Comparative analysis of three multiplex platforms for the detection of respiratory viral pathogens

•This is a multiple comparison study of multiplex molecular platforms for the detection of 8 respiratory viruses from pediatric specimens.•Assays that were compared are BioFire® FilmArray® respiratory panel (FilmArray), Luminex NxTag® respiratory pathogen panel (NxTag RPP) and applied biosystems TaqMan array card (TAC).•Results from all the platforms were compared to singleplex rRT-PCRs (gold standard) targeting each of the 8 respiratory viruses.•All the three assays displayed high overall agreement (>90%) and high specificity (>90%) compared to the reference method.•Findings from our study provide confidence in the agreement and consistency of results obtained from different testing methods employed in a multi-site surveillance study.