Connected Papers vs Semantic Scholar
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Connected Papers
Visual graphs of similar academic papers for literature search
Semantic Scholar
Free AI-powered search engine for scientific literature
Where they differ
- Connected Papers starts at $6 per month, billed annually ($72). Semantic Scholar is free.
- Only Semantic Scholar lists a browser extension.
- Semantic Scholar also covers AI search.
At a glance
| Connected Papers | Semantic Scholar | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | $6 per month, billed annually ($72) | Free |
| Free plan | 5 graphs per month with every feature included, among them prior and derivative works, multi-origin graphs, saved papers and graph history. | Entirely free, with no paid plans. Papers can be read without an account; a free account adds a library, email alerts, Research Feeds and author page claiming. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Connected Papers | Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) |
| Price read from | web.archive.org (not the vendor's own page) | semanticscholar.org |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Connected Papers
- Getting a visual overview of an unfamiliar research field from one known paper
- Checking a bibliography for important papers that were missed
- Occasional users who need no more than 5 graphs a month
Semantic Scholar
- Free literature search across all fields of science
- Keeping up with new papers through alerts and recommendation feeds
- Developers who need open scholarly data through an API
Worth knowing
Connected Papers
- Free accounts are limited to 5 graphs per month; unlimited graphs need a paid plan.
- Prices are set by visitor location. The US prices here come from an Internet Archive copy of the pricing page's own price data, captured on October 1, 2026.
- The Academic plan is restricted to academic, non-profit and personal use; for-profit work needs the Business plan.
- Subscriptions run for a full year or quarter and renew automatically, and the terms allow refunds only for overlapping coverage.
Semantic Scholar
- There is no smartphone app; the FAQ says the site is designed to be used in mobile browsers.
- TLDR summaries are limited to papers in computer science and the biomedical fields.
- Semantic Reader is in beta and covers mostly arXiv papers, and Ask This Paper works on a limited set of papers.
- Unauthenticated API calls share one pool of 1,000 requests per second; an API key starts at 1 request per second.
Key features
Connected Papers
- Similarity graphs
- Each graph is built by analyzing about 50,000 papers and keeping the few dozen most strongly connected to the origin paper, arranged so that similar papers sit close together.
- Prior and derivative works
- The Prior Works view lists important ancestor papers in the field, and the Derivative Works view lists literature reviews and recent papers that followed the origin paper.
- Multi-origin graphs
- A paper found in a graph can be added as another origin, so that one graph is built around several starting papers instead of one.
- Saved papers and graph history
- Papers can be saved to a list and earlier graphs reopened from a history. Graphs, saved papers and history can each be downloaded as a .bib file.
- Search by title or identifier
- Start a graph from keywords, a paper title, a DOI, or a paper URL from arXiv, Semantic Scholar or PubMed.
- Group plans
- On group plans, administrators assign premium access to members from a pool of purchased seats on one invoice, at the same price per seat. Seats added mid-cycle are charged pro rata.
Semantic Scholar
- Paper search with TLDR summaries
- Searches papers with filters for venue, author, publication type and date. TLDRs are very short AI summaries, available for nearly 60 million papers in computer science, biology and medicine.
- Highly Influential Citations
- A machine-learning model flags the citations where the cited paper had a significant effect on the citing one, so a long citation list has a starting point.
- Library and Research Feeds
- Save papers into folders, share public folders and bulk export citations. Turning on a Research Feed for a folder brings paper recommendations based on its contents.
- Paper and author alerts
- Email alerts report new citations of a chosen paper, or new papers and citations for an author you follow.
- Semantic Reader
- A beta reading view for most arXiv papers, with in-line citation cards, a table of contents, AI skimming highlights and on-demand definitions of terms.
- Academic Graph API and datasets
- A REST API for papers, authors, citations, venues and recommendations, plus downloadable datasets. Most endpoints work without a key.
Plans
Connected Papers
Free$0
5 graphs per month, with all features included.
Academic$6
per month, billed annually ($72); $10 billed quarterly ($30)
Unlimited graphs for academics, non-profits and personal use. Commercial use is not allowed on this plan.
Business$20
per month, billed annually ($240); $30 billed quarterly ($90)
Unlimited graphs for commercial use in business and industry.
Semantic Scholar
Free$0
Search, TLDR summaries, Semantic Reader, a paper library, alerts and Research Feeds, plus rate-limited API access.
Ways to pay less
Connected Papers
- Annual discount
Annual billing costs up to 40% less
Academic works out to $6 a month billed annually against $10 billed quarterly, and Business to $20 against $30. The pricing page offers both billing cycles.
- Other savings
Scholarship program for those who cannot pay
The pricing FAQ says researchers who cannot afford a subscription can email the scholarships address to request a discounted or free Premium plan.
Semantic Scholar
No public discounts listed.
