Best EEG Analysis & Acquisition Software [2023]

Like most of the tech world, EEG analysis and acquisition software continues to evolve. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at some of the top EEG analysis and acquisition software available, catered to researchers, clinicians, and brain enthusiasts alike. We’ll consider price, features and integrations to give you an insight into the best software around, and include some special pipelines you might find useful!

Update 2024!

Interestingly, a new paper by Delorme, 2023 suggests that running your EEG data through a large analysis pipeline may not always be the best idea. In fact, you may lose significant findings. There are a number of caveats to this (including how much noise your signal may have!) but the article is worth a read.

Summary

Commercial software

If you have the funds, commercial software offers manifold features and clean, user-interfaces. Getting things done tends to be quick and easy and support is available if you’re having trouble.

For us, BESA is best-in-class, providing tutorial videos, masses of features, a beautiful UI, and strong customer support.

Nonetheless, it faces steep competition. Here is a breakdown of our top six.

BESA

BESA (Brain Electrical Source Analysis) is the gold standard EEG analysis software. It is actually a larger software program with an EEG module. They offer four different products, covering many EEG and MEG use-cases. BESA integrates signals from many systems, good visuals, and is particularly good at source localisation. Two decades old, comprehensive, well-respected, there is a lot on offer here. They’re our top pick!

Features include:

• Multiple source montages
• Workflow-guided UI
• Comprehensive source analysis
• Brain atlases
• Co-registration with individual MRI or fMRI
• Batch processing
• Spike analysis

LabChart Lightning

LabChart Lightning is the latest iteration of a 34 year history of creating easy to use data acquisition and analysis software. The perfect software for ECG, EMG and EEG data acquisition and analysis, LabChart Lightning is a powerful tool for biosignal recording and both quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

Great for big datasets and keeping track of multiple, complex signals, Lightning is simply an all-rounder.

Features include:

• Data management
• Cross recording analysis
• Unlimited channels
• Overlaid signals
• Custom calculations
• Cross-platform support
• Annotations
• Lifetime licenses

encevis

encevis is high-performance, medically-certified EEG analysis software, making EEG diagnostics more efficient. The developers aim for an automatized workflow, so you can get on with thinking, while encevis does the grunt work. Fast and reliable, encevis is a solid choice, especially for those working in clinics.

Features include:

• Seizure detection
• Spike detection
• Artifact reduction
• Source localization
• EEG trending (hours of EEG in a glimpse)
• Amplitude-integrated EEG
• Burst suppression

BrainVision Analyzer

We can’t get far down this list without mentioning Brain Products proprietary software: BrainVision Analyzer. Very popular, as is Brain Products in general, BrainVision Analyzer is an offline tool-chain written in MATLAB (so you might recognise the UI in places!) that provides a host of services including free scientific and software support once you’ve bought the software.

Features include:

• Visual representation of analysis steps
• Filters
• Interactive ICA
• FFT
• Wavelets
• Integration of Eye-Tracking data
• Free support from scientists and tutorials
• Several licensing options

BrainVision RecView

While we’re at it, we might as well talk about BrainVision RecView which is the online version of BrainVision Analyzer. Basically, that means it offers real-time analysis of your EEG data as it comes in via TCP/IP. Widely used, covers a lot of ground, especially for those in the BCI field. A solid member of the BrainProducts arsenal.

Features include:

• Gradient and the ballistocardiogram artifact removal (fMRI)
• FFT
• Data filtering
• Surface potential mapping
• BCI support
• History tree (as in Analyzer)

AcqKnowledge

AcqKnowledge is actually a large software package that contains an EEG analysis module. According to BIOPAC, who make the software, AcqKnowledge has been used by thousands of labs and has been cited thousands of times.

Unfortunately, to use the software you need compatible hardware, like the BIOPAC MP160 or MP150 research systems. Nonetheless, if you go down this route, it has many of the features you’d expect:

• Recording protocols (analog, digital, and calculation channels)
• In-built scripting
• Preconfigured calculators
• Customizable UI
• Multiple device recording
• Stimulation triggers
• Automated analysis routines
• File versioning

LabStreaming Layer integrations

LabStreaming Layer (LSL) can be used to collect time series in research experiments. It handles networking and time-synchronization, and can be used to collect and view data.

Most software on this list is free and open-source. However, we will indicate when this is not the case. Some software listed in our other categories can bind with LSL, however, this list is for LSL focussed software.

Picking a favourite here doesn’t make much sense as the software have completely different purposes. Still, if you’re just looking to integrate with LSL, it doesn’t get simpler than LabRecorder.

LabRecorder

LabRecorder is the default recording program for LSL. It allows you to record all data streams on the LSL network into a single, time-synchronized file. It doesn’t do much, but what it does do, it does right.

Features include:

• Data stream management
• Robust network recovery system
• Start and stop recording

NeuroPype

NeuroPype is a powerful platform for real-time brain-computer interfacing, neuroimaging, and bio/neural signal processing. The NeuroPype Suite is a collection of applications that, in addition to NeuroPype, includes an open-source visual pipeline designer and tools for interfacing with diverse sensor hardware, recording data, and other functions. One important note: NeuroPype is not free, although they offer a free trial for the start-up package.

