Switching
WHONET alternative for teams who want the antibiogram without the desktop install
WHONET is good software, it is free, and it is the global default for a reason. This page is about when a browser tool fits better, not about pretending otherwise.
Short answer
WHONET is free desktop software from the World Health Organization for managing and analysing antimicrobial susceptibility data, and it feeds the GLASS global surveillance programme. Antimicrobe covers a narrower job: turning a susceptibility export into cumulative antibiograms and empiric rankings in a browser, with no install and no data configuration project.
What WHONET does that this does not
It is a full data management environment. It handles laboratory configuration in depth, expert interpretation rules, quality control analysis and submission to international surveillance programmes. It runs offline, which matters in a great many places. And it costs nothing, which is not a small feature.
If your workflow depends on any of that, keep it. A tool that told you to abandon a free, capable, WHO-backed system would be selling rather than helping.
Where a browser tool changes the day
- No install, and no version drift between the two machines that have it
- No configuration project before the first number appears
- Cuts by source, unit and period as filters rather than as saved analyses
- A shareable output with its rules printed on it, for a committee pack
- The same report re-runnable by whoever is on shift, not only by the person who set it up
A realistic migration path
You do not have to move anything. WHONET already exports the fields needed here, and running both in parallel for one reporting period is the sensible way to check that the numbers agree. If they do not, the difference is almost always de-duplication or intermediate handling, and both are visible settings on this side.
Related reading: getting the export out of your LIS, producing the cumulative report. The four steps from susceptibility testing data to an antibiogram cover the method end to end.
Questions
On this page's topic
Can I import a WHONET data file directly?
Export it to CSV with the seven fields we need and it loads. A native WHONET file importer is on the list, not in the product.
Will the numbers match WHONET exactly?
They should, when the rules match. Check the de-duplication setting and the intermediate handling first, because those two account for most differences.
Is this endorsed by or affiliated with WHONET or the WHO?
No. Antimicrobe has no affiliation with the World Health Organization or the WHONET project, and describes them here only from their public documentation.
More on antimicrobial resistance reporting
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- empiric therapy Every empiric decision is a bet placed before the culture is back. The only honest way to im...
- resistance map Public resistance maps are useful for policy and useless for prescribing. The map that chang...
Start with your own export
See your own resistance picture, cut the way you actually work
Build the antibiogram on the synthetic sample dataset, or drop in your own CSV and watch it parse without leaving your browser. When you want an account, one email address is the whole sign-up.
Your file is parsed in your browser and never uploaded. No card required.