Elicit vs Undermind
Elicit scores 7.8 to Undermind's 5.4 among the literature search tools we rate, and is the better pick for 3 of the 5 kinds of buyer below.
Elicit wins, 7.8 to 5.4
Undermind costs $20 a month for its academic Pro plan; Elicit's academic plan is $19 a month. Undermind includes shared team projects on its free plan, where Elicit only adds collaboration from its paid Pro tier. Elicit goes further into systematic review work that Undermind does not touch: it screens papers with include and exclude decisions, deduplicates references automatically, and exports to RIS, CSV, BibTeX, PDF and DOCX, where Undermind has no stated export format at all.
Pick Elicit if you need systematic review screening, dedup and reference export.
Pick Undermind if you want free team sharing without upgrading first.
Best for
Who each one suits, decided on the criteria that matter to that buyer and the checked facts where the two differ.
- Summarises papers: Elicit yes, Undermind no
- Screening with include and exclude decisions: Elicit yes, Undermind no
- AI help with screening: Elicit yes, Undermind no
- Removes duplicate references: Elicit yes, Undermind no
- Monthly price, cheapest paid plan: Elicit $19, Undermind $20
- Export formats: RIS, CSV, BIB, PDF, DOCX against None
- Browser extension: Elicit yes, Undermind no
- University or library licence: Elicit yes, Undermind no
How they score
Both are scored the same way, against the other literature search tools we rate, from facts on each vendor's own pages. Elicit leads on 4 of 6 criteria.
Where they differ
Every point where the two vendors' published facts disagree, with a link to where each fact was read. "Not published" means the vendor does not say either way.
Published by only one of them
Where they match (17)
Pricing, plan by plan
Every plan each vendor publishes, monthly and yearly where both are offered.
Elicit
Undermind
Pros and cons
From each tool's full review, written from the same checked facts.
Elicit
- Semantic search across 138 million academic papers means users don't need exact keyword phrasing to find relevant literature.
- Built specifically for rigorous, citation-dependent research workflows rather than general-purpose AI use.
- Integrates clinical trial data with around 545,000 trials searchable alongside academic papers.
- Research Agent can analyze up to 20,000 data points and synthesize findings across up to 200 sources.
- Curated academic database ensures results are limited to credible sources rather than open web noise.
- Rooted in Ought's nonprofit AI research background, with a strong emphasis on accuracy and transparency over speed.
- Users who adopt it for serious literature review work tend to stick with it long-term, indicating high retention among target users.
- Structured extraction tables and report generation streamline systematic review workflows that would otherwise take weeks manually.
- Not designed for general-purpose AI queries, so users expecting quick answers or tidy summaries will be disappointed.
- Has no meaningful presence on G2 or Capterra, making third-party social proof and peer reviews difficult to find.
- Limited to a curated academic database rather than live web search, which may frustrate users needing current or non-academic sources.
- Niche positioning means the learning curve may be steep for researchers unfamiliar with systematic review workflows.
- Community feedback is scattered across Reddit, Twitter, and Product Hunt rather than consolidated review platforms, making evaluation harder.
- Relies on a mix of Claude from Anthropic and proprietary models, meaning output quality is partly dependent on third-party AI performance.
Undermind
- Traceable inline citations allow every claim in a generated report to be verified by clicking through to the original source paper.
- The system reads papers at full-text level rather than just abstracts, enabling deeper comprehension than most literature search tools.
- Undermind follows citation trails autonomously across scientific databases, surfacing papers that standard searches typically miss.
- An interactive scoping process where the tool asks follow-up questions helps sharpen the research focus before the search begins.
- Institutional adoption by over a thousand scientists at GSK signals real-world reliability in demanding R&D environments.
- The tool is purpose-built for serious academic and scientific literature work, making it a strong fit for researchers who need depth over speed.
- Their whitepaper claims ten times better recall than Google Scholar, suggesting meaningful improvement in finding relevant literature.
- Undermind is English-only, limiting its usefulness for researchers working in or across other languages.
- There is no mobile app, restricting access to web-only use and reducing flexibility for researchers on the go.
- Performance data relies heavily on a vendor-authored whitepaper, making independent verification of recall claims difficult.
- The tool is narrowly scoped for scientific literature work and is not suitable for casual search or general content generation tasks.
- No hands-on third-party test data was available, meaning real-world performance outside of GSK's deployment remains less documented.
- Being web-only may be a barrier for researchers working in secure institutional environments with restricted internet access.
Elicit vs Undermind: common questions
Which is better, Elicit or Undermind?
Elicit scores 7.8 and Undermind 5.4 out of 10 among the literature search tools we rate. Elicit is ahead on reading and analysing papers, systematic reviews, citing and writing and access, teams and privacy.
Is Elicit or Undermind cheaper?
Elicit's cheapest paid plan is $19/mo academic plan ($75/mo industry plan) and Undermind's is $20/mo academic plan ($75/mo industry plan). Compare what each plan includes below before going on price alone.
What can Elicit do that Undermind cannot?
On the facts both vendors publish: summarises papers, screening with include and exclude decisions, aI help with screening, removes duplicate references, pRISMA flow diagram, browser extension and university or library licence.
