Ai2 Asta vs Elicit

Ai2 Asta

• Researchers who want a stated reason for each paper a search returns
• Getting a cited overview of a question that spans many papers
• Exploring a tabular dataset with analysis code that stays visible
• Developers building or evaluating scientific AI agents

Elicit

• Researchers running systematic reviews with screening and data extraction
• Finding papers from a research question instead of exact keywords
• Teams that need cited evidence reports to support a decision

Ai2 Asta

• Ai2 publishes no pricing page; the app runs without an account, and its credit panel lists no credit cost for the three main agents.
• The getting started guide says Generate a report searches computer science, medicine, environmental science and biology papers.
• Data explorations stay active for 24 hours and then become read-only, and uploaded datasets are deleted after 7 days.
• Ai2 says not to upload sensitive or regulated data to the hosted version; that requires a self-hosted deployment.

Elicit

• The pricing page defaults to industry rates; the $11 Plus plan appears only when Academic is selected.
• The systematic review workflow, Routines and API access start at the Pro plan.
• Monthly usage does not roll over. Extra usage on Pro and Scale is billed in $100 increments, up to a limit you set.
• Real-time collaboration, extraction from figures and the admin panel need Scale or Enterprise.

Ai2 Asta

Find papers

Breaks a query into parts, searches, follows citations and judges relevance, then lists papers with a note on why each fits. A slower deep search mode handles complex questions.

Generate a report

Answers questions that need many papers with a structured report: expandable sections, comparison tables and inline citations with excerpts. Uncited text is labeled as model-generated.

Analyze data

Upload CSV, TSV, Excel, JSON, HDF5 or Parquet data and ask questions in plain language. Asta writes and runs Python and returns findings with charts, the code and a methods section.

Follow-ups and sharing

Reports can be refined over several turns, with specific papers referenced by an @ mention. A Share button copies a link to the results of any query.

AstaLabs prototypes

Hosted previews include AutoDiscovery, which generates and tests hypotheses on a dataset, and Paper + Figure QA, which answers questions about figures and tables in papers.

Open-source agents and AstaBench

Ai2 publishes open-source versions of the agents behind the three tools, along with AstaBench, a benchmark suite and leaderboard for scientific AI agents.

Elicit

Research Agent

Gathers evidence from scientific databases, journals, public data sources and uploaded documents, then produces cited reports, tables, figures and slides.

Paper and clinical trial search

Semantic search over more than 138 million papers from Semantic Scholar, PubMed and OpenAlex, plus about 545,000 clinical trials, so a query does not depend on exact keywords.

Research reports

Generates research briefs through a process modeled on systematic reviews. You can change which papers and what information a report covers.

Systematic review workflow

Automates screening and data extraction, with a Pro workflow that can screen 5,000 papers. A Chrome extension fetches full texts through your institution's journal access.

Library and Zotero import

Stores sources in collections with tags so they can be reused across projects, and takes in papers from Zotero, PDFs, and .ris or .bib files.

Routines and API

Routines rerun Research Agent work to pick up new evidence, and an API covers search, reports and systematic reviews. Both start at the Pro plan.

Ai2 Asta

• Free$0

  Find papers, Generate a report and Analyze data, usable anonymously or with a free sign-in that keeps a history of queries.

Elicit

• Basic$0

  Unlimited paper search, summaries and chat with papers, Zotero import, and limited Research Agent and report usage.

• Pro$49

  per user / month, billed annually ($588); $75 billed monthly

  Standard usage, a systematic review workflow that screens 5,000 papers, 20 table columns at a time, Routines and API access.

• Scale$169

  per user / month, billed annually ($2,028); $279 billed monthly

  5x the usage of Pro, real-time collaboration, extraction from figures, 30 table columns at a time and an admin panel with seat management.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom usage, SSO and SAML, screening of 40,000 papers, 40 extraction columns, custom data sources and unlimited API access.

Ai2 Asta

No public discounts listed.

Elicit

• Annual discount

  Save 35% to 39% with annual billing

  On industry pricing, Pro is $49 a month billed annually against $75 billed monthly, and Scale is $169 against $279. The pricing page labels these as savings of 35% and 39%.

• Education

  Academic pricing from $11 per user / month

  Choosing Academic on the pricing page shows Plus at $11, Pro at $39 and Scale at $89 per user / month, billed annually, or $19, $69 and $149 billed monthly.

• Nonprofit

  Nonprofits can use the academic plans

  Elicit has no separate nonprofit discount, but its help center says nonprofits can subscribe to the academic plans, its lowest pricing tier.