Today’s ’omics-obsessed scientific marketplace is overflowing with bioinformatics programs. Whatever your sequence analysis problem, there is probably a program or application to solve it. Many of these tools are open source, but they can be difficult to use; some require in-depth computational knowledge. There are, however, various commercial alternatives, which bring together multiple bioinformatic programs into stand-alone, user-friendly packages. Although beautifully designed, these software suites can come with hefty price tags, meaning that most researchers are lucky if they can afford just one. Like buying a car, choosing among the many software suites can be challenging, and there is surprisingly little information out there to evaluate the different programs. Here I describe my own experience with evaluating—and purchasing—some commercial bioinformatics packages.
At first I was ...
