Is Covexe really free?

The core tools are free: screening, risk of bias, meta-analysis, network meta-analysis, GRADE, and PRISMA. Optional AI features are metered on the free tier, or you can bring your own API key.

Can I use it for a Cochrane review?

Cochrane reviews must be authored in RevMan. For any other systematic review, or for the steps RevMan does not cover, Covexe works as the primary tool or alongside it.

Does Covexe do everything RevMan does?

RevMan has Cochrane-specific outputs Covexe does not reproduce. Covexe covers the general review workflow more broadly: screening, extraction, NMA, GRADE, and PRISMA are built in rather than separate tools.

Can I move my work between the two?

References export as RIS, which RevMan, EndNote, and Zotero read. Data and results export as CSV or Excel.

A Free RevMan Alternative in the Browser

Covexe covers the whole review, screening through PRISMA, with statistics validated against R, network meta-analysis included, free, in the browser.

When RevMan is the right answer

RevMan is Cochrane's own tool, and Cochrane reviews have to be written in it. It is free, the statistics are trusted, and if you are authoring a Cochrane review there is no decision to make. This page is for everyone else: the researcher writing a non-Cochrane systematic review who finds RevMan's workflow built around a process they are not part of.

What people look for in an alternative

The complaints that send people searching are consistent: data entry requires setting up comparisons and outcomes before you can type a number, the steps before analysis (searching, screening, extraction) live in other tools, and there is no network meta-analysis. GRADE means switching to GRADEpro, and the PRISMA diagram means yet another tool.

How Covexe compares

Abstract and full-text screening with a second blinded reviewer and Cohen's kappa: built in. RevMan starts after screening.
Data extraction: AI-assisted, from your PDFs, into templates you define.
Meta-analysis: fixed and random effects, subgroups, meta-regression, leave-one-out, funnel plots with Egger's and Begg's tests, validated against R's metafor.
Network meta-analysis: included, validated against R's netmeta. RevMan does not do NMA.
GRADE and the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram: in the same project, no extra tools.
Price: free core tools, in the browser, no install.

Moving between them

Covexe exports your reference set as RIS, which RevMan, EndNote, and Zotero all read, and your data and results as CSV or Excel. Trying Covexe does not lock you in.

A free RevMan alternative in the browser