A 🟢 means the field is required. A 🟡 means it is part of the schema, but not required or incomplete on some entries. A 🔴 means that it is not part of the metadata schema. For lookup services like the OLS, some fields (i.e., Example ID, Default Provider, Alternate Providers) are omitted because inclusion would be redundant.

Caveats: Several of Wikidata's fields can be accessed indirectly with alternative SPARQL queries. BioPortal's data is locked behind an API that requires a key and has rate limited access. The Crop Ontology Curation Tool does not list homepages because it is the homepage itself. Non-english language registries in the OntoPortal Alliance were not included.

Registry	Score	Name	Homepage	Description	Example	Pattern	Provider	Alternate Providers	Alternate Prefixes	License	Version	Contact
AberOWL	13	🟢	🟢	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🔴	🟡	🔴
AgroPortal	12	🟢	🟢	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🟡	🟡	🟡
BioContext	-4	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
BioPortal	12	🟢	🟢	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🔴	🟢	🟡
Biolink	3	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴	🟡	🔴	🔴
Bioregistry	25	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡
Cellosaurus	4	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
CHEMINF	-5	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Crop OCT	3	🟢	⚪*	🔴	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
EcoPortal	10	🟢	🟡	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🟡	🟡	🟡
FAIRSharing	8	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢
GO	9	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Identifiers.org	22	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Name-to-Thing	23	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟡	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴
NCBI	2	🟢	🟢	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
OBO Foundry	15	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🟢
OntoBee	11	🟢	🟢	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢
OLS	15	🟢	🟡	🟢	⚪	🔴	⚪	⚪	🔴	🟢	🟡	🟡
Prefix Commons	15	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴
Prefix.cc	0	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Scholia	-9	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
UniProt	7	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Wikidata	21	🟢	🟡	🟢	🟡	🟡	🟡	🟡	🔴	🟡*	🟡*	🟡*

Capabilities

This section provides a systematic evaluation and comparison of the capabilities of each registry.

Fair: Does this registry provide a structured bulk dump of its prefixes, records, and all associated metadata in an easily findable and accessible manner?
Search: Does this registry provide a URL into which a search query can be formatted to show a list of results?
Provider: The registry provides information about its own prefixes either in the form of a web page or an API endpoint. These can be accessed through a stable URL into wich a prefix can be formatted.
Resolver: The registry can act as a resolver, i.e., it redirects to an external page about a given biomedical concept or entity based on its CURIE and the registry's internal metadata data about the prefix's associated URI format string.
Lookup: The registry can act as a lookup service, i.e., it gives information about a given biomedical concept or entity based on its CURIE.

Registry	FAIR	Search	Provider	Resolver	Lookup
AberOWL	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🟢
AgroPortal	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
BioContext	🟢	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
BioPortal	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
Biolink	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Bioregistry	🟢	🔴	🟢	🟢	🔴
Cellosaurus	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
CHEMINF	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
Crop OCT	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴
EcoPortal	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
FAIRSharing	🔴	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴
GO	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
Identifiers.org	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴
Name-to-Thing	🟢	🔴	🟢	🟢	🔴
NCBI	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴
OBO Foundry	🟢	🔴	🟢	🟢	🔴
OntoBee	🔴	🔴	🟢	🔴	🟢
OLS	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴
Prefix Commons	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴
Prefix.cc	🟢	🔴	🟢	🔴	🔴
Scholia	🔴	🔴	🔴	🔴	🟢
UniProt	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴
Wikidata	🟢	🟢	🟢	🔴	🔴

Governance

This section provides a systematic evaluation and comparison of the governance and standard operating procedures for each registry.

Accepts External Contributions: Does the registry (in theory) accept external contributions, either via suggestion or proactive improvement? This field does not pass judgement on the difficult of this process from the perspective of the submitter nor the responsiveness of the registry. This field does not consider the ability for insiders (i.e., people with private relationships to the maintainers) to affect change.
Public Version Control: Does the registry store its data/code in publicly available version control system, such as GitHub or GitLab? Currently there is no resource that does one but not the other, so this is grouped (for now).
Review Team: Are the reviewers for external contributions known? If there's a well-defined, maintained listing, then it can be marked as public. If it can be inferred, e.g. from reading the commit history on a version control system, then it can be marked as inferrable. A closed review team, e.g., like for Identifiers.org can be marked as private. Resources that do not accept external contributions can be marked with N/A.
Scope: What is the scope of prefixes which the registry covers? For example, some registries are limited to ontologies, some have a full scope over the life sciences, and some are general purpose.
Status: What is the status of the repository? An active repository is still being maintained and also is responsive to external requests for improvement. An unresponsive repository is still being maintained in some capacity but is not responsive to external requests for improvement. An inactive repository is no longer being proactively maintained (though may receive occasional patches).

Registry	Accepts External Contributions	Public Version Control	Review Team	Scope	Status
AberOWL	🔴	🔴	n/a	bio-ontologies	active
AgroPortal	🟢	🔴	private	agro-ontologies	active
BioContext	🟢	🟢	inferrable	internal	active
BioPortal	🟢	🔴	private	bio-ontologies	active
Biolink	🟢	🟢	inferrable	internal	active
Bioregistry	🟢	🟢	public	life sciences	active
Cellosaurus	🔴	🔴	n/a	internal	active
CHEMINF	🟢	🟢	inferrable	chemistry	unresponsive
Crop OCT	🟢	🔴	public	agro-ontologies	active
EcoPortal	🟢	🔴	private	eco-ontologies	active
FAIRSharing	🟢	🔴	private	life sciences	active
GO	🟢	🟢	inferrable	internal	inactive
Identifiers.org	🟢	🔴	private	life sciences	unresponsive
Name-to-Thing	🔴	🔴	n/a	life sciences	active
NCBI	🔴	🔴	n/a	internal	inactive
OBO Foundry	🟢	🟢	public	bio-ontologies	active
OntoBee	🔴	🔴	n/a	bio-ontologies	active
OLS	🟢	🔴	inferrable	bio-ontologies	active
Prefix Commons	🟢	🔴	public	life sciences	active
Prefix.cc	🟢	🟢	n/a	general	active
Scholia	🟢	🟢	inferrable	life sciences	active
UniProt	🔴	🔴	n/a	internal	active
Wikidata	🟢	🔴	inferrable	general	active

Related Software

Conversion between CURIEs and IRIs

The semantic web and ontology communities are bound to the use of IRIs as identifiers and therefore are very interested in the interconversion between compact identifiers (i.e., CURIEs) and IRIs. While the Bioregistry provides many tools for one way conversion from CURIEs to IRIs, there are several related packages that help parse CURIEs from IRIs:

The @geneontogy/dbxrefs Node.js package translates CURIEs into URLs using the Gene Ontology Registry.
The curie-util-py Python package more generally loads JSON-LD files to convert between IRIs and CURIEs.

Comparison of Registries

Data Models

Capabilities

Governance

Related Software

Conversion between CURIEs and IRIs