The Review Protocol

Covidence vs. Rayyan: Which Screening Tool Should You Use?

By Angel Reyes Last updated 4 min read

Covidence and Rayyan are the two tools most review teams end up comparing. Both handle de-duplication, dual screening, conflict resolution, and full-text review. But they differ in cost, workflow, extraction support, and learning curve — and the right choice depends on your review's size, budget, and team structure. This article gives a direct comparison and a decision framework.

At a glance

  • Covidence — commercial, subscription-based, purpose-built for Cochrane-style systematic reviews, strong on extraction and risk of bias, direct Cochrane integration.
  • Rayyan — free tier with reasonable limits, paid tiers for larger projects, excellent AI-assisted screening, weaker on extraction.

Both support reference imports (RIS, EndNote XML, PubMed), both blind reviewers to each other's votes, and both produce a PRISMA flow diagram.

See our screening process page for the screening method these tools support.

De-duplication

  • Covidence. Automatic de-duplication on import using fuzzy matching. Manual review of likely duplicates.
  • Rayyan. Automatic detection, surfaced as suggested duplicates that a reviewer confirms. Handles unusually large duplicate loads well.

Both are good. For very large reviews (>20,000 records), Rayyan's duplicate detection has historically handled edge cases better; Covidence has caught up in recent releases.

Title and abstract screening

  • Covidence. Clean interface, one record at a time, vote include/exclude/maybe. Blinded by default.
  • Rayyan. Grid or single-record view, keyboard shortcuts, AI-ranked "relevance" prediction that prioritizes likely-relevant records.

Rayyan's AI ranking is the standout feature. After screening ~100 records, Rayyan learns your pattern and ranks remaining records — letting you screen likely-relevant records first. This does not replace full screening but lets you make rapid early progress.

Conflict resolution

  • Covidence. Conflicts are surfaced automatically; third reviewer adjudicates in a dedicated view.
  • Rayyan. Conflicts are flagged by color; team discusses offline or resolves in-tool.

Covidence's conflict-resolution workflow is more opinionated and better for larger teams. Rayyan is adequate for teams of two to three.

Full-text screening

  • Covidence. PDF upload per record, structured exclusion reasons, generates the full-text stage of the PRISMA flow automatically.
  • Rayyan. PDF upload supported, exclusion reasons tagged but less structured.

Covidence is tighter here, particularly for the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram's exclusion-reason counts.

Data extraction

  • Covidence. Built-in extraction forms — customizable templates for study characteristics, outcomes, and risk of bias. Dual extraction supported.
  • Rayyan. Limited extraction support. Most teams export from Rayyan into Covidence, EPPI-Reviewer, or a custom form.

For systematic reviews that will meta-analyze, Covidence's extraction module is a strong argument in its favor. See our data extraction post for the underlying methodology.

Risk of bias

  • Covidence. Built-in support for Cochrane RoB 2 and ROBINS-I with the standard domains and signaling questions.
  • Rayyan. No built-in risk of bias support.

If your review is Cochrane-style and uses RoB 2, Covidence handles this natively; otherwise you will use separate software or spreadsheets.

Cost

  • Covidence. Paid via institutional subscription (many universities have one) or per-review licenses. Cochrane-affiliated reviews get free access.
  • Rayyan. Free tier covers most student reviews. Team and enterprise tiers are paid.

Always check with your institutional library — many universities have Covidence subscriptions that are underused.

Team size and collaboration

  • Covidence. Unlimited reviewers on paid tiers. Granular role management.
  • Rayyan. Free tier allows collaborators; premium tiers required for some advanced collaboration features.

Both work for teams of 2–6. For teams of 10+, Covidence scales more cleanly.

Export and interoperability

  • Covidence. Exports to RevMan, Excel, and CSV.
  • Rayyan. Exports to CSV, RIS, and BibTeX.

Covidence's RevMan export is useful if your review is destined for Cochrane. Otherwise, both are adequate.

A decision framework

Choose Covidence if:

  • You have institutional access (free to you)
  • Your review is Cochrane-style with meta-analysis and formal risk of bias
  • You are part of a large team or multi-institutional collaboration
  • You want integrated extraction and RoB in one tool

Choose Rayyan if:

  • You are self-funded or have no institutional Covidence access
  • You are a solo or small-team reviewer (2–3 people)
  • You want AI-assisted prioritization
  • Your review is scoping, narrative, or methodology-focused rather than Cochrane-style

Many teams use both: Rayyan for the screening stages, then export included studies to Covidence or Excel for extraction. This is a legitimate workflow and surprisingly common.

What neither tool does

  • Neither designs your search strategy (that is on you — see our search strategy guide)
  • Neither meta-analyzes (use R's metafor or RevMan)
  • Neither replaces a second reviewer — both require actual humans to screen in duplicate

Pick the tool that removes friction from your team's workflow, not the one with the most features. A simpler tool used consistently beats a complex one used haphazardly.

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