Overview

Buhos is web-based software for organizing systematic literature reviews. It brings review workflow, reference handling, document access, analysis, and reporting into one environment, with support for both individual and group review work. Its scope is specific: project documentation says it fully supports the conducting phase, partially supports report formatting, and does not support several planning and reporting activities. Teams looking for support across the entire review lifecycle should weigh that boundary before choosing it.

The project is credited to Claudio Bustos Navarrete, whom its documentation also names as the main developer. Buhos lists English and Spanish as available languages. It has no stated security certification or compliance standard in the product and project pages described here.

Key features

Workflow and collaboration

Reviews move through defined stages, and the workflow allows changes at any stage. Buhos supports solo and group-based reviews, with internal messaging for personal and review-related communication. These capabilities make it possible to keep review work and related exchanges within the same system.

References and imports

Buhos imports bibliographic information using BibTeX. Its documentation lists supported source databases including Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost, SciELO, PubMed, Lilacs, and ProQuest, with imports through BibTeX, RIS, PubMed/NBIB, JSON, and CSV. Crossref integration supports deduplication and reference-information retrieval. When API credentials are available, Scopus and PubMed can also retrieve missing abstracts and metadata.

Documents, analysis, and reporting

A file repository provides online viewing of PDF and ODF files, supporting full-text management within the review process. Buhos also offers data analysis, customized forms, reports, and export options. Those tools address work during and after review conduct, though the documented limits on planning and report formatting still matter when mapping the software to a team’s full process.

API and deployment

The project provides API documentation and links to a GitHub page for deployment. A demo is available using admin as both the username and password.

Pricing

Buhos is free, with a free plan listed. No paid price or billing term is provided in the available details.

Platforms

Buhos is web-based, and the maker says it runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. The listed platforms also include API access and self-hosted deployment, which may suit teams that want to connect or deploy the software within their own setup.

Who it's for

Buhos is aimed at researchers and teams conducting systematic literature reviews who need staged screening, reference imports, full-text access, collaboration, analysis, and exports. It may be particularly relevant when a project needs to manage the conducting phase and can work with the stated limits around planning and report formatting.

Its listed language options are English and Spanish. Teams should also consider whether the available integrations match their reference sources and whether they can provide Scopus or PubMed API credentials if they need those services to fill in missing metadata.

Pros and cons

Pros: Free plan; supports solo and group review work; defined but changeable workflow stages; Crossref deduplication and reference retrieval; PDF and ODF viewing; analysis, customized forms, reports, and exports.
Cons: Documentation says several planning and reporting activities are unsupported, and report formatting is only partially supported; Scopus and PubMed enrichment requires API credentials; no security certification or compliance standard is stated in the reviewed pages.

Alternatives

Other options in this area include RevMan, ASReview, Rayyan, Bibliometrix, Elicit, EviSynth, EPPI-Reviewer, and Litmaps. Browse more options in Literature Review Software and Systematic Review Software.

Verdict

Buhos offers a free, web-based workspace for the core conduct of systematic reviews, combining flexible stages, collaboration, reference imports, document viewing, and analysis and reporting tools. Its documented coverage is not end-to-end: planning is not fully supported, and report formatting receives only partial support. It is best considered by reviewers who want these conducting-stage tools and have checked that the stated workflow limits, integrations, and deployment options fit their needs.

	Buhos	SyRF
Free plan	No	Yes
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	—	Free
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, Web, Windows	Web
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Reference deduplication	—	No
Data extraction	—	Yes
Full-text storage	—	Yes
Protocol support	—	Yes
Review types	—	systematic review, meta-analysis

Buhos vs SyRF

Buhos

SyRF