Features include:

• Artifact removal
• BCI support
• ERP and spectral analysis
• 3D brain mapping
• Neural state classification
• Gaze detection and classification
• Fantastic UI with workflows
• Cloud API

OpenViBE

OpenViBE is a software platform dedicated to designing, testing and using brain-computer interfaces. The software is designed for real-time neurosciences (that is, for real-time processing of brain signals). It can be used to acquire, filter, process, classify and visualize brain signals in real time.

Features include:

• Supports many hardware solutions
• User-friendly GUI
• Signal processing
• Offline analysis
• Python processing
• MATLAB processing
• ScriptingBCI examples

MATLAB-based analysis tools

MATLAB is a computing platform that offers abundant features and open toolboxes for many applications.

It is used by millions and has several EEG analysis solutions, many that work with Mentalab Explore Pro. Some of these solutions can be downloaded as compiled programs that run without MATLAB.

Unfortunately, MATLAB costs quite a lot, but since most universities and research institutes have access to it, this shouldn’t be a problem for many of you reading this. Once you have MATLAB, the plugins are then free and open-source (including our own EEGLab plugin!).

Much like LSL-based software, picking a favourite is hard, because it depends on what you want to do. However, the overwhelming majority of people use EEGLab as an all-rounder that covers most users’ needs.

EEGLab

EEGLAB is an interactive MATLAB toolbox for processing continuous and event-related EEG, MEG and other electrophysiological data incorporating many analysis tools, and several useful visualization modes of the averaged and single-trial data.

EEGLab is so popular, that we’ve actually written our own plugin to directly integrate Explore+ data with the EEGLab pipeline. You can find the plugin here.

EEGLab features include:

• Multiformat data importing
• Interactive plotting functions
• Independent component analysis (ICA)
• Time-frequency analysis
• Artifact rejection
• Event-related statistics
• Semi-automated artifact removal
• Over 120 advanced plugins

ERPLab

ERPLAB is a free, open-source MATLAB package for analyzing ERP data. It is tightly integrated with the EEGLAB Toolbox, extending EEGLAB’s capabilities to provide robust, industrial-strength tools for ERP processing, visualization, and analysis.

In fact, it’s almost not worth considering ERPLab separate from EEGLab, as the two are so intertwined. Nonetheless, in the interest of keeping you informed, we include it here.

Features include:

• User-friendly GUI
• Epoching
• Behavioral analyses
• Computing averaged ERPs
• Filtering & plotting
• Topographic mapping
• Data management
• Data quality metrics

Mass Univariate ERP Toolbox

Mass Univariate ERP Toolbox is a freely available set of MATLAB functions designed to perform mass univariate analyses of event-related brain potentials. Again, this toolbox requires at least EEGLab, and can even require ERPLab too, depending on how you set it up.

This is a rather esoteric entry, specifically designed to achieve one goal, so we won’t go into too much detail here. Suffice it to say, that if you are looking analyse many, simultaneous ERPs, and avoid spurious findings, in the manner that fMRI deals with this problem, then this toolbox may be for you.

Fieldtrip

FieldTrip is a MATLAB software toolbox for MEG, EEG and iEEG analysis. It is particularly suited to the joint analysis of EEG data with other modalities like MEG, and is relatively well-used in the the field. The software is well-documented and even includes video lectures.

Features include:

• Preprocessing
• Artifact rejection
• ERP computation
• Brain state calculation
• 3D mapping
• Source reconstruction
• Beamforming combined EEG/MEG
• Dipole fitting EEG/MEG

BCILab

The name speaks for itself; BCILAB is a MATLAB toolbox for Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research. It facilitates the design and development of new methods for cognitive state estimation and their use in both offline data analysis and real-time applications. You can find the original paper describing BCILab here.

Features include:

• Signal processing
• Feature extraction
• Machine learning
• BCI paradigms
• Many online plugins
• Scripting
• Standard, advanced & cross-validation analyses

BioSig

BioSig is an open source software library for biomedical signal processing. It lists, among its analysable datasets: EEG, ECG, EOG, EMG, and ECoG. Ultimately, the team at BioSig want to create open source software to foster research in biomedical signal processing.

Features include:

• Preprocessing
• Quality control
• Artifact and signal processing
• Feature extraction
• Event-related synchronization
• Classification & statistics
• Time-series analysis
• GUI

Bioelectromagnetism Matlab Toolbox

Finally, a quick mention: the bioelectromagnetism Matlab Toolbox facilitates quick and easy import, visualization and measurement for ERP data. It is not a signal processing toolbox.

• Visualize ERP data
• Visualize 2D/3D electrode coordinates
• 3D mapping
• GUI
• Interactive ERP topographic mapping

Python-based analysis tools

It goes without saying that a great many of you will be using Python to do data analysis. Therefore, having Python-based ExG analysis tools that seemlessly integrate with your current data analysis pipeline makes a lot of sense.

In the Python world, there is a little more contention about which toolbox is best. Unlike in MATLAB, where EEGLab is a clear frontrunner, there are plenty of people who use mne, and plenty of people who use PsychoPy. Admittedly, these toolboxes are for different things, but their popularity is similar.

