Many labs still manage animal colonies on paper or in spreadsheets, which are slow and error-prone. Commercial systems are expensive and can come with little support, and the existing open-source options are hard to use.
MyVivarium is a cloud-based, open-source application, published in 2025, that gives labs an affordable way to manage research animal colonies.
Core Functionality and Design Philosophy
MyVivarium tracks animals in a central database, supports breeding and holding-cage workflows, and links each physical cage to its digital record through a QR-code cage card. Records can be updated from a phone at the rack, which cuts transcription errors.
Other features include user access control, automated task reminders, and strain management with RRID support.
IoT Integration for Environmental Monitoring
Low-cost IoT sensors stream temperature, humidity, light, and activity in real time, giving a continuous record of the conditions that affect animal well-being and breeding.
Open-Source Architecture and Deployment
MyVivarium is built on PHP and can be deployed on cloud hosting for around $6 per month. Its LGPL-licensed code and documentation are available on GitHub for transparency and customization.
A standard deployment takes a few hours using the provided scripts and guides; custom integration takes longer.
Issues and feature requests go through GitHub.
MyVivarium is deployed at three partner laboratories managing 200+ animals.
Data Security and System Integration
Data security includes SSL/TLS encryption, secure password hashing, and role-based access controls. Each facility maintains its own instance for compliance.
Integration with existing lab systems is possible through its APIs and standard database structure, and the code and documentation are open for modification.
Conclusion
MyVivarium is an open-source platform for lab animal colony management — easy to deploy, with real-time environmental monitoring, at low cost. A live demo is at demo.myvivarium.online and the full source at github.com/myvivarium.
Resources
- Demo: demo.myvivarium.online
- GitHub: github.com/myvivarium
- Article DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2025.01.025
Cite this article
Vidva, R., Raza, M. A., Prabhakaran, J., Sheikh, A., Sharp, A., Ott, H., Moore, A., Fleisher, C., Netherton, H., Goldstein, E., Pitychoutis, P. M., Nguyen, T. V., & Sathyanesan, A. (2025). MyVivarium: A cloud-based lab animal colony management application with real-time ambient sensing. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, 27, 612–623. doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2025.01.025