Instant JChem (IJC) is an out-of-the-box tool that allows scientists to create, manage and analyse chemical structures and their data. It serves as a desktop application that provides a convenient and straightforward approach to the analysis of chemical and biological data. IJC is a database-centric environment that supports query and sorting functionality, and handles large volumes of data (hundreds of thousands of structures).

A fundamental activity in Instant JChem is the creation of a database containing your information. You can then use this database to view, analyse and edit your data. Multiple databases can be used, and these databases can be running within Instant JChem or on a remote server.

Although Instant JChem has limited support for viewing some types of files (e.g. structure files), files should not be thought of as the primary artifacts that you work with. Rather, you should think of importing data from the file into a database where you can work with it much more effectively. Import and export of various file formats is supported.

Instant JChem combines the functionality of numerous other Java-based products by ChemAxon, including JChem Base, a tool that facilitates the search of mixed structural and non-structural data, JChem Manager, a tool for creating and removing structure tables, as well as importing and exporting structure files into structure tables, and Marvin Sketch, a tool for drawing molecules/ molecular reactions, including functionality for structure-based queries.