For us, as a pure analysis tool, mne wins hands-down, but this doesn’t mean the other tools don’t have a lot to offer.

mne

MNE-Python software is an open-source Python package for exploring, visualizing, and analyzing human neurophysiological data such as MEG, EEG, sEEG, ECoG, and more. It is big, and, like many Python packages, has extensive documentation and an active user-base. This is really important if you are new to the software and need to get things working quickly.

Features include:

• Preprocessing
• Visualization
• Source estimation
• Time-frequency analysis
• Connectivity analysis
• Machine learning
• Statistics

PsychoPy

PsychoPy is one of the most well-known and well-used behavioral experiment toolboxes available. It is a free, cross-platform package that allows you to run a wide range of experiments in the behavioral sciences (neuroscience, psychology, psychophysics, linguistics…). We are actually in contact with the maker of PsychoPy, who has demonstrated tremendous passion for his work. We cannot recommend it highly enough.

As with mne, there is plenty of documentation and an active user base. If you would like to find out more about integrating Explore+ data with PsychoPy, please chec out our PsychoPy Builder integration page.

• Flexible intuitive GUI
• Millisecond precision
• Online experiments
• Neuroimaging and eye tracking

PyEEG

PyEEG is a Python module with many functions for time series analysis of brain physiological signals. It can work with any time series: biomedical or financial.

Features include:

• Visualization
• Preprocessing
• Feature extraction
• Feature export

pyEDFlib

pyEDFlib is a targeted Python library, whose sole job is to allow you to read and write EDF+/BDF+ files. It is built upon EDFlib.

Other integrations

Some EEG analysis platforms do not rely on MATLAB, Python or LabStreaming Layer, but remain free and open source. They are independent, community-run programs. We’re not going to rank these, because we think it’s great they exist at all! Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

BrainFlow

BrainFlow is a library designed to acquire, parse, and examin data from biosensors, including EEG, EMG, ECG. It can also deal with other kinds of biosensor. BrainFlow is about 5 years old, and is popular among many research practitioners (it has over 1000 GitHub stars!). The software is continuously updated and the features abundant.

Features include:

• A single API that binds to 9 languages:
  • Python
  • C++
  • Java
  • C#
  • Julia
  • Matlab
  • R
  • Typescript
  • Rust
• A device-agnostic code base
• Filters, transforms, and data cleaning pipelines
• Machine learning
• Denoising

Brainstorm

Although technically, we could have included Brainstorm in the MATLAB list, because that is what it is built with, the team have developed a stand-alone UI that doesn’t require a MATLAB license.

Brainstorm is a collaborative, open-source application dedicated to the analysis of brain recordings: MEG, EEG, fNIRS, ECoG, depth electrodes and multiunit electrophysiology.

• 3D data and electrode mapping
• Artifact detection and correction
• Independent component analysis
• Bad trial detection
• Power spectrum density
• Epoching and filtering
• Source localization
• Machine learning

Cartool

Cartool is an EEG analysis tool developed at the Functional Brain Mapping Lab (FBMLab), in Geneva, Switzerland. Cartool is developed entirely by Denis Brunet in C++, and doesn’t rely on any other dependency to run.

Features include:

• Reading and visualizing data
• Artifact rejection
• Sampling
• Interpolation
• Statistics
• Inverse solutions
• Fitting / Back projection
• Segmentation

Application-Specific User Repositories

As we’ve been in the EEG world for some time now, we’ve tried to keep track of a few good analysis repositories that the field has developed. These pipelines tend to be tailored towards specific applications, like infant EEG, for instance, and all of them are open-source.

We like the idea of sharing knowledge, so here are a few of our favourites. Not all are maintained in the same way commerical software is, but since the programmers are experts in their niche, they can provide excellent features you won’t find anywhere else.

(P.S. You’ll be unsurprised to see, scientists like acronyms!)

HAPPE

Pronounced “happy”, this pipeline is based on the Harvard Automated Processing Pipeline for Electroencephalography. There are variations for low density, high density, and ERP applications.

The authors say:

HAPPE was developed to address an urgent need in the developmental neuroimaging community for standardized, automatable processing approaches that perform well with acquisition constraints and artifact levels in developmental and patient populations.

BeMoBIL

BeMoBIL is a MATLAB toolbox tailored to mobile EEG and other body imaging signals. It provides fully synchronized, automatic, transparent, and replicable import, processing and visualization of mobile EEG data. It has wrappers around EEGLAB functions, and you can use various EEGLAB plugins with it.

HyPyP

HyPyP stands for the Hyperscanning Python Pipeline. It’s beta currently, but the software is designed for (social) neuroscientists to carry-out and to interpret inter-brain connectivity analyses. The software was created to address the growing demand for standardize hyperscanning analysis.

APICE

Automated Pipeline for Infants Continuous EEG (APICE) is a fully automated, flexible, and modular software pipeline for infant EEG analysis. Artifacts are detected using multiple algorithms and adaptive thresholds, making it suitable to different age groups and testing procedures without redefining parameters.