eLabFTW Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy eLabFTW hosting and give your research team a self-hosted electronic lab notebook on your own domain. xCloud runs the pinned eLabFTW 6.0.7 official image with a private MySQL 8.4 database, generates the database credentials, mounts persistent volumes for uploads, exports, the encryption key and the database, and publishes the notebook over HTTPS. Your experiments and records stay on a server you control.

Deploy your eLabFTW

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is eLabFTW?

Self-hosted eLabFTW is an electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. Upstream describes it as a way to store and organize experiments, with a database for any kind of object, such as antibodies, plasmids, cell lines and boxes, accessed through the browser. Several teams can share one installation. It is a self-hosted alternative to commercial cloud lab notebooks such as Benchling, and it is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence.

On xCloud the template runs the official elabftw/elabimg 6.0.7 image, pinned by digest, with a private MySQL 8.4 database. Four named volumes hold uploads, exports, the generated encryption key and the database. There is no preset admin: the first account registered becomes the Sysadmin, and outgoing email is not configured until you set SMTP.

From Sign-Up to a Live Lab Notebook In Just 3 Easy Steps

A self-hosted eLabFTW normally means a web container, a database, a one-off setup step, an encryption key, a domain and a certificate before the first experiment. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick eLabFTW from the OneClick catalog. Choose your domain and target server — there are no extra fields to fill in, because xCloud generates the database credentials.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the official eLabFTW image pinned by immutable digest, a private MySQL 8.4 database with no published port, and a short-lived setup container that prepares the volumes and the encryption key. Uploads, exports, the secret key and the database each get a persistent volume, and the site is published over HTTPS. The first start takes one to two minutes while the database tables are created.
Step 03
Register The Sysadmin
Open https://your-domain/register.php right away: the first account registered becomes the Sysadmin, so do this before sharing the address. Then sign in, set up outgoing email in the Sysadmin panel and create your first experiment.

Everything eLabFTW Does, On Your Own Server

eLabFTW runs in full here: an electronic lab notebook and a resource database on your own domain, backed by a database you own.

Lab Notebook For Experiments
Store and organise research experiments and attach files to them. Uploading and reading back an attached file was verified on the QA install.
Inventory And Resources Database
Keep a database of lab objects such as antibodies, plasmids, cell lines, boxes and equipment next to your experiments.
Teams In One Installation
Several research teams can share one installation. Later registrations are regular users that an administrator must validate.
Timestamping And Export
Upstream lists trusted timestamping, blockchain timestamping, and import and export in various formats.
Booking, Tasks And API
Upstream includes a calendar for booking equipment, a to-do list and a public REST API.
Private MySQL Included
MySQL 8.4 is reachable only inside the install's private network, with no published port.

Everything You Need To Run Your Lab Notebook 24/7

Managed hosting for eLabFTW, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

eLabFTW 6.0.7 deployed instantly
Official image pinned by digest
Database credentials generated for you
Encryption key kept in its own volume
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
Choose your server region
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With eLabFTW

ELN software for research labs
A research group records experiments and protocols in a shared notebook instead of paper, with attachments stored on a volume the lab controls and every entry searchable by the team.
Track reagents, equipment and samples
A lab keeps antibodies, plasmids, cell lines, boxes and equipment in the resources database, and uses the calendar to manage booking of shared equipment.
Host several teams at an institute
An institute runs one installation for many research teams, so all members work in one place while permissions decide who can see and edit each team's records.
Keep sensitive research results in-house
A group working with sensitive results hosts the notebook itself, where upstream says the service is self-contained and does not leak data to third parties, with trusted timestamping available.

eLabFTW Screenshots

eLabFTW dashboard after the first Sysadmin login

An eLabFTW experiment with an uploaded file attached

The eLabFTW instance settings page in the Sysadmin panel

eLabFTW vs Alternatives

Benchling: Choose eLabFTW as a Benchling alternative if you want a lab notebook on a server you control. This is a category comparison with commercial cloud ELNs, not a feature-for-feature claim.
Chemotion ELN: In an eLabFTW vs Chemotion ELN comparison, check each project's documentation for the workflows you need. eLabFTW's README lists experiments, a resources database, timestamping, a booking calendar and a public REST API.
openBIS: An eLabFTW vs openBIS decision depends on scale and workflow. eLabFTW is browser-based, lets several research teams share one installation, and runs here as one container with a private MySQL database.
Paper lab notebooks: eLabFTW stores experiments digitally, so a team can search and share them, with import and export in various formats, LaTeX support, a molecule editor and an advanced permissions system.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for eLabFTW hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom if eLabFTW sits alongside other research tools.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. eLabFTW itself is licensed by its maintainers under AGPL-3.0.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy eLabFTW on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

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Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Lab Notebook?

eLabFTW on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Is eLabFTW free?

Yes. eLabFTW is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence, so the notebook software itself is free to run. xCloud charges for the dedicated Cloud VPS underneath. Upstream also offers its own dedicated hosting as a separate service, which this template is not.

How much RAM does eLabFTW need for cloud hosting?

The template manifest asks for 1024 MB of RAM, 1 CPU core and 4 GB of disk; upstream's own minimum is lower. This page sells the 6 GB Cloud VPS for an eLabFTW cloud install, which leaves headroom for MySQL beside the app, and more disk helps as uploads grow.

Can you install eLabFTW with Docker?

Yes, and upstream installs it through Docker. This template does it for you: the elabftw/elabimg 6.0.7 image pinned by digest plus a private mysql:8.4 container, with four volumes behind HTTPS. It is eLabFTW Docker hosting without writing the compose file.

Docker hosting on xCloud

Which database does eLabFTW use?

MySQL. This template runs a private mysql:8.4 container pinned by digest, with a generated database name, user and password, and the data on the elabftw_db volume. The database is not published, and the application uses only the unprivileged database user.

How do I back up eLabFTW?

Take one backup of elabftw_db, elabftw_uploads, elabftw_exports and elabftw_secret together. A restored database without the matching secret volume loses the saved SMTP, LDAP and timestamp passwords, so never delete elabftw_secret. Test a restore before you rely on it.

Backups in xCloud

Does eLabFTW have an API?

Yes. Upstream lists a public REST API among eLabFTW's features. You use it from the browser-based install on your own domain. This template configures no integration for you, and uploads are limited to 100M per file by the application and the proxy.

How do I create the first admin account in eLabFTW?

There is no preset admin. Open the registration page on your domain right after install and register: the first account registered becomes the Sysadmin. Do this before sharing the address, because the first visitor would otherwise get that role. Later registrations need validation.

Who owns the data in a self-hosted electronic lab notebook?

You do. Experiments, uploads and the database sit on named volumes on your own Cloud VPS, and upstream describes eLabFTW as a self-contained service that does not leak data to third parties. You are also responsible for backups, access control and email settings.

How do I send email from eLabFTW?

Outgoing email is not configured out of the box. After signing in as Sysadmin, set the SMTP server in the Sysadmin panel; the credentials are stored encrypted in the database. Until then, password resets and notifications will not arrive.

How do I upgrade eLabFTW?

Upgrades are deliberate. The image is pinned to 6.0.7 by digest, and a template update only changes new installs. Back up all four volumes, read the upstream release notes, then change the tag and digest together; schema upgrades are applied on later image changes.

Can I change the eLabFTW domain later?

Yes, but redeploy afterwards. SITE_URL follows the site domain and is used in links and emails, so after a domain change a redeploy makes the new address take effect. The encryption key is stored separately and does not depend on the domain.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.