eLabFTW is a living project — “stable” would imply it’s no longer evolving. Version 5.2.0 is production-ready, but minor bugs will surface once it’s in wide use, and patches will follow.

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on March 26, 2025

In this session, we learned about strategies for teaching with eLabFTW and implementing the software at research institutions.

1. Nikki Parks (RWTH Aachen University) - “Establishing eLabFTW as a Central University Service”
2. Isabell Schmitz (Goethe University Frankfurt) - “Transforming Lab Education: Teaching with eLabFTW”

Watch recording

🌟 Fifth eLabFTW Community Meeting

In this session, we learned about the integration of eLabFTW with other tools.

1. Dr. Alexander Schlemmer (IndiScale): “Data Integration from RO-Crate and the ELN-File format using the LinkAhead Crawler”
2. Open session where users can ask questions, discuss upcoming features, and talk about their experiences with eLabFTW.

Watch recording

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on November 19, 2024 - Illuminating Efficiency: Reflections on the Fourth eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the continuous journey of our collective exploration, the Fourth eLabFTW Community Meeting convened on November 19, 2024. This gathering became a beacon, shedding light on innovative pathways to enhance laboratory efficiency through eLabFTW.

🎤 Voices of Innovation

Two distinguished speakers graced our virtual podium, each sharing insights into optimizing laboratory workflows:

🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on September 17, 2024 - Harmonizing Connections: Reflections on the Third eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the unfolding narrative of our collective journey, the Third eLabFTW Community Meeting convened on September 17, 2024. This gathering became a symphony of ideas, each note resonating with the theme of integration and collaborative innovation.

🎶 Voices of Integration

Three maestros shared their compositions, illuminating pathways to harmonize eLabFTW with diverse instruments:

Introduction

eLabFTW 5.1 has been released! This new version brings many new features, enhancements and a few bugfixes. This blog post highlights some of these changes, but the complete list of changes is available on the release page.

Important change

A breaking change has been introduced in APIv2:

• /team_tags has moved to teams/{id}/tags. If you have scripts using /team_tags, replace it with teams/current/tags to maintain the same behaviour.

Video

A video has been produced, summarizing some of the features:

🌟 Echoes of the Second eLabFTW Community Meeting

In the continuum of our shared journey, the Second eLabFTW Community Meeting emerged as a beacon of collective wisdom and innovation. Held on May 16, 2024, this gathering became a confluence of minds, each contributing to the evolving narrative of our community.

🎤 Voices That Illuminated the Path

Three distinguished speakers graced our virtual stage, each weaving their unique threads into the rich tapestry of eLabFTW’s story:

🌿 The First eLabFTW Community Meeting — A Gathering Etched in Memory

On a quiet day that now lives only in the minds of those who were present, the first eLabFTW Community Meeting unfolded—not as a livestream, not as a downloadable file, but as a fleeting constellation of voices, thoughts, and shared enthusiasm.

There is no recording. No polished replay. No timestamped transcript.

Only laughter woven with curiosity, only questions dancing with ideas, only stories exchanged like the gentle passing of notes between lab benches in the soft morning light.

Introduction

The 5.0.0 release is a major release. You can tell because before it was 4.x.y now it’s 5.x.y. But what does it mean exactly?

The major version number has been bumped because there is a breaking change: complete drop of APIv1.

And that’s it, that is the only big thing that changes, and hopefully it won’t impact many users, as everyone is now using APIv2, right? right?

Introduction

This is a relatively small release, but it contains a major change that impacts many aspects of the application: a rework of the status and categories.

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update (for Sysadmins)

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

Rework of Status and Categories

This work was sponsored by Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a big thanks to them!

Introduction

This release contains at least a dozen bugfixes and many new features and improvements, all users should update.

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update (for Sysadmins)

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

Improvements for extra fields

Extra fields can now have units (for input of type “number”). You can define a list of possible units and it will look like this:

Introduction

This release comes quickly after 4.6.1, and thus contains only a few bugfixes and new features. Normally the bugfixes would go in 4.6.2 and new features in 4.7.0, but this time it’s a bundle with both.

So what’s new in this version?

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

Introduction

This release features a major user interface redesign. We worked a lot on improving how the app looks and feel, and we hope you’ll like it.

So what’s new in this version?

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

General changes

Interface redesign

The first thing that you’ll notice is the improved interface. There are too many changes to list, but here are some of them:

Introduction

This release comes quite fast after the release of 4.4. The goal being to bring new features and bugfixes to end users faster.

So what’s new in this version?

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

Major feature: improved permissions system

The permissions system has been overhauled. There is still the basic permissions where you can choose between “Public”, “Organization”, “All the teams I’m part of”, “User + Admins” and “Only me”, but now it is possible to combine this setting with Teams, Teamgroups or individual users. And you can have several of each, or just one, with all combinations possible.

So what’s new in this version?

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

User features

Reaction drawing

Previously the chemical structure editor would only allow one molecule, now you can have several. Reactions can be saved as .chemjson files and re-imported in the editor. They can also be exported as PNG images (for inclusion in text for instance).

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW, the free and open source electronic lab notebook version 4.3 is now available for everyone!

So what’s new in this version?

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

General

• Soft delete: an entry will now be marked as deleted instead of being actually deleted from the database
• Same with uploaded files that are replaced
• More than 22 bugfixes!

Users features

New search interface with advanced features

Thanks to the amazing work of Marcel Bolten, the search page has been entirely revamped and improved.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW, the free and open source electronic lab notebook version 4.0.0 is now available for everyone!

This new version is PACKED with new features!

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Users features

• Experiments/items can no have a visibility of “user only”, previously this corresponded to owner + admin(s).
• Blockchain timestamping with Bloxberg. Click the icon with blocks in view mode to certify your results into the blockchain. It will create a zip file attached to the experiment that contains the certified pdf along with a certificate. Note that this action can take up to 30 seconds. You can certify as many times as you want.

• Use “Ctrl-Shift-d” to add the date on cursor, select the date format from your profile.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.6.0 is now available for everyone!

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

LDAP Authentication

It is now possible to authenticate directly using LDAP. A much awaited feature (github issue).

The documentation about this feature can be found here: https://doc.elabftw.net/ldap.html

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.5.0 is available for everyone!

This new version contains a lot of new things and a few fixes and improvements from the previous version. All users should upgrade!

You can see the complete changelog on the release page. This blog post is more about going into details for some of the changes.

How to update

Update like usual: see documentation.

New features

Enforce read/write permissions by admin

The Admin of a team can now enforce read and write permissions for experiments of users in their team.

I’m very pleased to announce that eLabFTW version 3.4.0 is finally available for everyone!

This new version contains a lot of new things and a few fixes and improvements from the previous version. All users should upgrade!

This version took a long time to get out because it involved a lot of work to make some major changes. I’m hoping now to have much more frequent releases.

WARNING: to update, you need to call the db:updateTo34 command once the container is updated (or the new files are pulled).