Explainpaper vs Semantic Scholar
Explainpaper uniquely has 13 features · Semantic Scholar uniquely has 12 features.
| Explainpaper | Semantic Scholar | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | ||
| Founded | 2022 | 2015 |
| HQ | San Francisco, USA | Seattle, USA |
| AI model | Advanced AI models (basic AI on free tier) | Proprietary (Ai2 / Allen Institute for AI) |
| User base | 400,000+ | 100M+ papers indexed, millions of researchers |
| Platforms | Web | Web |
| Languages | 50+ | English primarily, multi-language paper indexing |
| Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | No |
| Starting price | $16/mo | Free |
| Enterprise | Contact us | — |
| Refund policy | 14-day money-back guarantee on initial Pro subscriptions | Not applicable — free tool |
| All plans | Free$0/moPro$16/moTeamsContact us | FreeFree |
| Positioning | ||
| Best for | Professional research and academic paper comprehension | Researchers and academics seeking AI-powered literature discovery and citation analysis |
| Differentiator | Math and figure explanations, Zotero import, whole-paper summaries, multilingual output | Publicly documents publisher partnerships (including Wiley and Wolters Kluwer); corpus combines publisher data, other data providers, and web crawling |
| Competitors | Consensus, Elicit, SciSpace, ChatPDF, Semantic Scholar, Perplexity | Google Scholar, PubMed, ResearchRabbit, Elicit, Consensus, Perplexity |
| Features | ||
| AI Powered Search | — | ✓ |
| Advanced AI Models | ✓ | — |
| Ask Follow Up Questions | ✓ | — |
| Author Profiles | — | ✓ |
| Citation Analysis | — | ✓ |
| Follow Up Questions | ✓ | — |
| Math & Figure Explanations | ✓ | — |
| Open Access Filtering | — | ✓ |
| Paper Recommendations | — | ✓ |
| Research Feeds | — | ✓ |
| Saved Highlights | ✓ | — |
| Saved Highlights & Explanations | ✓ | — |
| Smart Outlines & Key Point Extraction | ✓ | — |
| Whole Paper Summaries | ✓ | — |
| Zotero Import | ✓ | — |
| Zotero Library Import | ✓ | — |
| Academic Search | ✕ | ✓ |
| AI Summarization | ✓ | ✓ |
| API Access | ✕ | ✓ |
| Browser Extension | ✕ | ✕ |
| Citation Generation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data Privacy | — | ✓ |
| Document Upload | ✓ | ✕ |
| Export Formats | — | BibTeX, citation formats via API |
| Fact Checking | ✕ | ✕ |
| Follow Up Questions | ✓ | — |
| Mobile App | ✕ | ✕ |
| Multi Source Synthesis | ✕ | ✓ |
| Team Collaboration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web Search | ✕ | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| API Access | ✕ | ✓ |
| Browser Extension | ✕ | ✕ |
| Google Docs Export | ✕ | ✕ |
| Key Integrations | Zotero | REST API, third-party scholarly app development support |
| Notion Integration | ✕ | ✕ |
| Zotero Integration | ✓ | — |