E
EAI research assistant for paper search, systematic reviews and evidence reports
Free, from $49/mo
Consensus vs Semantic Scholar
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
C
Choose Consensus if…
- you're in its core audience: students, academic researchers
S
Choose Semantic Scholar if…
- you're in its core audience: researchers, students
Side by side
Feature Consensus Semantic Scholar
Pricing modelFreemiumFree
Starting price$20/moFree
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Source citations—
Academic paper search—
Citation export—
Shared workspaces—
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CategoryResearch AssistantsResearch Assistants
CompanyConsensusThe Allen Institute for AI
Based in——
Founded—2015
Part of—Ai2
Key features
C Consensus
- Search across 400M+ scientific papers
- Pro Search and Deep Search synthesized answers
- Ask Paper chat with a single study
- Consensus Meter for scientific agreement on yes/no questions
- Study Snapshots summarizing findings and methods
- Citation Graph of paper relationships
- Citation export in RIS, BibTeX and CSV
- API and MCP access
S Semantic Scholar
- Search across 239+ million scientific papers
- Coverage of all fields of science
- Semantic Reader augmented reading for select papers (beta)
- Developer API with paper search
- API documentation, tutorials and gallery
- Free user accounts
- Resources for librarians and publishers
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
Consensus
Free$0
Pro$20/mo or $144/year (~$12/mo billed yearly)
Deep$65/mo or $540/year (~$45/mo billed yearly)
TeamsCustom
EnterpriseCustom
Semantic Scholar
FreeFree
Strengths and limitations
Consensus
- Free plan includes unlimited Papers searches
- Indexes over 400 million scientific papers
- Citation export to RIS, BibTeX and CSV
- API and MCP calls included on every plan
- Free plan limited to 10 Pro messages and 3 Deep reviews a month
- Pro plan includes only 15 Deep reviews a month
- No mobile apps listed; web only
- Support offered in English only
Semantic Scholar
- Free to use
- Indexes over 239 million papers from all fields
- Public API with documentation and tutorials
- Built by the nonprofit research institute Ai2
- Semantic Reader is in beta and only works on select papers
- No mobile apps listed
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Built from each vendor's public website; we haven't tested them hands-on. Editorial policy